Back on the Bikes @ Doi Inthanon , Thailand

Helen has wanted to do the Mae Hong Son motorcycle loop ever since she first heard about it on the Adventure Rider Radio podcast (episode). Starting from Chiang Mai, the loop is ~370 miles of paved road with thousands of turns through the mountains of northern Thailand. With unique stops along the way and more twisty turns than any motorcyclist could count, the podcast named the Mae Hong Son loop one of the seven wonders of the motorcycling world. At the time, Helen exclaimed to Adam, “It’s perfect, we just need about 1-2 weeks off of work.”

“Sure!” Adam replied politely, both of us knowing that it was never going to happen.

Fast forward a year and a half and there we were, no jobs, hanging out in Thailand, with 1-2 weeks to spare—the time we never thought possible had arrived! This would be our second of the seven motorcycling wonders of the world and our inaugural wonder was one of our most memorable days of motorcycling ever (Ice Fields Parkway in Canada). But first we needed to acquire a couple of trusty steeds.

As is common before a big event, Helen’s anxiety grew as the date approached. “Do you really think I can do it?” she asked Adam as he was about to fall asleep in our comfy Koh Lanta bed. “Should we get big bikes or small?” she asked before Adam could respond to the first question. “We won’t have our airbag vests, will it be safe?” she worried.

“It’ll be fine. We can talk tomorrow. Go to sleep.” Murmured Adam, kissing her forehead.

After one last breakfast on Koh Lanta our scheduled van picked us up from the hotel to take us to the airport. It was the cheapest option to get to the airport and we quickly learned why. We were the last people on the pick up route and the van was nearly full. We took the last two seats in different rows. Several suitcases were then unceremoniously shoved into the footwell of the sliding door; which was promptly closed to prevent them from falling out. On the plus side, Adam now had a nice suitcase arm rest. Adam looked back at Helen, distraught at being so far apart, but it could have been worse, at least we had our audio book. So we popped in our AirPods and for the next couple hours we escaped the realities of our stuffy van for the dark horrors of our fantasy book.

We arrived at the airport with four hours to spare (there weren’t a lot of options for Van departure times). Security for our domestic flight took about 5 minutes. That left us with roughly 3 hours and 55 minutes to kill. We paced around the airport, played two dots, and binge played the audiobook to pass the time. There was a small flight delay so we landed in Chiang Mai after dark, glad to be done with what turned out to be a surprisingly long travel day.

We walked to baggage claim then Adam pulled out his phone to call a Grab. However, demand was so high due to a local Loy Krathong festival that nothing came. We looked through the sliding doors at a sea of tourists sitting curbside staring at their phones, undoubtedly in the same situation. We looked at the map and decided to walk—it’s only an hour and a half. So we hitched up our backpacks and set off down the dimly lit street.

We stopped 20 minutes into the walk for dinner. Then we thought maybe now that we’re away from the airport calling a Grab will work. No luck. So we kept walking. After about an hour of walking we started to get tired. It had been a long day and we just wanted to rest. Out of desperation we tried one more time to call a Grab. And in our final hour of need, it came; saving us a good 30 minutes of walking.

Soon we were in our bed for the night, excited to go to sleep and eager to pick out our steeds in morning. Lying in the darkness Helen again voiced her anxieties. “I’ve never driven on the left side of the road.” But this time Adam fell asleep so quickly that they landed on snoring ears.

In the morning, after a mighty breakfast:

We set off to look for our steeds. The first place we stopped at didn’t have anything larger than a 125cc scooter in stock. The second place only had bikes that were both bigger and more expensive than we were looking for. The third place was just right. They had a large selection of motorcycles in the 250-500cc range that we were looking for. Adam rented a Honda CRF300L Rally and Helen chose a Honda CB300R. We tried on helmets til we found ones that fit, lamenting that we wouldn’t have our beloved comm systems. We picked out jackets—Helen’s was maybe three sizes too big. Signed some paperwork and we were off.

Getting out of Chiang Mai was challenging. The route had many turns, and without his comm system to play turn-by-turn directions into his ear, chief navigator Adam was forced to stop every few minutes to pull out his phones and check that we were going in the right direction.

After several wrong turns we finally made it out of the city limits and were treated to a beautiful pristine road, twisting and turning along a small river with farmland on either side. Our helmets were filled with clean earthy farm smells as the wind whipped by; just incredible riding! Helen’s anxieties were soothed as the familiar joys of motorcycling came back to her.

After a great day of riding, we arrived at our destination, a homestay on a passion fruit farm near Doi Inthanon national park. We were greeted by a friendly Thai lady who showed us to our cabin near a stream. We cracked open celebratory beers and appreciated the moment that we’d dreamed about for so long.