Living in Tak and Getting There: Costs, Roads and Border-Province Life
Living in Tak and Getting There: Costs, Roads and Border-Province Life Every Thailand guide eventually has to answer two plain questions: what does it cost to be here, and how do you actually get here? For Tak province the answers come with an honesty clause, because Tak is not one place but three: quiet Tak town on the Ping, a provincial capital of markets and government offices; Mae Sot, the busy, multicultural border town on the Moei, an hour and a half west over the mountains; and, down a legendary road to the south, Umphang, which belongs in a guide to expeditions more than a guide to living. This article covers the first two as places to stay a month or a season, and the roads, buses and flights that connect all of it to Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Costs are given as ranges and framed as estimates throughout — provincial prices move, landlords vary, and anyone who quotes you an exact Tak rent from an office in Phuket is guessing. What we can do, from our own road time in the provinc...