1,864 curves
1,864 โค้ง
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four curves between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son. It is on the road sign, it is on the shirts, and it is what you…
9 written upLong reads
The curve count and where the number came from. Clockwise against counter-clockwise. The Japanese who walked out through Khun Yuam.
Mae Chaem
Takeaway · CC BY-SA 3.0The arguments this road starts, and who is making them.
Clockwise or counter-clockwise
ตามเข็มหรือทวนเข็ม
Clockwise means north first: Chiang Mai up Route 107 and 1095 to Pai, on to Mae Hong Son, then south on 108 and home. Counter-clockwise reverses it …
Every bike goes up there
รถทุกแบบขึ้นไปได้
Six kinds of machine ride this circuit in numbers. None of them is the wrong answer. What changes between them is which single thing you have to plan…
How old is this ride
ทริปนี้เก่าแค่ไหน
People have moved along this line for centuries and have been riding it for pleasure for under thirty years. Both halves of that are worth knowing.
The season picks the direction
ฤดูกาลเป็นคนเลือกทิศ
Clockwise against counter-clockwise is usually argued as if the road were the only variable. It is not. Four things change with the month — the…
The smoke
ควันไฟ
From late February the hills burn — crop residue, forest undergrowth, land clearance, on both sides of the border — and the smoke settles into…
The ten minutes after you stop
สิบนาทีหลังจากคุณหยุด
Nobody puts this in an itinerary and it is most of what the trip is made of.
The villages that charge admission
หมู่บ้านที่เก็บค่าเข้า
Several villages in Mae Hong Son province where Kayan women wearing brass neck coils live are set up to receive paying visitors. Whether to go is a…
Why a small bike is more fun here
ทำไมรถเล็กสนุกกว่าที่นี่
The measured density of this road is the argument for renting the cheap thing, and it is not a compromise.