TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Phil and Glenn were going for a ride today and although I had planned a different ride, when I was invited along I jumped at the chance, local knowledge is always good 🙂 It was not going to be a long ride, around 350km or so, and after a late breakfast, we hopped onto the bikes and promptly fell off again!!!
.
.
.

.

.
.

.
.
Now, I have been copping a bit of flack from some ‘friends’ on Facebook after I posted this, mainly the concern being I immediately went for the photo opportunity rather than help with the bike. In my defence, I was not expecting Phil to fall off in front of me, low power, sharp turn, big bike, so yes I did run into him after he fell on my bike 😉 He was fine, so was I and my immediate reaction is to get a photo, it has happened so many times now it is automatic. It was not dangerous, if the bike had fallen the other way, then it would have been a different story. Anyway, we got ourselves sorted out and headed off to the north, you can see the route in this map here.

We headed up the main dual carriageway then took a left turn, worked our way west then north to the border crossing, which is closed now except for locals, then back around to the east and south again. Both Glenn and Phil are riding KTM 990 Adventurers, here is Glenn in action.

The first section of road was fast, these boys ride hard and fast, I never got a chance to do much camera clicking because I was too busy weaving in and out of the traffic and had no idea what I was riding past. In hindsight, maybe I should have done my individual ride, that way I would have been slower and taken notice of what was around me, besides the traffic in front. Never mind, I do remember the road having quite a few sweeping bends until we got to the turn off onto the 1322, from here the traffic was a lot lighter, so I could take more photos 🙂

As we progressed through the mountains we hit a small rain shower, it only lasted 10 minutes, but enough to totally soak us, no worries, it was not cold.

After the shower the views started to pick up, a lot of nice green countryside with the air a lot clearer. The roads were mostly fine, just a few potholes on occasion but some very nice twisties 🙂

.
.
.
.

.
.
.

Around 1.30pm after a non stop ride, we arrived at the Lak-Tang Pass border crossing and went up to the temple area at the top of the hill.

This Wat was built with donations from the community and some of them have been interred into the lower wall after they have died and been cremated, they are indicated by the blue plaques in the last photo above. It was very beautiful to look at and well made, I have seen a few now but this is the first I have stopped at.

There was an energy saver light bulb up on a pole, covered with a plastic coke bottle and tapped into the local power lines, under it behind the pole is a dome housing for a remote controlled surveillance camera, the border is just over the gully.

There was also a nun’s room where they were meditating, and by the photos on the wall, there was some history here.

Back on the bikes after this short rest stop and we saw the old border check point, closed off, fenced off and overgrown.

Now we started to head back through the hills, but first, the big bikes wanted fuel, I decided against it as I had enough to get back. There are a lot of these small pump up fuel stalls in the region, away from the main highways.

Now we came to the yucky bit, the 10km of dirt, they had told me about this and it was not that bad for the most part, hard packed, a bit rutty in sections, but there was one small section that was scared me a bit, a muddy downhill section, but I survived without falling off 🙂 The views through here were nice as well, but I was paying more attention to the road surface than the scenic views in case I needed to dodge. It was good to have my new Drift camera with me to document the trip, but there is a lot of footage to go through!!

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
I was glad to see the pavement again, but this area also had pretty bad pavement, probably the worst I have seen so far, with many potholes, quite a lot right where you don’t need them, in the line through a tight hairpin corner! Some of this paved section also had some mud, cows and deep potholes.
.
.
.

.

.
.
.
.
We did eventually get back onto some nice road and some even more spectacular views.

Around 4pm we turned south on the main highway again for the high speed run back to the bar, and for those of you that want to know how to spell stop, well, they have signs with it on, I am only guessing mind 😉

Then, how cool is this, since I have left Europe I do not think I have seen any new hazard signs for my collection, so now I get to look out for elephants 🙂

After a nice pork chop dinner and a few beers, as it turns out we went out for some more beers at the pole dancing clubs 😉 A good time was had by all, but it would mean a sleep in probably, but who cares eh, not me 🙂

Cheers from Chiang Mai
TravellingStrom