Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Breakfast was a bit basic here, fried egg with tiny bits of toast, but it filled a hole, better than eating rice anyway 🙂 I packed and left, my aim today was Chiang Mai, I very nearly did not make it. As I left the resort driveway and turned left up the street I nearly had a head on with some dickhead car driver who was telling ME to get off the road, wanker, he was on my side of the road!
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
I have a feeling he was as surprised as me, because over here there are so many scooters and small bikes he would normally win. All the bikes have headlights on as well, but still, it scared the crap out of me! Anyway, the first thing I needed was fuel, so I found a servo and after filling with fuel and water I had some fun watching this over height truck backing and filling trying to get close enough to the pump so the hose would reach, that took about 10 minutes!

The day had already warmed up and promised to be another scorcher, but once again, as long as I was moving I would be OK. Near the town of Tak I found some road works, and for the first time since Europe, I saw a stabiliser in use, they need to sell one of these to the Russians!

As I got closer to Lampang the mountains started to appear through the clouds but then it started to rain. This is not a big issue normally as the rain is warm and refreshing, but it means I have to pack the SatNav away as it is not waterproof. But, as I am basically following the national highway north I could not get lost, not yet anyway 🙂 I actually stopped here for a feed and by the time I got back on the road again, the rain had stopped 🙂

After lunch I found some twisties, well, long sweepers in actual fact, but they were fun at speed 🙂

About an hour later and I entered the city of Chiang Mai and the SatNav worked very well and took me to the correct place, which was the Riders Corner, a bar/restuarant/guesthouse that I had read about. If you look at the following map, the dark yellow line is a square ring road which is inside the moat and wall that protected the old town. The Riders Corner is of course on a corner, the north east one to be exact and it is full of bikes!!!

Phil is the chap running this place and all the bikes belong to him, and because his wife rides as well, they need two of every style, road, trail, street etc 🙂 The rooms are cheap with aircon so I was happy with that as I was boiled! You can check out their website here I had found this place after reading some interesting information on the RideAsia Forum

I was soon showered and sitting downstairs with a beer, a blurry beer, this one was a Leo.

It was Saturday night and I was told that down the road a bit at the East Gate, there would be a whole stack of bikes lined up for show and tell. I went for a wander after a nice meal and yep, there were a stack of bikes as promised, mostly naked racers and trail bikes 🙂

I did some more wandering until I found a suitable bar to have a beer and watch things go by, it was busy, this whole ring road system is non stop traffic flow, and the footpaths were also quite busy. When I crossed the moat I happened to look up and saw what at first I thought were stars, but they were too orange and they were moving, I started to take a video and a few others stopped to see what I was doing. We decided after a while that they were most likely para gliders of some sort. When I mentioned it to Phil the next day he thought they were most likely from the military base nearby, so that was a mystery nearly solved 🙂
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

So, more beers happened and I found myself chatting with a couple of other Aussies in a bar for quite a while, they had hired scooters, beer and scooters, not a good mix! Needless to say I got back to the corner late and then found that I could not work the lock and had to jump the fence 😉

It is lucky it is now Sunday, I can sleep in 🙂

Cheers from Chiang Mai
TravellingStrom