Golden Triangle & Mae Hong Son Loop

Five nights in a loop from Chiang Mai, self-guided, 1,400 kilometres pairing the Golden Triangle with the Mae Hong Son loop.

This is the combination route, and the logic of it is that the two best known rides out of Chiang Mai go in opposite directions, so doing both means six days rather than three and no retracing.

Chiang Rai and the White Temple come first, a contemporary Buddhist temple in white plaster and mirrored glass that looks like nothing else in Thailand, then Phu Chi Fa, a remote ridge on the Laos border, and the Golden Triangle on the Mekong where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. Mae Sai follows, the main crossing into Myanmar and the northernmost point in the country, then Doi Tung and Doi Mae Salong in the tea hills. The second half turns west for the 1,864 bends between Mae Taeng, Pai and Mae Hong Son, a Long Neck Karen village and the summit road up Doi Inthanon at 2,565 metres.

The tour is self-guided; the full inclusions are not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. The riding is a hundred per cent paved at 180 to 300 kilometres a day. The cool dry season from November to February is the window, since the burning season in March and April fills the valleys with smoke. Six days is the shortest sensible length for covering both halves of northern Thailand, and the self-guided format keeps the price well below the guided tours over the same ground, which suits anyone content to navigate and eat without a guide along.