A day in Ban Rak Thai

Breakfast over a valley, a bath facing a lake. By tonight you are in a cottage on a hill above a lake near the Myanmar border, and the bathtub faces the water. The day starts with noodle soup and a valley falling away below the table.

Morning

Out of Pai early for Noodle Soup House Ban Jabo, in Pang Mapha, the breakfast stop the whole loop is timed around. Theo will not sit down for the first ten minutes. Mild is available for Sam.

Groups that want a cave get Tham Lod, a short drive from the noodle shop. Jack and Theo will want it. Priya and Dana stay at the table for another coffee, and the van comes back for them.

Afternoon

The road skirts Mae Hong Son town and turns north toward the border. Ban Rak Thai is a tea village wrapped around a small lake, settled by Chinese nationalist soldiers and their families who crossed from Yunnan. It shows in the tea, the food, the buildings, and the pace. It is a place to arrive by mid afternoon and stop moving. Most loop itineraries drive through here on the way to somewhere else. We skip that version. The drive-through gets you the photo. The night gets you the mist at first light.

This is Jack's afternoon. Tea grows on the hills above the lake, and Jack asked about regenerative farming before he asked about anything else on this trip. We arrange a walk through one of the tea gardens with someone who works it, so he can ask about shade, soil, and what they do and do not spray, then taste the result at a tea house on the water. Everyone else gets the tea tasting and the lake view. Jack gets the hour he came for.

If the group is up for it, the costume photo shoot by the lake is silly and everyone ends up doing it. Nobody escapes.

Evening

Dinner is Yunnan food on the lake: steamed buns, fish, and tea. Nothing ambitious after a road day. Then the deck, the lake going dark, and bed early, because the mist at first light is the reason to sleep here instead of driving through.

Every stop on this loop has cats. They are ridiculously cute and they are look-only cats. Rabies is real up here.

Where you sleep

Wojia Resort. Private cottages on the hill above the lake, a bathtub facing the water, and two resident cats who own the place. It has stairs and is not step-free. Priya's knee is the reason we checked, and she said yes once she saw the view. One night, and the group will ask for two.

We have slept in that cottage. The bathtub photo is ours.