Narathiwat through Yala City to Betong

This is the link for the route I took from Narathiwat through Yala City to Betong.

I made my way to the city of Yala and rode past the City Pillar without stopping or knowing for sure if that was what it was. I stopped at the Yala Clock Tower (หอนาฬิกา), snapped a picture and figured out it was the city piller in the middle of the last traffic circle.

I tried to add the main Mosque in Yala to my route plan but somehow got Google Maps into some kind of freaked out state. When starting the route the map it would switch to some location a long ways away from where I was. I could zoom out and see the route and where I was but if I hit re-center it would zoom in to some random location.

The directions at the top of the screen seemed to working so I followed them but ended up at Wat Kuhaphimuk (วัดคูหาภิมุข) and not the city mosque.

Wat Kuhaphimuk was a planned stop so I just visited it and skipped a stop at the mosque.

Wat Kuhaphimuk has a lot of stairs up to a cave temple. Not sure it was worth climbing the stairs but I got some pictures.

I had seen a YouTube video that said Route 410 between the city of Yala and Betong was one of the best motorcycle routes in Thailand. I had rode about 60 or 70 kilometers of this route and had a turn coming up so thought I was almost to Betong. I thought there has been some pretty scenery but not really an amazing ride.

I had misread my GPS and still had about 60K to go to Betong and that 60K was a really fun and pretty ride. My phone had me turn onto route 4363 and then route 3006 which ended connecting back to route 410. Not sure if taking those roads saved me any time but those roads had very little traffic and was a really fun ride.

I did this ride on a Saturday and encountered large groups of riders on route 410 before turning off the main highway. When I returned this way 2 days later I made a point to stay on route 410 and it was also a fun ride but with more traffic even without the weekend riding groups.

I didn't take any pictures on the ride south but stopped at a view point on the ride north. These are from a section of 410 I had bypassed on Saturday for this photo.

I spent two nights in Betong and this is my route plan for the Betong Sites.

I had planned for stopping at the Betong Clock Tower (Betong City Centre) (หอนาฬิกาเบตง) and the World's Largest Mailbox (ตู้ไปรษณีย์สูงใหญ่ที่สุดในโลก) later in the day but went right by at the start of the day. Here are the photos.

My next stop was at the Winter Flower Garden in Betong (สวนหมื่นบุปผา เบตง) and is was a great ride to get to the entrance. Once I was there I just didn't feel like going in for some reason.

I snapped a photo near the entrance and then stopped again above the gardens and snapped another.

I rode on up to the entrance to the Piyamit Tunnel (อุโมงค์ปิยะมิตร) but again decided not to go in. I think I have become a bad tourist. The tunnels site is the top tourist site in Betong and I had no interest in seeing it. I did take a picture from the road.

I really enjoyed ride out to and past these tourist sites even though I didn't go in. It was a lot of fun on these twisty roads through the mountains.

I made my way back into town and made a stop at Phra Mahathat Chedi Phra Phuttha Thamma Prakat (พระมหาธาตุเจดีย์พระพุทธธรรมประกาศ).

In Betong I also stopped at Wat Phothisatto Chao Mae Kuan Im (วัดโพธิสัตโตเจ้าแม่กวนอิม).

I had time left in the day but had visited all the stops that I had planned. I guess when you skip going into places you save a lot of time. I sat in a coffee shop and looking at Google maps came up with an idea of a loop to ride and another temple to visit.

I rode over to the start of my planned loop and found a muddy mess of a road and abandoned my loop idea.

I headed out to the temple I had found on the map. I missed a turn so backtracked and then missed another turn and was riding down a small road that was not on Google maps. This non-mapped road had some pretty views.

I went on down this road until the pavement stopped and kept going until I got to a section that looked to be used very little and was very steep. I decided this was a good place to go back the way I came.

I think on my return I found the missed turn to the temple but decided I had done enough exploring for the day. I abandoned visiting this temple and called it a day.

The area around Betong was really pretty and I was happy I made the trip to the southern tip of Thailand.