Mae Hong Son: A Mellow Lake, Night Market, & Beautiful White Temple on the Hill

Mae Hong Son was our next stop after Chiang Mai. It's a small town in Northern Thailand. You won't find too many travelers here as it is not a popular travel/tour destination. The cool thing, though, despite its small size the town has an airport.

We flew Kan Air from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong son. Took only a little over 30 minutes. Upon arriving, we asked a local tuk tuk guy at the airport parking lot to give us a ride to Gims Resort. As expected, we got ripped off! Later when we rented a motor bike we found out that the tuk-tuk driver took a way longer route to take us to the resort. From the airport, a normal ride using a normal, straight/non-winding route only takes about 7 minutes by a motorbike. We spent at least 25 minutes sitting on the frigging tuk tuk -YIKES!

We stayed at this place called Gims Resort for three nights (Nov 5th - Nov 8th). It has individual bungalows with their flooring set up higher than the ground. Our backyard was a big rice paddy field. It was such a beautiful, serene view to enjoy in late evenings as the Sun went down.

We spent some mornings and evenings hanging out by a man-made lake called Jong Kum in the heart of Mae Hong Son. The town is so small that if you ask someone of this lake, where the night market takes place, locals will certainly know what you're talking about. There are several temples in the surrounding neighborhood that you can check out as well.

Night market stroll is a must, I'd say! We got a  couple of cute items made by locals at the market, the likes of note books, magnets, and t-shirts. We also enjoyed eating dinner by the lake under the starry sky. It was hard to resist the delicacies offered by the local vendors that we at least tried two or three different dishes/snacks whenever we hit the market in evening time.

BTW, Mae Hong Son was where I found a cute little coffee shop that made the best Thai tea! They put grass jelly in, which made the tea even yummier. If you're in the area, give this place a visit. It's called Coffee Tato and it is somewhere downtown -again, ask local people  ha!

If you're looking for an afternoon to spend gazing at beautiful landscape, go up to the hill top temple complex of Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu -the view of Mae Hong Son overlooked from above is pretty impressive!