Indochina(Thailand) - Post No 27: Chiang Mai/Mae Hong Son/Mae Sariang/Mae Sot/Kanchanaburi/Hat Yai

7 January 2010

How was the new year's everyone? Apologies for not updating, though I think you can see why from the title above. Since the last update involving the Phantoms of New Year Eve we've been making our way down to the south and it's riding everyday la. So no time to update.

I thought I squeeze this one out though as it's the end of the trip and I'll be making my way back to homeground tomorrow.

You see, we didn't know where we'd be for New Years as we haven't secured any accomodtions. There were thoughts of heading up to Pai but that's pretty much booked rocked solid. Thailand enjoyed a 4 day weekend to usher in the year, so everyone is pretty much travelling up North as well to enjoy the cool weather and the scenery.

Through an agent we finally secured something in Mae Hong Son, it's not cheap as you'd expect from a last minute booking, but it beats sleeping under the tree.

said our goodbyes to Phil at Rider's Corner

The ride from CM to Pai was treacherous with the amount of traffic that was on the road that day and also due to the mountainous road. One of the toughest that I've done so far actually. When we reached Pai, we're glad that we didn't get a place there coz it's just an explosion of people. They're everywhere. There's even a traffic jam for god's sake.

Good thing the ride to Mae Hong Son was better, wider roads, slightly less twisty and most importantly, less traffic. CM to Mae Hong Son 252km

The clearest of blue skies otw to Mae Hong Son

It's nice to do something different for New Years, and I like seeing people would light up these lanterns that would float very high up into the night sky. The higher the better your year would be it seems. We went up to a temple on top of the hill as that is an excellent vantage point to see the town as well as fireworks. It was a bit weird though at first coz there was some sermon going on being blared through the loudspeaker and it got louder as the fireworks started, but only for a short while. I think they want to enjoy the fireworks as well...haha.

lighting the lantern

The town below

Temple had its own fireworks as well

Serious photogs snapping the fireworks...

 What I had not expected was that the temple had its fireworks display as well, so that's another first for me. Usually I would watch fireworks from afar and go oooohhh......ahhhhhh in sync with the rest of the crowd. This time I'm like standing right beneath it...haha....talk about safety issue out of the window huh.

Mae Hong Son is famous for it's 1864 corners, and they actually give out a certificate. Though being typical Malaysians, we actually picked up the cert before we did the whole route...haha. Though considering that I've travelled for 2 months on all sorts of curves, I'm pretty sure I deserved it. It's definitely frame worthy as it states 1 January 2011 on the cert.

Oh ya.....I think the chick who prepares the cert is hot....no offence but after seeing Husref's face everyday for 10days, I think Mak Enon would look hot also.

Sweet?.....OoOoooh Yeah!

We made our way down to Mae Sariang a total ride of 168km, a nice sleepy town by the river. In fact plenty of Hotels and Guesthouses fronting the river. I don't mind chilling out here, just laze around, read a book and just do generally.....nothing.....now that's bliss.

If my office looked like this, I wouldn't have left

Next stop is Mae Sot, 236km away. The thing is, we had an agenda at Mae Sot as this is another border into Burma. The plan was to do another visa run so that we can extend our stay. Unfortunately, we only discovered when we reached there that the border has been closed for the past 3 months due to fighting over the Burma side. Fighting that escalated after the recent elections, so there goes our plan of another extra couple of days. I had really wanted to hit a beach as it's what Thailand is famous for as well. Looks like I have to plan another trip then....hehe....mai pen rai.....

The guesthouse in Mae Sot is really nice though. After I'm done with this trip, I'd do a list on the places I had stayed in for future reference.

We love superstar parking

Recommended if you're staying in Mae Sot

Onwards to Kanchanaburi then. This marks the end of the trip for me as it's just a long and boring highway from Mae Sot onwards. I kid you not, it's a straight road that goes for hours that when a corner actually comes I actually panicked....what to do? what to do?....oh ya, lean bike and turn moron.

More superstar parking

Phantom making an appearance....little did he know that night he'd be scared instead

Restaurant on River Kwai

Funny thing happened in Kanchanaburi though, now if you're to google, you'll discover this is the site for the (in)famous Bridge over River Kwai. Now thousands died during the world war when the Japanese had them build the bridge and railway lines.

There was only 1 room available so I shared with Husref and he was awoken in the middle of the night as I started to talk in my sleep.Now what scared him was, firstly, I was lying on my back on the bed but my arms was straight up and my knees were bent so I looked like I'm riding the bike. It's dark but as I was next to the window he could see my silhouette which adds to the creepiness and secondly....I was talking in Thai. We laugh about it now, but he said he was shitting his pants at the time. He thought I was possessed and he didn't dare to wake me up either as he's afraid it might "jump" to him if he touched me...haha. For all you know, I was counting to 10 in Thai, but considering we were in a town where thousands died a horrible death I would shit my pants too if it was the reverse.

The famous bridge

Due to the boredom of highway riding we actually rode to Nakhon Pathom to try and see whether we could catch a train from there. It was no go as the schedule is uncertain. They recommended us to try Bangkok. I know it can be done, but due to the tight deadline I didn't want to risk it, so we decided to ride down.

We support whenever we can

Nana from Kanchanaburi....met in Laos when she was on family holiday

Dawn shot......no shot of Husref peeing his pants though...haha

So that's it, I'm not gonna say much about ride to Surat Thani and Hat Yai coz honestly, it's so boring I'd actually have more fun trimming my toenails.

I'll be doing a summary later on. Once I have my Devi's teh tarik that is.

Fuel Consumption

36. 144.8km Chiang Mai 410 baht 11.69liters

37. 358.7km Chiang Mai 500baht 14.251 liters

38. 322.4km otw to Mae Hong Son 470baht 13.17liters

39. 341.2km Mae Sot 430baht 12.305liters

40. 266.4km Yan Tan otw to Kanchanaburi 400baht 11.537liters

41. 255.8km Kanchanaburi 410baht 11.78liters

42. 266km otw to Surat Thani 420baht 12.01liters

43. 291.5km otw to Surat Thani 400.6baht 11.52liters

44. 296km Surat Thani to Songkhla 400baht 11.5liters