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Mae Hong Son Loop EN ไทย

TownsSoppong

สบป่อง · Soppong

A junction, a caves district, and the quietest useful stop on the northern leg.

Mountains in Pang Mapha District, Mae Hong Son Province.Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0
The circuitSoppongSoppong10810810810810951095109510881263109610750 km
19.4906, 98.2694 · 640 m · The circuit is drawn from OpenStreetMap ways tagged Route 107, 1095 and 108: 598.0 km, of which 6.5% is bridged in a straight line where the route number is not tagged. © OpenStreetMap contributors · relief Open-Meteo / Copernicus DEM

What it is

The main settlement of Pang Mapha district, in limestone karst country. Officially Pang Mapha; on the road signs and in every conversation, Soppong.

The long version

Pang Mapha district is limestone, and limestone here means caves — the district holds a large number of them, including the one at Tham Lot with its river running through.

Inference — for a rider Soppong is the answer to a specific problem: the Pai to Mae Hong Son run is long enough to be a poor half-day and short enough to be a wasted full one, and Soppong sits in the middle of it. Staying here rather than pushing on buys you the caves in the morning light and takes the hardest descent off the end of a long day.

Now

Fuel, food, a few guesthouses, and no more than that. Treat the pump here as the last certain one before Mae Hong Son.

Peanuts in Pang Mapha District, Mae Hong Son Province.
Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Termites in Pang Mapha District, Mae Hong Son Province.
Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Lisu village in Pang Mapha District, Mae Hong Son Province.
Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Runs with

Named here by

Where each claim comes from
FieldTierSourceNote
defaultcitedPang Mapha district — Wikipedia (en)
text.storyinferencethe riding conclusions are this project's; the geography and history under them are cited
text.todayinference
text_thinferencewritten in Thai by this project, not machine-translated

Sources

cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there