Slow but steady to Chiang Mai

The memories of our interactions with Mook and Mr. Nhong left us in high spirits as we drifted down the road northward.  Once again considering my health, we kept our objective short and headed towards the city of Chai Nat, less than 50 miles down the highway.  On our way we crossed the lowest damn on the Chao Phraya river, used mostly for irrigation and a little bit of hydroelectric, but was not significant enough of a check to stem the tide of the horrific flood from last year.

We arrived in Chai Nat in the early afternoon and checked into the Chai Nat Resort, which was more than we required, but was still relatively cheap since this was an un-touristed area.  I laid down to enjoy the air conditioning and recover while Lauren went to work on the internet.

In the evening, as had become our routine, we went in search of the local Night Market street vendors for dinner.  These markets seem to pop up in almost every Thai city. We have learned that you need to identify the vendors with seating and dishes otherwise you will receive your food in the proverbial inflated plastic bag with no way to consume it on the street.  So we sat, ate our pad thai, I drank a bagged Fanta and returned to our hotel satisfied and ready for sleep.

Every day I was feeling better and we began to amp up the kilometers, which was nice because they pass by much faster than America's miles.  Ambitiously, we routed ourselves along small side roads along the river once even chancing the local ferry system.  My cue sheets, that I keep on my handle bars, had begun to evolve due to the vast number of roads out here that Google maps can not identify: take second right, and third left, and so on.  It takes us a bit longer and causes more hesitations at intersections, but we found our way to Nakhon Sawan with enough time to ask a motor cycle salesperson unsuccessfully and then the police for a hotel recommendation.  We cycled to one too far outside the city and one with no vacancies.  The third stop yielded a third night of air con, this time in a nondescript multilevel hotel.  Outside we struck up a conversation with a dutch man  riding a motorcycle seemingly twice the size of anything else we had seen.  He showed us on a map all of the scenic places that we should be riding. During our conversation we got the impression that he would prefer to travel with as few human interactions as possible and we took his recommendations with this in mind.

 

 For dinner we found a popular street restaurant with an actual indoor kitchen. Feeling classy we ordered appetizers and two curries; one with king crab meat and a couple of beers.  The crab dish came with shelled bits of crab in red curry, which must have taken more work to eat than to make (and made me look even more like a cave man). When the dust settled we owed significantly more than we had paid for our room, which was still under $20.  Somehow I didn't question our twelve year old waiter's math, and decided that next time I could resist ordering seafood.

The following day we made our way to Kamphaeng Phet at one point passing a monkey infested wat. We were excited that there was a recommended cheap guesthouse in the area, making finding a place to sleep easy. Kamphaeng Phet is an old city with some beautiful ruins, but is still a ways off the tourist path. The small amount of tourists that do come here though allow for the 3 J Guesthouse to exist, an eclectic place with a fairly horrible shared bathroom. Nevertheless we were thankful for the easy and cheap place to spend the night. While we were there we began to look for accommodation options for the following day. Not much.

75 miles up the road was the small town of Ban Tak. With no advertised guest houses except for a high end retreat looking place called the Bantak House. I was working on something else while Lauren decided to give the Bantak house a call.

"We are cycling to Chiang Mai and looking for accomodation in your area but need something more simple, is there any chance we can camp on your grounds?"

I think it went something like that. She had called one of the owners, a Danish guy named Michael who has lived here for 30 years. He laughed a little bit. Lauren didn't exactly realize that this wasn't a high end guest house with many rooms for rent, it was a rent the whole house kind of deal, including all meals and top notch service. Whoops. He said that he thought they had clients the following day, but that he would give his wife a call, Nong, a Thai woman, who was in Ban Tak, while he was working in Bangkok.

He called Lauren back saying that clients weren't coming for two days, and that they don't normally do this but he would like to help us out. He said, "pay what we can, we'll  cook dinner for you, and you can have a bedroom...welcome to my country."

We couldn't say no. Lauren thanked him for his kindness and wrote down Nong's number to coordinate with her directly.

The following day's ride brought us some incline, small but still noticeable rolling foothills. We finished the majority of our riding by noon, giving us enough time to run some errands in Ban Tak.

We have been working on getting a set of "Water Questions" translated into Thai, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian, so we can begin asking individuals as we cycle. Our friend Natasha  helped us out with the Thai set, but we still needed to print them. We also wanted to be able to have a letter written in Thai that explains who we are and what we are doing and asks if it would be okay if we camped somewhere on the grounds (at a school or temple etc.) After a couple of hours we got both of those things printed and the accommodation letter laminated.

So with 75 miles under our belts and a few pertinent errands accomplished we made our way to the Bantak House.

It was down a small road alongside the great Ping River. This neighborhood street was bustling with children riding bicycles and playing games. Both Lauren and I noted that this would be a good street to grow up on. Around 4pm, we pulled up to the Bantak house and met Nong.

She welcomed us in, and showed us our room. We were blown away. This was by far the nicest place we have ever stayed in, and probably will remain so. Normally this isolated bedroom, bathroom, and deck costs $100 per person per night (which for Thailand is a lot of money). It was simple and beautiful, made all out of Teak wood. The shower was inside a wine barrel. The deck overlooked the great river and a herd of water buffalo. We felt bad actually, it was a little too beautiful, and we both knew we couldn't afford nearly what it was worth.

 

They cooked us a delicious meal,  and we simply soaked up our good fortune always remembering to thank them profusely.

It poured that evening and continued to pour through the morning. Eventually we decided that the day was just going to be wet and soggy. We suited up the bicycles and prepared ourselves for a rainy ride. Nong was such a gracious hospitable host, even to two poor cyclists. We gave her about 1/4 of what the room was worth, which was still like five times what we normally would pay to stay somewhere.

The ride that day, although soggy at times, was a beautiful one. We took very rural roads. This was the day where we had to slosh through the stickiest mud I have ever seen. It was tenacious stuff. Motorists were turning around, one brave tour bus didn't fare to well. Lauren pushed through till about half way, and then walked through the sticky mess. I love mud and enjoyed the thrill of sliding through it.

Now soggy and muddy we pressed forward to the town of Thoen, which sits at the base of the only major mountain pass on the way to Chiang Mai.

We made it in around four and began asking for a guesthouse. As always this was a wild, lost in translation, goose chase. After following two governmental officials, and a bad address on Google maps, we made it to a skanky very cheap hotel. It wasn't skanky in the same way as the curtained motor lodge was, it was just not so clean. The carpet hadn't been vacuumed in who knows how long, and the shower walls were peeling etc. But it did have a nice wooden drying rack for our clothes, and after a rainy day's ride, this was a nice touch.

We laughed at our peeling room with dirty floors, and vowed to pedal out early.  Which, we did.

Our route to Chiang Mai and the pass we chose was on Hwy 106. We knew we had a long day ahead, about 75 miles and more incline than we had had in a month.

We started off with good energy. The landscape was breathtaking at the base of the mountains ahead of us. The green of the rice paddies under the glow of the morning sun was simply indescribable. An old man past us on an old steel bicycle--it was a good omen.

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The road up the mountain was an easy grade of switchbacks. We rarely saw a car, and their were no villages in sight. Halfway up we snacked on our new favorite riding snack: sticky bars of sesame seeds, puffed rice, dried coconut, and peanuts. The small mountain range was lush and covered in rainforest. It was a breathtaking 25 miles, and then finally we settled into the high valley that houses most of  the communities of northern Thailand. We ate a sweet lunch at a market in Li, the first prominent town since Thoen.  Pedaling forward, we made it to our 75 mile destination, Ban Hong, around four in the afternoon.

Our friends, Lauren May, Jess, and Aaron were only in Chiang Mai for one more night before heading off to a ten day long silent meditation retreat. Being only 43 miles away from Chiang Mai, Lauren itched to keep moving. 29 miles away was mellow guesthouse, called the Stonefree House, and if we pedaled there, we would only have 16 miles to go to meet May for breakfast in Chiang Mai before they headed out the following morning. If we were to stay in Ban Hong, we were going to have to find a uninspiring hotel. So with that, Lauren pushed me forward, and we headed out to the Stonefree House in San Pa Tong.

Within 15 minutes Lauren got a huge thorn stuck in her front tire. We pulled over, a bit bummed, knowing we really had to hammer it, in order to get all of the miles in. We parked ourselves out front of a huge warehouse and began taking bags off. As we were getting situated, a family emerged out of the warehouse to make sure we were okay. The father made the hand motion that described a bike pump, he was wondering if we needed one. I pulled out our hand pump, and he made motion for a bigger one. I doubted that they would have a presta valve. Their daughter, who was about our age, escorted Lauren to use their bathroom facilities, and I quickly worked on the flat. The father reassured me that he had a better pump and led me into the heart of their warehouse, full of home building materials. He had an air compressor and a fleet of bicycles and motorbikes to go with it. He communicated that both his wife and himself ride bicycles.

They got us back on the road in no time and nourished us with some ice water. Their kindness was beautiful. We gave them our web address so as to keep in touch. Both Lauren and I left feeling silly for  assuming that they wouldn't have the correct pump (never assume anything), and we left loving the fact that cyclists are everywhere.

We pushed forward at a great pace. The sun was on its was down, and we raced through rural roads, past orchards and small houses, excited to be pursuing our first century ride (in miles) on this continent. We arrived in San Pa Tong, and ambitious Lauren, after 104 miles of riding wanted to just keep going, into the dark to Chiang Mai. We ate noodle soup, and I convinced her to just get there in the morning.

We winded our way to the guesthouse we had researched, it was a couple miles down a dark road off the highway. We got there and it was entirely empty, not a light on, not a soul to be found. Lauren kicked herself for not calling in advance. As we sat there in the dark, debating what to do, a young Thai woman pulled up on a motorbike saying "sorry," as she flipped on the lights and invited us in. She explained that her husband who ran the guesthouse was out of town, but welcomed us nevertheless. She got us set up in our little elevated hut, gave us towels, and asked us how long we would be staying. Bidding us goodnight, she promised to  see us bright and early.

The Stonefree house is a bit off the beaten path, so it must not get too much business in the slow season. But it is a beautiful spot. The social area backs up against a rice paddy. The shower and bathroom is built around a tree. It's covered in books and inspirational quotes. It was just a little funny to be the only guests.

The next morning, we pedaled out early to meet our dear friend for breakfast. We made it to the doorstep of May's hostel and savored our few hours together. Lauren and I were entirely happy we had ridden the extra thirty miles to make it all happen.  Good bye for now friends, and enjoy ten days of silence.