One moment
Towns
Ban Rak Thai
A village worth the long drive · Mae Hong Son, Thailand
Photo: Wichian Ratanatongchai · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
4.6★Rating
2,901Reviews
$Price level
Nov–FebBest time
The experience
A Yunnanese village founded by Kuomintang soldiers in the 1940s, set around a lake on the Myanmar border — residents still speak Mandarin, grow oolong on the slopes, and serve Yunnanese dishes in clay-walled teahouses.
The closest thing Thailand has to a Chinese mountain tea town — mist, KMT history, oolong tastings found nowhere else in the country.
mistylakesideyunnanesetea-scented
It's only worth the detour Nov–Feb. Turn up outside that window and you're looking at a different place; we'd rather say so than sell you the photo.
Where it is
Mae Hong Son, Thailand · Mae Hong Son Province. Coordinates from the listing we sourced it from.
DirectionsWhat a membership adds.
Everything above is free: the name, the photo, the rating, the exact spot. What members get is the part you can't Google: the sourced insider tip for this place (what to order, when to go, what to skip), every day of your trips unlocked in full with the insider tip on every researched stop, and the concierge at full strength, answering with your own insider tips, no daily meter.
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