welcome back and welcome to a special place welcome to the province of mae hong song
this is one of my personal favorite provinces i've been coming here for years we're going to go from
top to bottom actually we're going to try to make it as far as tak province by the end of this video
we're going to go through 250 kilometers of incredible mae hong song loop curves
stop off at little towns and villages along the way and just see some of the
most incredible blue mountains that just rise so aggressively out here in the most beautiful part
of northern thailand in my opinion mae hong song is special for so many reasons you'll
find them out all in this video so enjoy one of my favorite provinces it's beautiful here
all right so at the beginning of this video we're going to base ourselves
in the town of mae hong song just for a night i drove down here from banwaktai this morning and it
is so beautiful oh my god and this is my favorite spot the little white temple pagoda on the summit
of the mountain overlooking the town you can see the airport you can see the little lake with the
burmese temple in the night market and all of the little towns and villages in the area underneath
the backdrop of some of the most incredible mountains i've ever seen at this time of year
in october they look blue this pagoda is incredibly beautiful and it was built in 1860
by the first ruler of mae hong song and you're probably wondering how do you know this paddy
well i'm just reading off this sign to be honest the history
of the pagoda itself and what you see at a lot of temples in thailand are these beautiful bells
big brass spells and um you're supposed to make a pilgrimage up here which means walking
and once you get to the top you ring out the bells but since i drove up here on dreamy i don't think
i'm going to ring the bells because i don't really deserve it but come have a look at the views
a couple of um years ago now i came up here with a group of travelers and we were on a big bike trip
and we were making something for youtube and it was brilliant and so much fun
and i brought them up here and we had a really nice time at sunset and we all wrote messages
on these gold leaves um well a couple of us did like 100 baht and you get this gold leaf
and you write a message on it and it dank dangles and jingles away here in the wind
and i've had a good luck and it's a good look and it's not there anymore which is a shame
there used to be hundreds of them but what i think they end up doing is after a while they take them
down and actually melt them and use it to rub onto the statues of buddha which is a traditional thing
that they do i've seen on this trip i've seen so many buddha statues with gold flake and so what
they do is they take them down after they've been up there for a while and they say right you've had
your chance hope your wish came true but we've got to melt this down and rub it on the statue and a
friend of mine told me a really interesting story about this temple so right behind me is the pagoda
and the viewpoint and it's absolutely unbelievable obviously but i don't know if this is true but i'm
gonna go have a look up in that little forest area apparently there's a really interesting
story let's have a look
okay i found it it does exist so you come around the back and you you see this um
sort of memorial area where they have tombs and statues to remember those who are buried up here
and cremated and remains of the bodies and stuff are scattered here anyway there is a rider's
memorial now this was put together by a group of people they call this the gt rider memorial
in honor of all of the departed riders who lost their lives and so you can request
to be buried here or cremated or however you wish to part ways once you when once you passed
the living stage of your life and so there are a handful of people's names john hamilton and
david carell and stephen prince and there's a few others and their names are in plaque with
the dates they were born and dates they passed away some of these are quite recent last year and
it's just for people who love the mae hong song loop this is a really famous motorcycling road
starts in chiang mai and loops around pi obviously mae hong song and goes around the
back of dianthanon national park it's about 950 kilometers and i've driven it many times i've done
it solo i've done it with friends and we're doing it together again solo but um a friend of mine
told me that there was this memorial for riders and i i didn't believe it let's give them a bell
rest in peace lads
hey
i left my gopro at home so apologies for doing on the little handheld camera looks okay doesn't it
this is the most beautiful temple this burmese temple just absolutely stunning and one of the
most magical places especially in the evening man where i'm driving by the way we wouldn't be
able to do this normally this would all be stalls now it's just dude selling food for the chickens
in the beautiful wac kong clang i'm starting to get the more i travel
during coven around these provinces the more i'm starting to get to the conclusion that
i miss people you know yes it was too many people and yes 40 million a year was a joke
but there has to be a medium right it can't just be zero look at this artwork i never noticed this
you got the lahu and the hmong tribes some temples and the lady praying given the alms
little dog rolling behind i'm gonna go back actually
it's stunning isn't it
let's park up and have a little look at the um condensed walking street
chop the cap
can you guess what i went for um i had khao soi today for lunch and i shared that on instagram
and it was incredible so i've gone for something just more classic i've gone for pad kapow with
chicken this time and a fried egg 35 baht and then 40 baht for a nice big can of chang
and it's quite pleasant to be honest you know i do miss the crowds a bit now
but you know what's really funny is you know when you like put a coin in the machine and those kids
little kids sit on the thing and it it rocks around and they can pretend that they're on a
train or a plane they have that but they have a honda 70 like a retro version of my bike
an even older version of mine and it's just there with flat tires and i think you
just put the little kid on the bike and pretend that they're driving them a little honda
but unfortunately no kid is actually playing on it at the moment so i can't
show you how funny that was but anyway let me just quickly try this it looks delicious
yeah incredible and i actually i like it when they don't mince the chicken i like it when
they use chicken strips like that big chunks of chicken anyway we're going to leave here tomorrow
and we're going to head towards maiseriang we'll stop off along the way now if you're thinking but
paddy this video is called the best of mae hong song what about pie that's so famous i was just
there and i made a whole video on pie and then if you're wondering like well what about the mae
hong song loop the the roads are incredible i've done a video on that as well it's all linked below
i've done a video on band rack as well bandwag thai the beautiful chinese village and i had a
very amazing trek very very life-changing check it was very difficult very fun and this video
is kind of like the best of the rest of the loop so go back and watch some of the old content and
also if you're interested if you've got time to kill i'll also link the four part comedy series
i made with the subscribers from the budgeteers youtube channel we came here two christmases ago
and made a comedy series about a guy called mark who comes over to thailand and he he um
doesn't adapt to the travelling lifestyle very well and things go very wrong
and it's very funny but it's a four-part series and it's set
in the mae hong song loop we start in chiang mai we go to pai mae hong song and we finish
again in chiang mai on christmas on on new year's eve it's a great series very funny so yeah if you
want to delve into something and get to know more of the mae hong song whilst being entertained and
cringe at this poor fellas journey spiritual and physical around the mae hong song loop then
check it out again linked in the description so i'm just going to enjoy the rest of this dinner
and then tomorrow we'll leave early and there'll be plenty more of incredible
scenes on this loop i'm telling you mae hong song province it's a special one
so
funny story i just drove for 45 minutes detour to come to these sunflower fields
and uh they're not in bloom
it's just green bushes so a bit of a fail but joke's on you because the road up here worth it
now
so
oh mama
that was a long drive in a hot sunny day
but we made it here may cereal
the last town in mae hong song before we get to the province of attack
oh wow this smells so good so this is stir fried beef with red curry paste sauce and there's long
beans and eggplant as the vegetable bowl of rice oh my god it smells amazing i think the reason why
as well is because i'm so hungry this morning i had a steamed dumpling and then i had another
steamed dumpling for lunch i just stopped at two seven elevens on the way here today that was it
bon appetit
i used to hate thai eggplants and now i love them messier yang it's a small little town
very picturesque along the riverbed two or three restaurants five or six hotels
and just the people going about their business very picturesque
right i'm sorry but my camera broke after this for some reason as you can see i'm at this beautiful
little temple talking away but the microphone was completely smashed to pieces i didn't realize i
don't know how it happened alas anyway you know when you see a temple up on a mountain and you're
like i wonder how you can get out there i'm sure there's a way out there basically spent
20 minutes driving around this village and i could see this beautiful gold buddha and
i knew i could figure it out and eventually i did figure the way out i'll leave the google map link
below as i always do and oh my god i got there just in time you know the sun was going behind the
mountains and it was just kissing the golden skin of the statue of buddha in such a way it was so
so epic and i spent a good half an hour up there i met a couple of backpackers
as well who were doing the mae hong song loop a cool couple from europe and they'd you know come
over here done quarantine and they were doing the mae hong song loop i was like wow it's not just me
it's someone else and um and then yeah the sun went down and to be honest i filmed another
a full day's drive the next day in the province of attack and the road was spectacular and um
you know there's quite a good story that i want to tell about the province because things didn't go
to plan to be honest so i'll just save that for the next one this video is long enough already
i think i need to drag this on for half an hour i'll i'll just do a whole tak province video next
so if you're not subscribed give it a little subscribe button a little tinkle so you don't
miss the next video and uh thanks for all the support recently and we're doing really well way
way over 40 000 subscribers now so thanks guys i really appreciate it it's really motivating me to
keep doing what i'm doing and driving around and i'm just currently talking to you from
a bed with a really bad fever so i'm not feeling so good don't worry i don't have covered but um
yeah i just wanted to say thank you and stay tuned for the next video in tech province
you