Doi Mae Salong: A Travel Guide to the Tea Mountain an Exiled Army Built
Mae Salong is a mountain settlement strung along a high ridge in Chiang Rai province, in Thailand’s far north. From Chiang Mai it is about 220 km and a natural overnight stop on a northern loop; from Chiang Rai city it is about an hour and a half by road. Officially the village is called Ban Santikhiri, and it began in 1961, when former Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang, or KMT) soldiers of the 93rd Division reached this ridge with nowhere further to go. Today the same slopes carry terraced tea estates, a market town where Yunnanese Chinese is spoken alongside Thai, a hilltop chedi looking out over the border mountains, and a museum the community built to explain its own past.
For a first visit, plan one night. That splits the essentials across two days: the morning market and the tea estates on one side, the museum, General Tuan’s tomb and the chedi in evening light on the other. A half day works only as a selective visit with your own transport, and two nights suit people who want a slower, tea-centred stay. One thing shapes every version of the plan: the sights are spread along several kilometres of ridge, and public transport gets you to the village, not around it.
Why the community is here at all is best said in the words of the man who led the army in. In March 1967, General Tuan Shi-wen told London’s Weekend Telegraph: “In these mountains the only money is opium.” This guide starts with what that sentence meant, because the tea, the market and the museum all grew out of it.
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From Exiled Army to Tea Mountain: How Mae Salong Came to Be
General Tuan’s sentence was not bravado, and it was not quite a confession. It was an accounting statement from an army that no state was paying for.
The soldiers who settled this ridge were a remnant of the Chinese civil war. After the Kuomintang lost control of mainland China in 1949, some of its troops retreated into mainland Southeast Asia rather than follow their government to Taiwan, and the units that reached northern Thailand came out of that retreat. Part of the force later refused repatriation to Taiwan, and the Republic of China struck them off its lists and stopped their supplies. From that point the army answered to nobody and was fed by nobody. The ridge they reached in 1961 became the headquarters of what was left of the KMT Fifth Army under General Tuan.
An army without a state still has to eat, arm itself and pay wages. In these mountains one trade could cover all three, and General Tuan named it. The troops took payment for guarding opium shipments through the hills, and that money became the army’s payroll and supply line. The trade around them went further than moving caravans: a declassified American assessment recorded that heroin production started on this stretch of the border in 1971. That is the economy the 1967 interview described, plainly and to a foreign newspaper, because at the time there was little reason to hide it.
Bangkok had a border problem of its own. Northern Thailand was remote, thinly governed and under growing pressure from the Communist Party of Thailand, and the state could not control the hills alone. An experienced anti-communist force already living on those hills was useful. At the end of 1969, Defence Minister Thanom Kittikachorn approached General Tuan and General Li Wen-huan, whose men held a separate base near Fang, with an offer: help put down the insurgency and keep order on the border, and the Thai government would supply the troops. After long deliberation the generals accepted. From then on the KMT units fought for Thailand’s border and for their own right to stay.
So Mae Salong in those years was two things at once: a community surviving on an illegal trade, and a Cold War security deal that suited both sides. Neither of the easy labels fits. It was not a heroic refuge, and it was not a simple criminal gang. It was a place where men with few options were useful to a state with clear interests, and the arrangement held for as long as that stayed true.
Then, in stages, it was unwound. In 1972 a Thai cabinet decision formalised the soldiers’ residence and started the shift from opium to farming. Development work associated with General Kriangsak Chamanan brought tea and three-needle pine to the slopes, with tea stock from Taiwan alongside other temperate crops. Identity cards began to be issued in 1978. By 1982 the former soldiers had given up their weapons, and most of them and their families had Thai status. The settlement’s official name records the point of all of it: Santikhiri, mountain of peace.
Tea did more than replace a crop. It gave the community a legal economy that suited the mountain, and it kept the working links with Taiwan and with Chinese practice alive, in the fields and in the tasting rooms, where they still are. From 1994 Ban Santikhiri grew as a tourism destination, with tea shops, restaurants and other visitor services appearing alongside the estates. The terraces you ride past on the way in are the end of one chain: exile, cut supplies, an opium payroll, a border deal, and then a long, deliberate swap of one economy for another.
None of this is hidden on the mountain. The museum lays it out, the general’s tomb sits above the town, and the tea is what the shift produced. It is worth knowing before you go, because most of what you will see makes more sense once you do.
Mae Salong Today: Ban Santikhiri and Its Community
Three names cover this place, and it helps to separate them once. Mae Salong is the name travellers use, and in this guide it means the ridge and everything on it. Ban Santikhiri is the official name of the settlement itself. Mae Salong Nok is the subdistrict, the administrative unit whose name turns up on government pages and festival notices. Where this guide says Ban Santikhiri, it means the village; everything else is Mae Salong.
The village the army left behind is not a theme town and not a museum piece. Ban Santikhiri today is a multi-ethnic community. Among its Chinese population, Thai and Yunnanese Chinese are both in daily use, and Mandarin is spoken too, and several other ethnic groups live in the wider settlement. The clearest sign that the past here is inherited rather than staged is Qingming, the Chinese grave-tending observance when families clean and care for their ancestors’ graves. It still matters in Ban Santikhiri, and descendants who have moved away come back for it.
Is Mae Salong Worth Visiting?
Yes, if at least one of these pulls you: the KMT story, tea as both a landscape and a drink, Yunnanese food, or a quiet mountain market town. Mae Salong has no single blockbuster sight. Its stops are modest one at a time and add up only if the place itself interests you, so the honest answer depends on what you want from it.
It is worth less, or worth rescheduling, in two cases. First, weather can remove the reason you came: the cherry bloom, the ridge views and the sea of fog are all seasonal and conditional, and a grey day takes the scenery off the table while leaving the history, the food and the tea. Second, the dry-season haze from about January to April can do the same to the air and the views. Neither means skip Mae Salong outright, but both change what you get, so check conditions before you commit a date.
Skip it if none of the four draws apply and you are short on time without your own transport, or if what you want from a trip is nightlife and built attractions.
How Long Do You Need in Mae Salong?
One night for a first visit. The two best moments here sit at opposite ends of the day, and a night on the ridge is the only way to get both. Here are the four versions of the plan, including the day trip.
Day trip
From Chiang Mai there is no real day trip: at around 220 km each way, the distance makes Mae Salong an overnight stop by definition, so build it into a longer northern ride. A day trip only makes sense from Chiang Rai, and even then it is the weakest way to see Mae Salong. Driving up and back in one day, you arrive after the morning market has wound down and you have to leave before the evening light on the chedi. You get the middle of the day, which is the one stretch when there is least to see. If a Chiang Rai day trip is all your schedule allows, come with your own transport, pick a short list of stops, and treat the tea estates and the village itself as the core, since those do not depend on the hour.
Half a day
A half day works only as a stop on a longer northern loop with your own vehicle. Pick two or three stops and accept the rest falling away. A workable core is one tea estate, the chedi, and either the museum or the tomb. The clock, not your effort, sets what you lose: the market is an early-morning event and the chedi is best in the evening, so a half day cannot hold both ends of the day.
One night
One night is the recommendation because it lets you take the two ends of the day that a day trip cannot. The market is fullest before 08:00; the chedi is best in the last hour of light. Staying over gives you the evening on the day you arrive and the market the next morning, with the museum, the tomb and the estates in between. A day trip forces a choice between the two, and either choice loses something real.
Two nights
Two nights suit people who came for the tea itself: both estates without hurry, a second market morning if you want one, and a spare day against the weather. Bloom, haze and fog are all conditional up here, and an extra day is the only real insurance.
What to See in Mae Salong
Five stops carry the place.
The hilltop chedi: Phrathat Chedi Srinagarindra
About 4 km from the village, on the high point of the ridge, stands Phrathat Chedi Srinagarindra Sathit Maha Santikhiri, finished in 1996 in honour of Princess Mother Srinagarindra, with the design credited to Mom Rajawongse Mitrarun Kasemsri. It is the settlement’s later, Thai and royal layer, added a generation after the soldiers arrived. A paved road runs to the chedi and cars reach it, so the visit does not depend on your legs.
This is the end-of-day stop. Look up the sunset time for your date, check that access is open for the evening, and arrive 30 to 45 minutes early. That gives you the full change of light over the border hills. Arrive at the last minute and you get the silhouette without the rest.
The Chinese Martyrs’ Memorial Museum
The community built this museum to tell its own story: photographs, documents and a chronological display across three Chinese-style buildings, covering the same events as the history above. If that history held you, this is where it stands in physical form. Hours are 08:00 to 17:00 daily. Bring small notes for the entrance fee and check the amount at the door.
General Tuan’s tomb
General Tuan Shi-wen, whose 1967 sentence opens this guide, is buried above the town he led. His hilltop tomb holds historic photographs and works as both a memorial and a viewpoint back over the settlement. It goes naturally with the museum: one explains the story, the other looks out over its result.
The tea estates: 101 and Wang Put Tan
Two estates take visitors, and they do different jobs. 101 Tea Plantation is the working one: terraced fields, cultivars, growing, picking, production and brewing set out for visitors, with tasting and sales at the end. It turns the scenery you rode through into something you can follow step by step. Wang Put Tan is the photo stop: lion statues and a giant teapot pouring into a cup mark the entrance to its plantation setting, and it is the simpler of the two to visit. Opening arrangements change, so check with the estates for the day you go.
The morning market
Ban Santikhiri’s morning market is the one daily event where the village is most itself: fresh and processed farm produce, cooked food and handicrafts, drawing people from the surrounding villages as well as the town. Aim to arrive around 06:30 to 07:00. That gives you active trading, the full range of produce and a proper cooked breakfast. From about 08:00 the stalls thin out; come later and you still get breakfast, but you are visiting a food stop, not a market. Treat these times as a planning target rather than fixed hours, and whether you get fog or a clear ridge that morning is down to the weather.
When to Visit Mae Salong
The base answer is the cool season, roughly mid-October to mid-February. That window gives you comfortable mountain weather, the chance of the cherry bloom and the festival period. Each part has a condition attached.
Cold is real here. The subdistrict sits at about 1,200 metres, and the local authority puts cool-season lows at around 3°C. Pack a warm layer for early mornings and for the evening at the chedi.
The wild Himalayan cherry, nang phaya suea khrong, has been planted along more than 4 km of the approach roads since 1982, and when it flowers the ride in becomes the main event. The broad window runs from about mid-December into February. Treat any exact peak as weather-dependent and do not build the trip around a promised date.
The local tea and culture festival usually falls around late December and New Year, but the dates and even the event’s name change from year to year. Check the current notice from the Mae Salong Nok subdistrict authority before you plan around it.
Two conditions can take away the reason you came, and both are worth checking before a date is fixed. The rainy season, roughly June to October, brings low cloud and wet mountain roads; the surface drains but the switchbacks are less forgiving, and a fogged-in ridge hides the views that justify the climb. On an overcast day, whatever the season, the panoramas and the bloom are not there, so weight the trip towards the museum, the food and the tea, which do not depend on the sky. From about January to April the dry-season haze across northern Thailand can build up as PM2.5. Before a dry-season trip, check current readings on Air4Thai, the Pollution Control Department’s live air-quality service, rather than trusting any fixed idea of when the burning season starts and ends.
How to Get to Mae Salong and Get Around Once There
Getting to Ban Santikhiri and getting around once you are there are two different problems, and mixing them up is the most common planning mistake here. The first is straightforward. The second is the real constraint, because the sights are spread along several kilometres of ridge and hilltop.
Approaching from Chiang Mai or Tha Ton
From Chiang Mai it is about 220 km and three and a half to four hours of driving before stops, which is why the right way to do Mae Salong from Chiang Mai is not an out-and-back but a wider northern route with a night on the ridge. The road connects onward towards Tha Ton and Fang on the Chiang Mai side, so Mae Salong works well as a second-night stop on a longer Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai trip.
Our advice: On the Chiang Mai side, the stretch between Tha Ton and Mae Salong has no proper petrol stations. You will hear that villages along the way sell fuel from the barrel, and they do, but as a visitor you are unlikely to find them: the seller is often not on the main road but in a village a few kilometres off it, in a house that every local knows and no sign advertises. Fill up at a real station before that stretch and do not ride the last hills on a hopeful tank.
Riding or driving from Chiang Rai
From Chiang Rai, the drive runs north on Highway 1 to Mae Chan, then west on Highway 1089, then up Highway 1130 to the ridge, about an hour and a half in total. Highway 1130 is the newer, wider and gentler of the two roads up, and an ordinary rental car or a small motorbike handles it in the dry; a sealed road reaches every stop in this guide, including the chedi. There is a second way up, Highway 1234, older and narrower, which makes a fine loop if you go up one road and down the other. Your own motorbike or car is the most flexible way to do this place, for one plain reason: it is the only option that moves you between the scattered stops on your own clock.
Approaching from Chiang Mai or Tha Ton
Coming from Chiang Mai, treat Chiang Rai as your staging point and build Mae Salong into a wider northern route rather than an out-and-back. The ridge also connects onward towards Tha Ton and Fang on the Chiang Mai side, which is why Mae Salong works well as a second-night stop on a longer Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai trip rather than a destination reached and left the same way.
Our Advice: On the Chiang Mai side, the stretch between Tha Ton and Mae Salong has no proper petrol stations. You will hear that villages along the way sell fuel from the barrel, and they do, but as a visitor you are unlikely to find them: the seller is often not on the main road but in a village a few kilometres off it, in a house that every local knows and no sign advertises. Fill up at a real station before that stretch and do not ride the last hills on a hopeful tank.
By bus and songthaew
Without your own vehicle, everything runs through Chiang Rai; there is no direct bus from Chiang Mai. Starting in Chiang Mai, take an intercity bus to Chiang Rai first, about three and a half hours, and count on the full journey taking most of the day. From Chiang Rai the route has two legs. First, take a northbound bus from Chiang Rai Bus Terminal to the Mae Chan intersection: frequent departures, about 45 minutes. Near Mae Chan Market, change to the green songthaew, a shared passenger pickup, for the climb to Ban Santikhiri. The verified timetable at the time of writing: uphill at 09:00 and 13:00, downhill at 07:30, 11:00 and 15:00, about 100 baht per person each way. Be at the stop 10 to 15 minutes early, build your day backwards from the last downhill departure, and confirm the next day’s service locally the day before.
Our Advice: Treat those songthaew times as a guide, not a guarantee. In our experience these mountain services can be cancelled or shifted with no notice, and there is no dependable pool of taxis or app rides waiting at the top to rescue a missed connection. If you are coming without your own vehicle, plan the day around the schedule but keep a backup: agree a pickup with your guesthouse, or arrange a private ride in advance. It is the difference between seeing the ridge and being stuck in the village.
Choosing between your own wheels, a car with a driver, and a tour
The choice comes down to how much you want to move around once you are up there, and how you feel about mountain roads. Your own motorbike or car gives you the ridge on your own schedule and is the only way to link the scattered stops freely. A car with a driver or a small tour makes sense if you would rather not ride mountain switchbacks yourself, or if you are coming without a vehicle and do not want to depend on the songthaew for everything.
Our Advice: We have rented motorbikes in the north for years and our riders take this road all the time, so here is the honest version. A 125cc scooter will manage the climb in the dry if you are steady on mountain bends, but the switchbacks do not forgive a mistake and wet tarmac changes everything. If you are not confident riding a loaded bike downhill through tight corners, this is not the place to learn it: take the gentler main road, ride within yourself, or put the less-confident rider in a car with a driver. Nobody enjoys a mountain descent they are fighting the whole way down.
Getting between the sights
The constraint in one line: the songthaew solves Mae Chan to the village, not the loop around the chedi, the museum, the tomb and the estates. If you arrive without your own vehicle, either arrange local transport in advance or deliberately cut the plan down to the village core and the market. This is the single most underrated fact about visiting Mae Salong, and it is where most day plans quietly fall apart. If you are planning the trip from Chiang Mai, this is exactly what our motorbike and scooter rental in Chiang Mai is for: pick up a motorbike suited to mountain roads, ride the northern loop on your own schedule, and the getting-around problem goes away.
Where to Stay in Mae Salong
The village has places to stay and places to eat, and this guide names none of them: choose your bed by your first task the next morning instead. If that task is the market at 06:30, stay in or near central Ban Santikhiri and walk to it. If your priority is waking up next to a view or a tea estate, staying farther out is a fair choice, but only with dependable transport of your own, because you will be travelling to everything else from there.
Our advice: Bring cash, drawn in Chiang Mai before you set out, or in Chiang Rai or Mae Chan on the way. Do not count on a working cash machine in the village: in our experience the ATMs up there are often out of service, sometimes for connectivity, sometimes technical, and a repair can take a while to reach a place this remote. The machine may be there and not working the day you need it. Many small shops and tea stalls take cash only anyway, so withdraw what you will need before the climb and the problem disappears.
What to Eat in Mae Salong
The food carries the same history as the rest of the place. The signature dish is Yunnanese braised pork leg with hot mantou, plain steamed wheat buns, and it is the thing to look for first, though Yunnanese kitchens here cook well beyond it. The morning market adds the second layer: cooked food, farm produce and the breakfast that rewards a 06:30 arrival. And tea is not only scenery. Drink it where it grows, taste before you buy at the estates, and carry some down the mountain.
Our advice: three names to start with. Nong Im Pochana in the village is the classic address for the braised pork leg with mantou; order the soy-braised shiitake mushrooms alongside. The restaurant at Mae Salong Villa cooks Yunnanese with a terrace over the tea valley and keeps longer hours than most kitchens here. And Sweet Maesalong is the coffee stop, proper pastries and a mountain view. Kitchens up here keep village hours, so check the day’s opening when you arrive.
Mae Salong in a Northern Thailand Route
Mae Salong sits naturally in the Chiang Rai and northern-border leg of a longer trip. It is rarely a destination on its own; it is a node in a wider route, best planned as a stop with a night attached before you carry on. Here is what it connects to.
The Chiang Rai Loop is the frame most of our riders hang it on: a multi-day circuit that starts and ends in Chiang Mai, with one night at Mae Salong dropping into it cleanly.
Doi Tung is the natural continuation as you come down off the ridge towards the north. It shares a thread with Mae Salong through Princess Mother Srinagarindra, whose royal villa and crop-substitution project sit there while her chedi crowns Mae Salong.
Mae Sai is the border town at the top of that same direction, where Thailand ends.
The Golden Triangle at Sop Ruak, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet on the Mekong, is a separate branch reached after Doi Tung or Mae Sai, not a Mae Salong sight.
Choui Fong is a large tea plantation of a different character down near Mae Chan, a common stop on the way up or down rather than a substitute for the estates on the ridge.
Two more names cause confusion and each deserves a line. Ban Thoed Thai is a separate settlement in Mae Fa Luang District with its own market, its own multi-ethnic community and its own historical sites, including the house museum of Khun Sa, the opium-era warlord whose base was at nearby Ban Hin Taek until Thai forces drove him out in 1982; it can extend a road trip onward, but it is not part of a Mae Salong stop. Tham Ngob, near Fang, is where General Li Wen-huan’s group settled, the separate force from the history above; it is its own place with its own story. This guide gives no drive times between these points on purpose; check distances and current conditions when you plan.
Mae Salong asks a little more of you than most stops in the north: an early morning, an evening on the ridge, some thought about transport, and a willingness to take the history seriously. Give it one night and that much attention, and the place adds up, from a stranded army’s worst years to a mountain covered in tea.
YT Video Review
Mark Wiens’ Day Trip
Mark Wiens from migrationology.com visited the place a long time ago, but he still remembers it with rapture and fondness.
A Day Trip with Len Rutledge
Traveler and writer Len Rutledge said a few words about Mae Salong and Doi Tung. Doi Tung is not far from here, so it makes sense to visit them both.
How We Made This Guide
We wrote this the way we would brief a friend who rents a bike from us and heads north. Everything practical here, the roads, the cash, the market hours, how the songthaew really behaves, comes from years of running rentals in the north and going back to Mae Salong ourselves, again and again. This is our own experience, handed to you the way we would hand it to a friend.
A lot of what gets written about Mae Salong online is simply wrong. You will find guides that put the village at 1,500 metres when it is closer to 1,200, or that repeat opening times and bus schedules that stopped being true years ago. The numbers, the dates and the history in this guide are the ones we stand behind. To pin down some of the finer details we used the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, the Mae Salong Nok subdistrict authority, and Thai archival records.
A few things do change with time, opening hours, the songthaew times and fares, the festival dates, the air in burning season. Take those as a starting point and check them on the day. Where we tell you to confirm something locally, that is us looking out for you.
FAQ
About 220 km by road, three and a half to four hours of driving before stops, which is why Mae Salong from Chiang Mai is an overnight trip, not a day out. The last stretch is mountain switchback, so plan by time rather than kilometres, and add more for photo and coffee stops on the way up.
Not from Chiang Mai: the distance makes it an overnight stop, so plan it as part of a longer northern route. From Chiang Rai a day trip is possible, but it is the weakest way to see the place: you land in the middle of the day and miss both the morning market and the evening light on the chedi, the two best moments here. If it is your only option, bring your own transport and treat the tea estates and the village itself as your core, since those do not depend on the hour. One night is the better plan.
One night for a first visit. That gives you the evening on the ridge and the market the next morning, with the museum, the tomb and the tea estates in between. Two nights suit people who came mainly for the tea and want an unhurried pace and a spare day against the weather. More than two nights is for a genuine slow stay rather than sightseeing.
The cool season, roughly mid-October to mid-February, for comfortable mountain weather, the chance of the cherry bloom around the turn of the year, and the festival period. It sits at about 1,200 metres, so mornings and evenings are genuinely cold by Thai standards. From about January to April the dry-season haze can build across the north, so check current air quality before a late-season trip.
Yes, but it takes planning, and from Chiang Mai it takes most of a day: there is no direct bus, so ride an intercity bus to Chiang Rai first, about three and a half hours. From Chiang Rai, take a northbound bus to the Mae Chan intersection, then change to the green songthaew, a shared pickup, for the climb to the village. The songthaew gets you up to Ban Santikhiri and back; it does not tour the sights once you are there, which are spread along the ridge. Build your day around the last downhill departure, and if you want to move between the sights without your own wheels, arrange a ride through your guesthouse. Treat the posted times as a guide rather than a guarantee, since these mountain services can change without notice.
Yes. Mae Salong and Doi Mae Salong are the everyday names for the ridge and its village; doi means mountain. Santikhiri, or Ban Santikhiri, is the official name of the village. Mae Salong Nok is the surrounding subdistrict, the name you will see on government pages and festival notices.
The main approach, Highway 1130, is a sealed, modern road that an ordinary rental car or a small motorbike can handle in dry conditions, and a sealed road reaches every stop in this guide, including the chedi. The climb is a long series of switchbacks rather than anything technical, and there is a second, older and narrower road up, Highway 1234, that is steeper and more tiring. A 125cc scooter will do it in the dry if you are steady on mountain bends, but if you are not confident riding downhill through tight corners, take the gentler road, ride within yourself, or travel by car with a driver.
Bring cash, drawn in Chiang Rai or Mae Chan before you head up. Many small shops and tea stalls on the ridge take cash only, and the cash machines in the village are often out of service, so do not rely on withdrawing once you are up there.
It sits at about 1,200 metres, and the local authority puts cool-season lows at around 3°C. The cold parts of the day are the early morning at the market and the evening at the chedi, so bring a warm layer in the cool season even though the daytime is mild.
Usually around late December and the New Year, but the dates and even the name change from year to year, so check the current notice from the Mae Salong Nok subdistrict authority before planning around it. Treat the cherry bloom itself as weather-dependent rather than fixed to the festival dates.
- Author: Konstantin Zh
- Updated: July 21, 2026
- 3 Comments
Konstantin Zh
I've been based in northern Thailand for nearly 20 years, riding the same routes through different seasons. Some stretches that look good in photos aren't worth the detour. Some that look unremarkable on a map are the best riding in the region. Most of what circulates online about riding up here comes from one trip, one season, one version of conditions. It gets repeated until it reads like settled fact. A lot of it is outdated, oversimplified, or wrong in ways that matter when you're actually out there. I write to give you information that holds up when you're riding, not just reading.
3 Comments
Took the bus from Chiang Mai to Tha Ton today (March 2023). Arrived at the bus terminal in Chiang Mai at 11:45am, the next bus was at 1:30pm. The bus to Thaton took 4+ hours. Arriving in Thaton at 5:30pm no songthaews or private taxis were available for the rest of the day, so we are spending the night in Tha Ton. The guesthouse owner helped us arrange a private car for 1000THB in the morning. What we were told is songthaews no longer run on any regular basis post covid and they can be very expensive. To do a shared songthaew you will need take one from the main taxi terminal and then transfer to another at the police station check point which may require waiting/hitch hiking. Hope this helps!
Hi, Laura! Thanks for your comment, we update it! We also want to give you some very useful advice! Next time, please, before you hire a private car, be sure to check the cost of the trip on apps like Grab or InDrive. For example, right now I’m looking at the Grab app, and it shows me that from Tha Ton Bridge (the furthest point in the town) to Mae Salong you can get a ride for only 520 baht.
I read the article and headed off before reading the comments. Fortunately I didn’t read Laura’s comment as it might’ve dissuaded me from taking the songthaew from Fang to Tha Ton. I ran into the same problem of no songthaew available and being told the only option was a private truck. Instead I hitchhiked to Mae Salong without problem, three cars with minimal waiting. I wouldn’t rule this out as an option for anyone looking to do the Mae Salong loop via transit.