Hi again to all your Fodorites:

I'm nailing down the last details for my upcoming trip to Thailand in February 2006. Now I need some advice on what to do on this portion of the trip. After three days in Chiang Mai i'm planning to do a two day trip to MHS. I e-mailed a frequently mentioned guide in this forum, who suggested to do the trip by car (both ways). Others recommended to take a flight roundtrip (the person I e-mailed first said that flights are irregular and would cancel with no advice) . What are the pros and cons of going either by car versus plane? Will I miss something by flying or is it worth it to travel by road although it will take longer? Any hotel recommendation for around 50-80 dollars? Thanks for any advice. Nineteen days to take off and counting.

Gilberto

We were there in December and flights had been cancelled....too bad since the 100 click drive takes hours. Okay if the weather is nice and you can view the scenery, but tedious in the rain and fog.

We stayed at the Belle Villa....I would recommend you look around, though. I wouldn't stay there again. The place is cute, but the food and service are below average. If you do decide to book there, avoid cabin #1. The neighbor has a dog and a teenager with a loud stereo....getting up at 0500 because of a dog makes a poor vacation.

We booked our guide, driver and accomodations through www.cmmarvel.com. We booked with "Dave" (everyone seems to have English 'nicks')because he was very helpful and responsive with emails. And, we thoroughly enjoyed the tour he arranged for us.

Suggest you shop around and get quotes.

Oops. PS. The Villa is actually in Pai, a great little town. If you end up there, consider "going native" with a massage from Aunty U-Pai. Great massage, very local surroundings.

It's a short flight from CM to MHS. We were there last January and flew vs driving. I here it's a very very winding long trip by car. We stayed at the Fern Resort and loved it. We arranged a guide through them and it also went well. They provide transportation to town in the evenings for dinner.

Hi,,
We went to Chiangmai last week, now no more flight from cnx to mae hongson. I dont know why ? but we took a car with english speaking guide with WWW.chiangmaitic.com or e-mail: [email protected] for organize our 5 days tour to mae hongson, pai, thaton, and chiangrai was perfect and tourguide( mr. young) was excellent and knownwell about the routing ,we went to the routing and the village where no big bus and more nature and authentics thing, i would reccommend this agency with Tic travel that was reccommended from someone in this forum,
Regards, Anne

Thanks for sharing your experiences in Mae Hong Son. Any of you know the time travel to Mae Hong Son by car? Is if worth the road trip?

Someone told me that if you have an accident in Thailand-it's always the foreigners fault. That alone scares me away from driving. I am planning a trip in November, and we are flying from Bangkok into Mae Hong Son(PB Air)and then riding buses around the circuit. We are going into Soppong and then onto Pai and from there onto Chiang Mai. You can hire drivers, take public transportation, or rent Motor bikes. This will be a new experience for us, but I am looking forward to it.

I was told it was about four hours by car to MHS from Chiang Mai.

ttt

Gilawi01,

We travelled by the southern route to MHS by van and driver at the beginning of December.
We decided to do this over a couple of days, staying overnight in Mae Sariang, so that we could make stops along the way. I have read that the journey time in the bus on this route is about 8 hours and so you could do it quicker by van, if you didn't make many stops. I'm not sure if it would be worth making the journey by road if you weren't stopping along the way at whatever took your interest. The more interesting journey is supposed to be by the northern route which should take about six hours by minibus. We in the end decided against this journey and flew back from MHS to Chiang Mai and apparently we made the right decision because our driver had a difficult journey back to CM because of the condition of the roads following the floods which were bad in the north last autumn.
I will top my report for you and you will find some things about our journey towards the end of it. Ignore the 2002 in the heading - typing error - should be 2005.

Hi,
I recommend s swiss guy who organized quite well our tour to M.H.S. Daniel Schneider [email protected]. Very reliable he did not ask a credit card for booking the tours, We paid when we arrived at Chiang Mai. Siam Sun has also a web. I stayed in the Golden Pai, good but a litlle primitive I passed by the Fern Resort and I like it more. The rooms were better than ours. Thailand is amazing.Good Luck

Thanks to all four your replies. Seems tha flying to Mae Hong Son will be a better option than by road. I was planning to goy by road because a guide I've contact told me that flights are not reliable, that cooud be cancelled at any time.

Kippy: I will look into your report. Thanks

Kippy: read your report and found it very informative and useful. Thanks for sharing. Now I'm in search for a driver and guide in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son.