826. The Road to Pai | Day 3: Ban Rak Thai Tea Village

This little village of Ban Rak Thai was another stop during our Mae Hong Son roadtrip. It's a Thai-Chinese village, populated with migrants from Yunnan province in China. The village is surrounded by tea plantations and offer tea tastings at their tea house. I'm not sure how busy this place gets during tourist season (non-covid times) but I imagine it's not very well known yet. It was quite of a drive in from the main road as well. I really liked it.

I think this is a resort. I would've liked to stay here but I'm not sure if they are currently open. So peaceful and tranquil..

It's up in the mountains so the temperatures were cool. There's usually mist over the lake which creates a nice atmosphere.

This is the tea house where we tasted a few different teas and bought some as souvenirs.

Probably the only shop open. I think it was a noodle restaurant.

Driving by one of the tea plantations

Here we stopped at a "fish cave". It was a park with a river full of fish running through, then at the very end there's a small cave with a lot of fish inside. You can buy buckets of food to feed them (containing fruits, leafy vegetables, dried coconut, kibble and dead cicadas).

At the "cave"

We also visited another bamboo bridge. As usual we were the only ones there. It's known as the longest bamboo bridge in Thailand and people go there to give alms to the monks. It would have been interesting to experience that and a beautiful site (I think at sunset they light up the sides of the bridge with fire). Now the place feels a bit run down. I imagine it hasn't been used in ages.

Some rice paddies near the end of the bridge

1864 curves along the Mae Hong Son loop! It was definitely a fun experience driving along there, and I'm so glad I didn't get carsick. Unfortunately we didn't actually do the full circle/loop though due to time constraints (looking back I guess we should've booked an extra day..I didn't realize the driving took so long). We went from Chiang Mai to Pai, then Pai to Mae Hong Son and turned back from there to take the same route back to Chiang Mai.

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