Unfortunately, many people who visit Thailand do so for one reason and one reason only - to spend a couple of weeks lying around on beaches stoned out of their brains while drinking enough alcohol to kill an elephant. Not only is this something of a damning indictment of modern society, but it also demonstrates just how many people have planned their trip based purely on what their peer group expects them to do, without ever bothering to open a brochure or look to see what the rest of the country has to offer. A million miles away from the party atmosphere down on the gulf - although obviously not literally as this would put it four times further away than the moon - Mae Hong Son is both the most northern and western province in Thailand. If you go any further in either direction, you're in Myanmar. Mae Hong Son, literally "The city of three mists", has the advantage of being one of the most isolated areas of the country - which puts a lot of people off coming here but at the same time allows it to retain its charm and authenticity for those who do. You won't find streets full of hawkers selling tee-shirts and tacky souvenirs here - if you're looking for a local trinket to remind you of your trip, you're going to have to look around the local markets like everybody else.

Surrounded by the Shan Hills, Mae Hong Son sits in a valley and does its best to pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. The rest of the world, however, has started to wake up to its charms and it is no longer a difficult place to get to, with connecting flights bringing tourists in from Bangkok via nearby Chiangmai at regular intervals. Being hidden away under a blanket of mist for much of the year, and with its villages and towns concealed by rain forest, Mae Hong Son is both picturesque and friendly, unchanged by the world around it. It accepts tourism and welcomes the money that it brings into the economy, but you won't find any theme parks or huge western hotel chains here. You will spend your days trekking on the back of an elephant, sitting by a lake looking at a temple across the water, or wading through the rain forest knee deep in murky water and questionable insects. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Unlike the big tourist destinations on the Gulf of Thailand, and for the most part the cities, Mae Hong Son's thick rain forests pose a real danger to health from diseases such as Malaria. A trip to the doctor is strongly advised before you leave your own country, in order that he gets the opportunity to poke you with needles in that sadistic way that physicians like to do for kicks, or to prescribe you a course of anti-malarial drugs. When I set out, it seemed as though my suitcase was weighed down with the things, so much so that I wondered if I might be over my baggage allowance. Start taking the pills a couple of weeks before you set off, my Doctor had told me, and keep taking them until a month after you get back - and by the way, they cost a fortune, so don't plan on having any spending money while you're away. To be absolutely honest, I've tended to forget to take the tablets more often than I've remembered and I still seem to be alive - but then I do annoy my friends on trips by being one of those people that insects prefer to stay away from for no adequately explored reason. Perhaps I smell funny. The official line is that diseases such as malaria aren't considered much of a problem in the tourist centres of Thailand or in the cities, but if you go anywhere remotely rural then you need an armful of injections and a case full of drugs before you set off. Oh, and I am not a doctor. Medical advice changes over time. If you're going abroad, consult your GP and find out what you need according to current guidelines. This has been a political correctness disclaimer on behalf of terminally stupid people.

Being a rural community, there's no international airport anywhere near Mae Hong Son province - so getting here requires either a sixteen hour road trip from Bangkok or catching a Thai Airways flight and changing to a local service at Chiangmai. The connecting plane only takes half an hour and brings you in low over the trees to land at an almost non-existent local airstrip at Mae Hong Son, where you get the distinct impression that they've only just finished clearing away the trees. This last half hour from Chiangmai is spent gazing out of the windows with your jaw on the ground and wondering why the rest of the world can't be more like this - just about everywhere you look is virgin rain forest, or mountains, or virgin rain forest with mountains sticking out. The plane never gets high enough for any details to be lost, so this really is one flight where you couldn't care less if any in-flight drinks or snacks are available - when the flight attendant approaches with her big Thai smile, you just wave her away casually while pressing your face closer to the window. I ought to say here that everybody now seems to be telling me that I should've spent at least one night in Chiangmai, the largest city in Northern Thailand, as it's apparently a city with a vibrant nightlife. These people are totally missing the point that I wasn't heading for Mae Hong Son for the nightlife, but I'd feel lax in my duty as a travel writer if I didn't pass the information on. Having said that, if you're the sort of person who flies out to an area full of rain forests, elephants and mountains and then heads straight for the nearest local nightclub to get drunk and pick up girls, I probably don't want you reading my books. Close the door on your way out.

Upon arrival, I was fully prepared to find myself surrounded by rural village life, mountains, dense forests and perhaps the odd waterfall here and there - the photos in the brochures had made it very clear that this was what the province was all about - but as usual, the reality is that photographs just cannot do a place like Mae Hong Son the justice it deserves. Many come to get away from their stressful life back home and to relax at any of the expensive and luxurious rural hotels which seem to have sprung up out of town to cater for the newfound tourist trade. Others wander out into the forests in search of elephants to ride or rivers to swim in, and still more head off to locate any number of reclusive hill tribes or the famous Long Necked Karen, of which I will have more later.

On this occasion I'm travelling with my girlfriend Eloise, with whom I had pored carefully through all the brochures over drinks in the local pub back home, and settled on a hotel called the Imperial Tara, partly because it looked perfect and romantic and was situated in its own teak wood forest, but mostly because it amused us in a childish sort of way to repeatedly say "Imperial Tara Mae Hong Son" to each other really quickly in a bad attempt at a Thai accent until we both fell about laughing. In fact, we spent most of the first couple of days in Thailand doing this, if I'm absolutely honest.

The Imperial Tara has everything we could possibly want from a romantic getaway. The local town is so relaxed that it's almost comatose, but we haven't come for the shopping or nightlife anyway and are quite happy to spend our days relaxing in the hotel grounds or taking walks and elephant treks in the surrounding forest. Our balcony looks out onto a large outdoor swimming pool situated on a patio surrounded by a teak forest. On a foggy day, which is to say on most days, it is quite incredible to open the French doors onto our balcony and look out onto a wood shrouded in mist, the sounds of mysterious creatures filtering in on a light breeze. The hotel itself seems to have been built with the environment in mind from day one, and does its best to blend into the surroundings, the gardens being nothing more than a large private section of the forest. When we get fed up with sunbathing by the pool, or start to feel as though we are turning a dangerous shade of red, we can walk down a small flight of stone steps into the forest, approaching it down a grassy incline in which a single tree sticks out at a strange angle. Once inside the forest boundary, a little wooden bridge crosses a stream and leads to a pathway of stepping stones which winds in a circle through the wood as far as the quiet country road at the boundary of the grounds. It really is a little piece of paradise. It is also one of the first places I've been in Thailand where nobody wants to flog me a Tee-Shirt or drive me to a local massage parlour. Which is nice.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.