Scooter Rental In Chiang Rai - Or Maybe Mae Sai?

[scooterboy]

For some it may seem to be a daft couple of questions to ask, but there's always a reason for the madness.

We're planning to visit the Chiang Rai/ Mae Sai area for around 5 or 6 days in April and would like to rent an automatic scooter in either town. It's not important whether we can rent it in CR or MS, as we'll make whichever town is best, as our destination (we're still in the planning stages!), but will be arriving by VIP bus.

Anybody know of any good rental shops? If so, could you help with a street name or location - and prices. Ordinary motorbikes are out of the question - I've never learned the manual gear thing, so it has to be a Mio, Click or the like. A rental shop near to the Bus Terminal would be a great thing, but really any rental shop is okay. We'd like to drive the CR/MS/Chiang Saen route with a few diversions along the way.

You may think "Yes, of COURSE there are rental shops!" Believe me when I say that that we've previously been to some larger towns, where you just COULDN'T rent scooters! Mind you, times change and maybe those towns do now have scooter rentals.

Recently, we visited Chiang Mai and (thanks to you TV members), we'd been able to get some good advice and it was a dead easy job to go directly to a good rental shop. There's nothing worse that arriving in a strange town and having to spend hours scouting around for a rental shop, especially if there isn't one.

Oops! - nearly forgot : according to our map, some of the Mai Sai roads seem to slightly run over the border and back into Thailand again. Is this just our map, or does this, in fact, occur? And is there any problem involved, seeing as one might just leave one country and enter another - without being aware of it.

Any advice would be most helpful

Cheers and thanks for your precious time

[tung tsz]

For some it may seem to be a daft couple of questions to ask, but there's always a reason for the madness.

We're planning to visit the Chiang Rai/ Mae Sai area for around 5 or 6 days in April and would like to rent an automatic scooter in either town. It's not important whether we can rent it in CR or MS, as we'll make whichever town is best, as our destination (we're still in the planning stages!), but will be arriving by VIP bus.

Anybody know of any good rental shops? If so, could you help with a street name or location - and prices. Ordinary motorbikes are out of the question - I've never learned the manual gear thing, so it has to be a Mio, Click or the like. A rental shop near to the Bus Terminal would be a great thing, but really any rental shop is okay. We'd like to drive the CR/MS/Chiang Saen route with a few diversions along the way.

You may think "Yes, of COURSE there are rental shops!" Believe me when I say that that we've previously been to some larger towns, where you just COULDN'T rent scooters! Mind you, times change and maybe those towns do now have scooter rentals.

Recently, we visited Chiang Mai and (thanks to you TV members), we'd been able to get some good advice and it was a dead easy job to go directly to a good rental shop. There's nothing worse that arriving in a strange town and having to spend hours scouting around for a rental shop, especially if there isn't one.

Oops! - nearly forgot : according to our map, some of the Mai Sai roads seem to slightly run over the border and back into Thailand again. Is this just our map, or does this, in fact, occur? And is there any problem involved, seeing as one might just leave one country and enter another - without being aware of it.

Any advice would be most helpful

Cheers and thanks for your precious time

Hi scooterboy,

I was just checking this yesterday in CR as I have friends arriving in the next few weeks

Scooters for hire at the coffee shop/Internet cafe next to the Honda dealership

on Rattanakhet Rd just north of j/o Phaholyothin Rd

Prices range from 150 baht/day for basic to 300 baht/day for a

larger automatic (she quoted me 1,500 baht for a week's hire for that one)

If you don't know CR -

If you are on the main tourist drag (o/s Swensens,Pizza place etc)

walk up the main road to the big junction

go straight over and it's about 100metres on the left

can't miss it

I am sure there are many more places(maybe more competitive) but that one is handy

tung tsz

[lilly79]

Hi Scooterboy,

Welcome to Chiang Rai!

I was just about to answer you with the same shop tung tsz mentioned.

The only thing you need to know is, they all want your passport as a " deposit" .

I'm not sure if you want to cross the border, in that case I would not rent a scooter...

Good luck and happy exploring!

Lilly

[scooterboy]

Hi Guys!

Thanks for your excellent replies. I've made a note of the shop and will try to find it on my

map (shouldn't be any problem). No, don't know CR at all (yet!). Ain't PLANNING to cross the

border at all (if we can help it), but as I said our map indicates that some roads appear to

cross the border and then turn back into LOS. May just be the crappy map! Don't want to

risk my visa being annulled because I inadvertently cross the border!

It's no problem having to leave the passport at the shop - they do this in loads of places.

We were recently in Chiang Mai and they did the same thing. A great shop and we rented the

scooter for longer than agreed - just gave them a call along the way and it was "Come back when you feel like it". Actually, I don't think they really knew who was calling or what scooter we'd rented, I think they were pretty used to people renting for a few days, but turning up again long after the rental period had expired (as long as you pay the difference, of course!). We had a great time driving the CM - Pai - Mae Hong Song - Maesariang route through the mountains, over 1500km, all in 5 days!

Only one thing, CM's not my sort of town - the road system is just too weird and it's so easy

to get lost due the lack of good road signs, apart from having to drive 3 times around the town to find our scooter rental shop again! Still, ain't complaining, as we don't stay in CM, but just rent a scooter and head off out as quickly as possible (which takes a few hours, as you're forced to drive around and around for ages before finding the highway you want). If there was a scooter rental shop in Lamphun, Li, Lampang or another town south of CM, then we'd try that - but there just ISN'T!

Looking forward to coming to CR & Mae Sai - no rentals in MS?

Cheers

Scooterboy

[scooterboy]

Hi again!

Just to say that we're back from CR - and (thanx to tung rsz) went to the mentioned coffee/internet shop - on the way there, we tried several rental shops, but they were rather expensive (and little or no discount for a week's rental!). The c/i shop were very friendly, new or almost new bikes, discount for longer rental (we ended up paying 200B a day!). No problem when we called (from Phrae) to say we wanted the bike a few days longer. Turned up at the c/i around 2pm with the bike - they didn't even charge us for that part-day's rental! In all, we drove over 2000km, saw a whole bunch of stuff and had a real good time! Thanx to all you guys, things went off very smoothly. Only one thing I missed - that was having a basket on the bike - seems all their bikes are without baskets - but it's no big deal, huh?!

PS Stayed at ORCHIDS hotel in soi Jetyod - great hotel, clean, quiet, free coffee all day and night, free (and fast!) internet - all for 350B a day!

Thanx

Scooterboy

[mcgriffith]

Thanks for that, SB....glad you found the bikes at a good price, had a great ride, and are back safe and sound...!

I'm thinking of a squirt on the CBR 150 up to the Rai in a week or so...will check out the Orchid.

Appreciate the update.

[scooterboy]

Hi mcgriffith (and any others!)!

Yep - the ORCHIDS was nice place indeed. If you come out of the main bus station, turn

left, cross the road (don't get knocked down!) and take the first turning on the right, past a

7-11. This ought to be soi Jetyod.

Continue down the road about 50 metres and turn right where the road forks in front of

the temple. About hmm..100 metres down the road, on the right hand side you'll maybe

see the ORCHIDS sign - I missed it almost every time we returned to the hotel! The sign

is about 10 feet off the ground and orange, I think it was - lit up at night, too. The hotel

is 20 metres up the little soi. Rooms (low season rates, maybe) are 350B. There's cable

tv with the usual Thai channels, plus BBC World. Not sure if there are any movie channels

(I don't watch much tv!). No fridge in the rooms, though. Aircon and nice bathrooms.

No smoking in the rooms, though they provide an ashtray and

stool outside each room, if your needs be such.

If you have to stay longer than the noon check-out time, as we did, then they charged us

100B to stay in the room until 3pm - after that I expect it's full price.

There's a security guard on duty all night (friendly guy, too!). We were up one morning at

5am (can't think why!) and the security said that we could make coffee and use the internet.

I think he's just happy to see somebody.

Cheers - and enjoy CR

Scooterboy