Saturday 13th Feb
After eggs and sausage we left our little hotel chalets and set off to Chiang Rai, about 280kms through the mountains and hills. Great road, smooth tarmac a combination of sweepers and some tighter corners up and down hill, nice temperature and fantastic scenery. We then joined the 1138..fantastic fast sweepers. We waved to a group of bikers coming the other way..all on BMW GS Adventures .. Apparently the bike of choice for the wealthy Thai rider. We took a detour to ride up through a National Park and found a great coffee stop up in the hills.
We also decided to explore a side road, great until it turned to dirt and loose gravel kicking up clouds of white dust, a big truck came towards us and we were covered in a fog of dust..couldn’t see..scarey!
Back on the main road we started to ride through the valley and the rice fields, temp now in mid 30s..we stopped to take a pic and noticed a nail in Alan’s rear tyre, time to find a little bike shop with an airline..too hot to use the hand pump!
Sure enough a few miles further on we found one..the guy dropped everything, pulled the nail(1 1/2 inch) plugged the hole and 10 mins later we were on our way..100 Bhatt (2 pounds)..top man! Amazing this was the only issue we had inspite of all the punishment the bikes had taken.
We stopped for lunch.. Noodle soup.. Different noddles this time.. Flat ones chopsticks not needed 🙂
By now it was really hot.. 50kms left to Chiang Rai. We rode into town sweating in amongs the traffic, thankfully not a very big town and we were soon at the hotel which was well air conditioned.. We decided on cold beer round the pool, only to find it full of rubble; they had decided to renovate just at the start of the hot season..crazy logic! So shower and to the bar next door. That night we ate fish & chips with peas..time for a change from spicey!