Motorcycle Tours in Northern Thailand
Northern Thailand must be considered as one of the most rewarding regions for motorcycling worldwide. The experience can be summed up as: Great vistas and fun twisties made easy and cheap.
Other attractions include:
- excellent roads with the best road cover in Southeast-Asia,
- abundant twisties of all radiuses,
- almost no traffic in rural areas (=outside of Chiang Mai),
- pleasant, cool climate during the dry season,
- great landscape with green hills and rocky mountains, lakes, flower-fields, and tranquil forests,
- interesting hill tribe villages,
- superb and cheap roadside accommodation and food,
- golden Buddhas greeting from mountain tops.
Road cover has greatly improved over the last few years. The Royal Thai Government has always made the construction of road infrastructure a priority so that today Northern Thailand has some of the best roads in Southeast-Asia. And since many mountains are sacred and their spiritual inhabitants must not be disturbed, roads are not drilled through the mountain but carefully meandered around them. This makes for the largest collection of twisties anywhere. So, when renting a bike go for the lighter, smaller one, big bikes can easily be overwhelmed by the curves which diminishes the fun.
Traffic outside the city of Chiang Mai is very scarce with just a few lorries, pick-up trucks and busses carrying local produce and transporting people. On the amazing road from Mae Sariang to Mae Hong Son you most likely won't encounter more than a dozen cars over a stretch of a hundred miles.
Motorcycling is great year-round. The rainy season is certainly rainy, but downpours don't last very long and after a short break you're ready to go on.
The unparalleled service-quality of Thai hospitality can be experienced for a handful of Baht in the smallest village along the road. So you can stop anywhere and get tasty food and good accommodation at very low prices.
Loops are the format of choice. Their length ranges from 100 to well over 700 km (60 - 500 miles) and give you respective riding times of 2 hours to 3 days minimum.
Bikes
The most widely available rental bike in Northern
Thailand are the Honda Dream and the Honda Wave, both very mature, reliable and economical 100-125
cc four-strokes with about 8-10 hp.
It make not be the dream of serious bikers in terms of size and torque(?) but
for novice riders and for those not yet used to driving in Thai traffic it's a
safe and fun choice. It also gives you a worry-free trip since every mechanic
in Thailand can fix these bikes at very low fees (new tire 150 Baht, mirror 100
Baht) and last but not least it's simply the perfect bike for the city traffic
of Chiang Mai where a bigger vehicle would be easily overwhelmed.
Bigger bikes are far less common in the North than for example on Phuket island or in Pattaya and a 250 cc Honda AX 1 is already near top of the range. The rental price for these bikes is around 700 Baht per day which is very steep compared with Phuket. These bikes are reliable and not entirely powerless although many are in less than mint condition due to high repair costs which some owners are reluctant to spend. Make sure you thoroughly test your prospective bike.
Bigger bikes like a 400 or 600 cc Honda Steed
(Honda VLX Shadow in the U.S. -great bikes!-) from Japan are relatively rare
and will set you back a four figure amount per day. These bikes are very
comfortable and easy to ride and usually come in good condition since,
as opposed to the AX 1, they don't encourage off-road riding.
Make sure you get a 600 cc engine since the 400 cc model looks similar and is
of course weaker and less fun for roughly the same rental price.
Safe Riding
Motorcycle riding in Thailand can be dangerous for novice riders not familiar with driving on the left-hand side of the road and with riding a motorcycle in general.
Numerous foreign tourists are killed in motorcycle accidents every year.
- Always wear a helmet, bring it from home if you intend to ride a big bike since Thai helmets offer only rudimentary protection.
- Wear protective clothing even if your leather gear from home will make you look ridiculous (well, fun-ny!) in Thailand.
- Sunglasses enhance vision (Thailand is very sunny!).
- Never rely on your right-of-way.
Never rely on anyone stopping before entering the road from the right and especially from the left.
Motorcycles are at the bottom of the vehicle hierarchy prevalent in Thai traffic.
On the positive side Thai 4-wheel drivers are more accustomed to dealing with motorcycles in traffic than their counterparts in the colder countries of the west and east. Also, most have experience with motorcycles themselves.
In most cases of a crash the fault lies with the inexperienced foreigner with insufficient control over his bike.
For detailed info on the loops and related topics please visit the authoritative site about motorcycle-riding in Northern Thailand, created by David Unkovich:
Please review this article by resident author Oliver Hargreave about a motorcycle tour of Northern Thailand on an Enfield Bullet.
Please note that this article is now almost 10 years old and is only available from archive.org. So some information contained could be outdated as of now.