Thursday 10th January, 2013

Well, another not so very comfortable night with the sweats and shivering and headache, but I did feel sort of OK in the morning, so hopefully it has passed on, I hope so anyway! Today was my rest day and although I call it a rest day I was working. I have a presentation to give at the Horizons Unlimited meeting this Saturday night and I still needed to sort out how and what I was going to talk about, and how to present it. Mind you during my ride I practice the sequence of tales(bullshit) that I would like to cover

This was a new presentation for me so it needed some polish 🙂

After a great breakfast back down at the Hot Bread I worked quite hard during the day, skipping lunch(I had some chips) and by about 5.30 I was due for a break and today when I rocked up to Tony’s Place, I was starving, so I guess my wog was gone 🙂 That was great because my roast dinner was huge and was the best tucker I had had for a while 🙂

While here I met another fellow rider, his name is Jay, or JayDoctor and lives in Chiang Rai and had just done a 7 day dirt bike ride around to Nan, for a 70yo he is quite spry!!!!! 🙂

So we spent a pleasant hour or so chatting about his and my rides before I headed back and worked until 11pm getting all my photos sorted and in sequential order. But, I had too many and I know this is going to need chopping before I start in 2 days time! Never mind, tomorrow I ride to Chiang Mai and I can edit it there. Tonight, I went to bed with no headache nor shivering nor sweating and as I have not had a beer since Sunday, my whole body is ready for the weekend 🙂

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Friday 11th January, 2013

I went down to the Hot Bread again for brekky and after that around to Tony’s Place. The roast chook meal I had last night was so huge I could not finish it, so this morning Tony’s wife made a fresh baguette filled with chook and onion 🙂 After that I packed and hit the road. From Nan to Chiang Mai is about 350km and I had just entered the ‘fastest route’ on the GPS, so it was not the most spectacular, like I rode the opposite way last time I was here, but the main highway was like a GP circuit, with concrete walls to keep the head on collisions to a minimum, but they were fast sweeping bends for the most part and I was cruising at 110kmh for the first time in a long long time, yeeehaaa 🙂

I never had a prang but I saw much evidence in the smashed concrete barriers of others not quite managing to take the bends in time. My rear tyres were still a bit squidgy, but these corners were not tight and twisty so I could let loose a bit 🙂 Of course you still have to watch out for the odd tree that might get in your way!!!

My route took me down to Lamphong and then back north on the Highway 1 and by about 2pm I was parked up at Riders Corner where I managed to score the last room 😉 There were quite a few bikes already arrived, some had been here a few days.

There were a few riders chewing the fat inside, some I had met previously and Som and the girls were busy peeling onions and garlic and generally getting things prepared for the big BBQ tomorrow night 🙂

That evening the event got underway with a meet and greet, free booze for an hour, thanks to Phil at Riders Corner. After that there was a presentation by Heike and Fillipo who had ridden from Germany To South East Asia, but a different route to mine.

At 19:00 – 19:45 Presenters Filippo and Heike “FROM GERMANY TO THAILAND IN 7 MONTHS – THE HIGHLIGHTS

They followed that up with a talk about being a part of the first group of 5 big motorcycles to be allowed to ride through a loop of Myanmar.

At 20:00 – 20.45 Presenters Joerg Waldmann and Heike “MYANMAR BY MOTORCYCLE – 5 BIG BIKES ON A ROUND TRIP IN MYANMAR

This was interesting, but there is not yet a ‘non escort’ self ride transit crossing, this is but the first step in that direction. This particular tour had escorts, the police closed the roads and routes to normal traffic so they could pass through, which is not ideal, but as a first off ride, acceptable. It will be great when it finally happens with bikers being able to freely mix with the local traffic 🙂

It was a great evening, the two presentations were unscheduled but they wanted to do it and they went down well. I met some top people and had a ball. Now that I had seen the venue, and how and where the TV screens were situated, I could see there would be some small difficulties with my original presentation I had planned. So, tomorrow I was going to have to chop and cut and basically redesign the whole show, which was a bit of a bummer, but there was no laser pointer available, and so I would have to cope with standing in a different location. Never mind, I am sure it will work out. Roll on tomorrow 🙂

Cheers from Chiang Mai, Thailand
TravellingStrom