"MHS Town" a Mae Hong Son Travel Page by riproy

MHS town is beautiful. A quaint little town in a quiet valley. Not gentrified though. It is a functioning town with markets and motorcycles and a hospital. The weather is cooler, the air cleaner and the surroundings are what you expected Thailand to be - forested.
MHS province is a large and relatively sparsely populated province. There is a large amount of forest cover and many ethnic groups living within the border. There are also refugee camps along the Burmese border.
MHS is the most remote of all provinces and provincial capitals in all of Thailand. It is a 6 hour drive to Chiangmai, the nearest capital. 8 hours if you are on a bus. Luckily there is an air link.
One of the unique things about the town is how easy it is to get there and away. If you are going by air, it is only a 15 minute WALK to the airport from the centre of town! The airport has been newly renovated with new building erected in 2000 so it is quite modern. There are 3 737s coming and going every day. It is reportedly one of the more diffcult airports to land and take off on because of the strange wind currents when landing, the fog in the cool season, and when taking off, there is a hill at the end of the runnway that must be cleared - makes for exciting travels.
Unfortunately, Thai Airways, the only airline to fly to MHS, has tripled their prices from Chiangmai since 2000.
Much of the year, esp Nov thru Feb, the planes are loaded with tourists. The little town can be somewhat overrun with them during the peak season. You start tripping over the tour groups. But to date, the town has not suffered tasteless and inappropriate development. I don't count on this lasting much longer as more people discover how much money can be made pandering to tourists.
Some international development agencies have offices here but have maybe one or two staff and deal primarily with Burma border issues.