my motobike and me

two days in the mountains in northern Thailand

sadly enough, due to a seriously crappy internet cafe in chiang rai, i have lost the few photos i took of this trip. but most were of windy roads and the like so they probably weren't that interesting to you anyway. in an effort to illustrate this entry though, i have found a few pictures on the internet, so they're all stolen but are somewhat representative of what i did see.
what i did see was amazing, stunning. possibly the most beautiful countryside i have ever experienced. if i had taken a photo every time i had wanted to i would never have gotten anywhere. i left chiang rai at around 10am on saturday morning. after i got out of the city limits i pulled over to fix my backpack to the seat behind me only to notice this rather violent hissing noise which i quickly realised was coming from my back tire. oooops. i'd checked everything, the lights, brakes, indicators, all that jazz. i'd forgotten to look at the tires though, the back one was so bald that a tiny piece of broken glass had managed to rip it.
*insert expletive here*

so i went to a tire place that just so happened to be a little up the road, got the tire pumped to near bursting point and made my way back to the rental place as quick as i could. and i nearly made it! except by the time i was within 200m of the place i had to give up, get off the bike and push it. *insert stronger expletive here, about 10 times*
is this a sign, maybe i shouldn't go...? or maybeeeee, now that i've taken the bike back and the owner is more than happy to give me another one it's just luck that i'm getting a way better bike. even if it did cost me over an hour.

so back on the road, my vague plan is to head a community that has opened itself to tourists in a pilot scheme where they actually get some of the profits and the guides are actual locals. (may seem like common sense to you but see the bit the long neck karen people at the end). then i was going to go to mae sai for the night via doi tung and back to chiang rai via the infamous golden triangle.

first stop was a waterfall that just happened to be signposted and i figured i may as well have a look. for some reason the image of the venus razor ad popped into my head and i decided to shave my legs while i was here. i know it sounds daft but it was fun in the you-don't-do-this-everyday kind of way. and the water was so lovely and cold and i thoroughly enjoyed myself! if i had a picture of course i'd post it, but you can see me now can't you? long legged and suntanned....eh, yeah! well i have a great tan but my legs will never be long, only in my dreams!

on my way back to the bike a group of thai boys called me over to their spot by the river. as soon as i got there i was presented with a shot of thai whisky, well it was only small and it felt rude to refuse! so the usual, where are you from, what's your name and all that came next. they introduced themselves, names i cannot pronounce or remember. i noticed the almost empty 'water' bottle and then realised they were all pretty drunk. and it was still only 1.30
they had a guitar and after the photoshoot was over, they love the photos, they asked me if i knew zombie. hilarious, i couldn't name you one thai singer (or vietnamese for that matter) but they knew the cranberries and that they were irish and the guy almost knew the chords. (well, he may have known them but he was probably just too drunk.)
so after singing (all filmed by their impromtu camera man) and refusing about five more shots of whisky i left them to it. not before they'd asked me where i was going though. and like all the thai seem to do, they gave me directions. it's lovely. initially, i thought it was just conversation or curiosity, but this question is borne out of a genuine desire to make sure you're going where you want to go. they're all tourist information points by choice. i've never experienced that before!

at the village, ban lorcha, i was led around the village by a woman who kept insisting i take photos of everything. even though i knew this place was the best place to go to see the hilltribe people and feel like i wasn't intruding i still felt like i was intruding. as soon as i'd taken the picture off we'd go again. she doesn't speak any english, like most of the guides, but there are posters up at the relevant points to explain everything.
at the end i met a girl called nittya, a 17 year old local girl who studies in the next city and comes back at weekends. she was embroidering as we chatted and the work was beautiful. her english wasn't great but it was enough to get by; maybe a few months ago i wouldn't have been able to have a converstion with her but my simple english is pretty good now and i'm getting better at guessing what people are trying to say! best bit was when she was asking me if i was married and instead of the usual gesture to the ring finger she started to hum the wedding march, brilliant! she told me about how she was christian and how some of the people in the village are actually bhuddist, as if they were thick or something. it was funny, in a pretty judgemental way.

after that i headed up into the hills and this is where the fun started. i was up and down gears at the rate of knots. the roads inclined at ungodly degrees and the only variety in bends was between hairpin and 90 degree. i've never thought it was possible to have to break going uphill before but i now know that it is. and i wasn't even going that fast, i couldn't. i kept getting shocked by these absolutely arresting views down to where i'd just come from or the valleys on either side. it was so beautiful, i couldn't even show you many pictures if i did have them, i was too busy just enjoying them for myself to take any pictures.
i did stop to take a photo of the sun setting over the mountains but never got to take it. as i took the camera out of the case i realised i had almost no gas left. ooops, again. so, a little distracted, i put the camera away and headed off to find some gas.
eh, where exactly? i wasn't near any town, at all.

so i ploughed on. this particular sign put me in mind of the art of freewheeling. saving gas and the environment all at once, fantastic! i was reminded of my dad as i turned off the ignition (with my left hand, right hand and foot firmly on the brakes). the night he did a 'magic trick' and drove most of the way home from cavan without the engine on. i thought it was amazing, how did that work? i think i was probably about four. it was probably that time when petrol got ridiculously expensive and families spent their sundays crossing the border to get it cheaper. by the way, i'm quite aware that the idea of the low gear is to get more traction than freewheeling could provide but it was 'E for eadaoin on empty' and the brakes were good so i went for it.
the needle was now below empty. below empty. i didn't know it could go below E, was i running on fumes or what? i pulled over at the bottom of a hill and checked the tank, there was still a bit left. a bit...
a big black chevrolet suv pulled over and a man got out to see if i was ok, a man on his holidays with some friends from bangkok. he looked in, looked at the reserve tank, told me i was ok for another 10 or 20 km at least and gave me his phone number to call if i was in trouble or just to let him know i was ok. i feel like i'm being disloyal to vietnam when i say this, but i think the thais are my favourite people in se asia.

so, i got gas, first a bottle of about 80c worth from a shop and then i filled the tank a little further on. remember how i mentioned that it was sunset when i'd noticed? well it was pitch black by now and i was nowhere near where i had intended to stay for the night. so i asked the guy at the petrol station where i could stay for the night and he pointed down the road a bit.
for a massive $10 i got the most beautiful double bed, clean, new looking white white sheets, a television, (i'd forgotten they existed!), a hot shower, a sink that didn't empty onto the floor, a fridge, and my very own frog to keep me company. we made an agreement, if he didn't hop up onto the bed i wouldn't bother him either. i think he kept his side, i think i was too tired to even notice.

next morning it was beautiful. i headed back about 15km to doi tung where the kings mother kept a villa while she was renewing the local area by replacing the opium plantations with forestry. i know little about the thai royal family but this was worth it just for the house.
teak floors, walls of pine salvaged from transport crates, stunning art work and there was a real sense of love for this woman in the whole house. she died around 10 years ago but the house is still used by her granddaughter once a year while she carries on her grandmother's work. this was an ordinary woman elevated to the status of the king's mother late in her life. she was the original celebrity do gooder, using her new found status to change thailand for the better; to encourage education, eliminate opium plantations and all the while cook for her family and garden and still be an ordinary woman. i think i'd like to have met her!

the weather had turned now and it was miserable, bucketing down. i asked a woman where i could buy a rain coat, she offered me hers for about $5! after she'd assured me she could get another one (well i hope that was what she was saying) i gladly took it off her.
i must admit, i regretted it a little when i got back on the bike and noticed it smelled sort of like a fart that no one i know would admit to....but it was raining and i could only smell it if i sniffed the coat, which, eh, i refrained from.

back down the hill (more freewheeling, just for the fun) and i was on my way to the golden triangle, the place where myanmar, laos and thailand meet. where most of the opium trading was carried out. it is, as the lonely planet describes it, 'an all out tourist trap', but it was intersting all the same and the town next to it had a fish market with hundreds of eels leaping up out of the water in the bottoms of buckets and crates and plastic bags. a sight in itself.

after that i headed back to chiang rai via mae sai, the most northern town in thailand. it was a town like any other, about ten seven-elevens and tons of guest houses and hotels. i had given my passport as collateral for the bike so i couldn't go to myanmar just for the stamp. it's starting to get a bit full anyway, what with all these vietnamese visas i keep having to get...

i got back to chiang rai at 4.30 so i decided to head south to see the white temple everyone kept talking about. this part of the world is full of temples. you've seen one wat, you've seen 'em all. so i don't know what i was expecting but this place definately wasn't it.
it's just surreal. like a fairytale, some sort of religious theme park or narnia's temple.
the entire building and surrounds are pure white, decorated with mirror mosaic. it was beautiful.
the inside was the strangest though, the mural inside depicted, as well as bhudda, aliens, skyscrapers, spaceships, wristwatches and i am not joking, neo from the matrix. are these the evils of this world today? that coupled with the wax monk sitting in front of the bhudda sort of compounded the theme park idea but it didn't detract from the sheer beauty of the outside of the building.

fin.



the long necked karen tribespeople in northern thailand:

burmese refugees rounded up and placed in to synthetic villages designed for tourists to see all the various tribespeople at once. a themepark, a human zoo. these people have escaped the war and refugee camps in their homecountry only to be led in to this equally redundant (albeit not as dangerous) life in thailand. they are bought by businessmen, taken to live in these villages and paid to sit around and have their picture taken, sell some trinkets maybe. the men don't get paid, they get food allowance. they're not photogenic enough to pay, they don't wear the brass neck rings.

it's difficult enough to be a responsible tourist, hard to know who's for real, but it's not hard to know that this sort of exploitation is disgusting. the thai hilltribe museums seem to be doing a fair bit of campaigning to stop this practice but it occurs to me that the only way it is still happening is if stupid tourists are still going. eugh.

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