Mae Hong Son

I'm in Mae Hong Son after hundreds more corners from Pai!

The night time view from the guesthouse in Pai with the fog rolling in. It was 11 degrees that night.

In Pai I got up and started packing but I had to collect my freshly washed clothes, so I went down to ask about them but they had only washed them that morning and they were hanging out to dry. Sigh, if they weren't washed I could have just packed them. They knew I was checking out that day, so I just sat around for ages at waiting for clothes to dry. Luckily I only had a short distance to go that day.

A HDR I processed while waiting for clothes to dry...

The shirts in Mae Hong Son say 1864 corners, but I'm not sure if  that's the total loop, or just the section from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son via Pai. In Pai they had shirts that said 700 or so corners. It certainly felt like that many.

About 30km out of Pai is the Kiu Lom Viewpoint:

From Kiu Lom viewpoint, looking back towards Pai.

More Kiu Lom, looking towards Soppong 

More more more Kiu Lom.

Like everywhere in Thailand where people can potentially get out of their cars there are market stalls here. And there are also kids dressed up in their traditional clothes walking up to everyone with a camera trained to say "You want photo 10 baht your choice". I made the choice not to which confused them I think.

The locals use this road too...

There were a lot of local bikes up here too, even a few Ducatis, but I didn't see that many on the road. It's a rather quiet road really, but very decent quality. If only Laos had invested a little bit of money in the roads it would be a much more preferable destination than here.

At this point I remembered I had a GoPro, so I stuck it on my helmet for the rest of the trip to Mae Hong Son. I've got 1.5 hours of HD video, which I timelapsed down to 7 minutes, which is here:

It's not that clear because it's moving too quickly. I have another one that's about 20 minutes long that I'll upload when I have better internets. Or I could upload the full 10gb video at 720p 50fps quality!

Pangma Pha viewpoint

Finally I made it to Mae Hong Son.

The default Mae Hong Son photo.

The Panorama of the Lake.

I'm staying in Johnnie Guesthouse which backs onto the lake just on the left side of the Panorama. Cheap fan room for 300baht with my own bathroom, hard mattress and hard pillows. They've got cheaper dorm rooms or rooms with shared bathrooms for 150baht.

Temple with the night markets.

Strange tour sign.

Default photo in the morning.

Yesterday after drinking coffee and lots of tea I decided to go up Doi Kongmu to visit the temples there.

I found the stairs...

It's a long way up, at least it felt like a long way up. It doesn't look that tall from the lake. At the top got to Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu

Serpenty stair thingy.

Chedi/Stupa at the top. These are painted white like how they are in Myanmar apparently.

Freaky lion thing with mini lion foot growth.

Once I got up here I felt like Tuesday too.

Mmmm polarised sky, white and gold. Also, very impressed with how well the camera is focusing with my lens.

Looking south from the top.

Looking north.

This was just above the other stupas, proof that I almost got to the top, the actual top seemed to be fenced off :(

Liony, with my reflection in the eye.

Colourfuly.

Looking back down over Mae Hong Son, it's not a big town.

Guarding the view.

The guesthouse is just on the top left of the lake.

Lonnnnnnng lion is long.

The view from the lake of the temple at the top of the hill.

Sensible HDR sunset over the hill.

The lake at night.

More temple and lake. Exceptional focus here, the live view makes that easy!

Today my task is to go and visit the long neck village in the hills nearby.