Mae Hong Son Drive

There are 1874 curves in the road from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son. Although the actual distance is very short, it takes about nine hours on a bus. As we prepared to take the bus at six in the morning, I became very anxious. I just spent a week traveling alone. Finding time to spend alone is one of the harder things to find in this world. Now, I am traveling with a group.

I think I would put traveling with a group on one of the top ten things that I hate. Also on that list is sitting next to big guys on long bus rides. I hopped on the bus first and put a bag down next to me and avoided eye contact with everyone as they entered the bus. My icy appearance would deter anyone from sitting next to me. However, as the bus became full, one of the biggest guys from our group—Ned, came up to me, looked at his ticket and sat down on my bag. We were thrity minutes from departure and I was trapped between a big guy and the bus wall. I am not bigger than your average man, but I was definitely bigger than this chair, and he was bigger than the row. The main problem is that we are in Asia. I’m not gonna insult the size of people in Asia—mainly because it’s so fun to order a large and extra large clothes, but the bus was made for people half my size.

I get off the bus to get my last breath of air and pace till the last call to board. I talked Ned into giving me the isle seat so I could sprawl out, yet my plan was thwarted. I was all spread into the seat—half ass on the chair, and this lady comes up and stands next to me in the isle. Now the half ass that was in the isle, is being shoved back onto the chair. There is adequate room to stand behind and in front of me, but she insists on standing right next to me. Before I was just annoyed, now I’m ready for battle. Only Ned can push me around on this bus--so I shove back. I ‘hint’ that she should take a couple steps back and try to rock shake, but she is solid like a rock. So I start the advanced nudge. The advanced nudge is a technique only for the most passive aggressive. It starts like a slow nudge, timed perfectly with the curves and bumps of the bus. Each bump, you add a little umph and push them a further toward the goal. The goal is to push her just a bit behind me and clear up the isle for sprawling.

After two or three hours of becoming completely irritated and frustrated with the obvious belligerence of this woman, she gets off the bus and leaves me the three extra inches of isle seat left.

The curves start as we weave through the growing suburbs. They aren’t planned communities like the square cut outs in the states, but rather, these are rural communities that grew in size and were close enough to the city that they became commuter suburbs. Hastily the roads were widened with poor craftsmanship—the improvement is only partially drivable.

Then we started our ascent into the mountains. This forest is a sub-tropical sub-temperate, partially deciduous semi-moist forest. The trees have just shed their leaves for the ‘winter’. However, the lower layer remains fairly green and moist. With the extra sunlight, the undergrowth often does better in the dry season. There are vines and two canopy levels—reminiscent of a rain forest. However, the air is drier the sparse green pine trees remind me of the Rocky Mountains. Despite the classification ambiguity, this forest has its own mystical charm.

We arrive at the pristine clean bus station of Mae Hong Son, strap on our backpacks, and follow the road around to one of the cleanest and protected towns I have ever entered—even our backpacker guest hostel has a beautifully manicured garden and fish pond.

The next morning we start our first hike toward the first town Pakolo