The Loop Everyone Rides First
A hundred kilometres through the Mae Sa valley, over a forested ridge and back down to the city — the perfect first day on two wheels.
This is the loop that turns visitors into riders. You leave the city north through Mae Rim, climb the Mae Sa valley past waterfalls and flower farms, cross a forested ridge to the small town of Samoeng, then drop back down through Hang Dong on Route 1269. Nothing about it is technically difficult, the surface is good, and you are never more than an hour from the city.
Ride it clockwise. The climb is gentler that way and the best of the scenery arrives in the second half, when the traffic has thinned out.
The route
Stop by stop, with the drive between each.
- 1
Mae Sa Waterfall
Ten tiers spread up a shaded hillside with a path linking them. The lower levels are busy; walk fifteen minutes and you will have a pool to yourself.
Eight tiers in Mae Rim, running all year, with a pool at one of the lower levels that people swim in. Close to the city and busy at weekends.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 39 min · 23 km - 2
Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden
Glasshouses and a canopy walkway strung through the treetops. Worth the stop even if gardens are not usually your thing; the walkway is genuinely good.
6,500 rai in Mae Rim, with plants grouped by family but planted to look as though they grew there. Glasshouses on the hilltop, and a walkway out through the canopy.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 13 min · 8 km - 3
Mon Cham
A ridge of terraced vegetable plots above the Nong Hoi royal project, with viewpoints looking down the valley and simple restaurants along the top. Cold in the morning, spectacular at sunset, and the single best photograph on this route.
A hilltop above Mae Rim farmed under the Royal Project, with terraced vegetable plots, flower fields and a line of restaurants and tent camps set along the ridge for the view. Cool, busy at weekends, and best in the cold season when the sky is clear.
Wikimedia Commons →Supanut Arunoprayote · CC BY 4.0 18 min · 12 km - 4
Samoeng town
A small town with a morning market, a coffee shop or two and not much else, which is the appeal. Fill the tank here.
The small market town at the far end of the Samoeng loop, in a bowl of hills that grow strawberries in the cold season. A stop for lunch and fuel rather than sights; the road there and back is the point.
Wikipedia →Iamnatee · CC BY-SA 3.0 33 min · 27 km - 5
The 1269 descent to Hang Dong
The quiet half of the loop. Long sweeping bends through forest with almost no traffic, dropping steadily back to the plain.
Tourism Directory →Stand-in photo: the view from the Samoeng viewpoint on this road · Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand
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Best time to go
November to February is ideal, and the strawberry farms along the Mae Sa valley are in season. May to October is green and dramatic but the descent gets slippery in the afternoon rain. February to April the ridge views wash out in haze.
Before you set off
Fill up in Mae Rim; stations thin out after that. The 1269 side has almost no phone signal in places, so download the map offline. Watch for gravel washed onto the road on the bends after rain. Do not attempt the descent after dark — it is unlit and the bends are tight.
