[YEAR 7!] Quit our jobs, sold our home, gone riding...

[lightcycle]

As we ride into Ban Rak Thai, we do a quick tour around the town's reservoir which they've turned into a little lake called Mae Sa-Nga

Although not a big tourist destination, one of the larger resorts in Ban Rak Thai has guest houses lining the hill with tea plants all around them

One of the larger shop/restaurant/hotel in town

Taking a stroll around the reservoir

 

[lightcycle]

There are Chinese writing and decorations all around town!

Ban Rak Thai is not that large, about 1,000 people, most of them of Chinese descent. They arrived here shortly after the Chinese Civil War which ended in the 1950s. The previous ruling party in China was ousted from power and fled to Northern Thailand. Some of them set up in the mountains around here, and the biggest trade back then was running opium and other drugs across the Burmese border.

Nowadays, tea is what Ban Rak Thai is famous for, drawing tourists in to sample the brews from different tea plants that grow in the area and also to eat some Yunnan food in the restaurants, brought down from the south-west region of China.

Tea stores and restaurants make up the majority of the businesses in Ban Rak Thai

Neda is perusing all the different types of tea they sell in the stores. They are packaged like bars of soap!

Walking by the up-turned curved-roofed of some Chinese-styled buildings. I think these were built just for the tea tourists' benefit though...

 

[lightcycle]

We did have lunch in a Chinese restaurant, then later walked down to the shops to sample some tea

The lady who worked there gave us some free samples!

Okay, let's go riding! These crops behind us are tea plants

Riding around the tea fields, we are just a few kms away from the Myanmar border!

 

[lightcycle]

After playing around the the tea fields, we turn back south towards the main road to Mae Hong Son.

Did I mention the smoke here is really bad?

This is not farmers burning their fields, this is just the Thai way of maintaining the grass by the side of the road. We saw this in Latin America as well. Saves them from having to cut the grass.

Shortly after this picture, I lost my blue point+shoot Nikon somewhere on the road.

I usually carry a small camera in my tankbag on my GS, which I can quickly bring out and stash while riding. That's how I take all the riding shots. However, here in Thailand, I didn't want to buy an expensive tankbag for the Honda, so I picked up a cheap bumbag which I use to keep the camera in. When I'm done taking pictures, I just drop the camera into the bag and leave the zipper open.

The bumbag is not as secure as a tankbag, and as I was riding I could feel the camera come out. I swear I thought I saw a flash of blue bouncing behind me in the mirror, so I stopped the bike and radioed ahead to Neda to come help me search the side of the road.

We must have spent close to an hour riding slowly up and down a 2-km stretch of road, scanning the ditch where I thought I dropped the camera. In the end, it wasn't where I thought it was. Neda found it about a hundred metres ahead of where I originally stopped. It must have bounced or slid down the road past me!

These workers by the the side of road saw us walking up and down the road and gave us some suggestions on where to look for my camera. When we found it, they gave us a thumbs up! They were really friendly!

I took this picture of them with the camera just to make sure it still worked! Yay for shock-resistant cameras! 555!

I hate losing stuff. Especially since we don't own a lot of things, so everything we carry with us is something we use everyday. And most of our gear was specially ordered, not easy to find in local stores, even in Canada. I was soooo happy Neda found my camera!

But now you know I wear a bumbag... There are two things I swore I'd never wear when I starting motorcycling because I thought they were really nerdy: A bumbag and a flip-up helmet...

I will voluntarily turn in my motorcycle key if you ever catch me wearing fluorescent yellow non-rain gear.

 

[lightcycle]

On the way to Mae Hong Son, we saw a little bamboo park, so we stopped for a little break and to walk around

If it sounds like we stop every 25kms or so, it's because we do. It's a very leisurely ride! And those CRF seats are so punishing on the butt. Even with the AirHawk cushions.

When we first got these bikes, I was all over the Internet forums researching modifications: Aftermarket seats for more comfort, Electronic Jet Kits to coax more power out of the engine (but get less mileage), panniers, tankbags, etc. But these might not be our long-term bikes if we can manage to bring our Beemers into Thailand, so I don't want to keep throwing money at them.

I'm not to be trusted with the small camera anymore...

Neda is now the keeper of the bright blue point+shoot camera that she rescued from the side of the road

Oh yeah, here are the bamboo trees!

 

[lightcycle]

We eventually reached Mae Hong Son. It's a fairly big city and we rode right through it, stopping only for gas and to do some chain maintenance on the bikes. Well, Neda did the chains, I just helped rock the rear wheel off the ground on the sidestand and watched from above because she has more experience than I do. "Lube the chains? Don't all motorcycles come with shaft drive these days?!?!"

Man, we need to do lots of "manual" maintenance on these bikes. No electronic oil temperature gauge, no low oil warning on the dash, no tire pressure sensor. It doesn't even tell you when you need to change the windshield wiper fluid. Our BMWs have really spoiled us...

What do you mean motorcycles don't have windshield wiper fluid? It's right here...

We're staying in a really nice resort just outside of Mae Hong Son because all the hotels in town were fully booked.

Although it may look rustic on the outside, it was so luxurious inside!

We found out at check-in that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stayed here when they visited Thailand. Probably here to adopt a Thai baby or two. There were pictures of them all over the lobby! Of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, not of Thai babies. Well, if it's good enough for Angelina, it'll be okay for us! The resort, I mean, not Thai babies. Not that there's anything wrong with Thai babies...

So this is what happens when you play with all the dogs in the resort

Everywhere we went, these hotel dogs followed us because we were the only guests to play with them and pet them. Neda's working on a new cross-stitch, BTW. I'm still pretending to work on the blog.

But really I'm doing this.

 

[profdlp]

Looks like a wonderful place to unwind.

 

[rayra]

It's kind of like a George Carlin routine, you're taking a vacation from your vacation

 

[lightcycle]

But I think right now we're on our vacation from our vacation from our vacation...

It's turtles all the way down!

 

[lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/286.html

After a couple of restful nights spent in movie-star luxury, we're back on the road today. The plan is to forge ahead south, parallel to the Myanmar border towards Mae Sariang. Although this could be considered the "back straightaway" of the Mae Hong Son loop, zooming in on the map of the road reveals that it's anything but straight! More twisties in store for us! Yay!

Packing up and saying goodbye to Angelina and Brad's place

In Thailand, we're able to afford more luxurious accommodations than pretty much anywhere else in our travels thus far. So when we take advantage of this and splash out on a fancy resort, we really want to milk every dollar's worth and not leave the premises. "Come back'ere Doggy! I'm not finished petting you!!!" We felt just a little twinge of guilt that we didn't venture outside the grounds to visit the actual city of Mae Hong Son. We just rode right by it the day before. Not even sure if there was anything to see there!

I think maybe we should stay in lower rent places. More incentive to get out and explore! 555!

Heading south out of Mae Hong Son

Stopping to admire the beautiful mountains in Mae Hong Son province

 

[lightcycle]

About three hours directly south of Mae Hong Son is the small town of Mae Sariang, which is where we'll be spending the next couple of days. On the loop, it's located on the diametric opposite corner of Pai. Not many tourists make it out this far so there's a more authentic feel to the town, however we have to use sign language a lot more because English is spoken less here.

I kind of like that. Neda... not too much. She speaks so many languages so well that when she finds herself somewhere where she can't communicate, it really throws her off.

Me, on the other hand, since leaving North America, I've had three years of experience not being able to understand anything being spoken around me, so I'm totally used to it by now!

For the first time, I have to give Neda lessons on how to communicate - albeit like a two-year old: Sign language. Single-syllable words. Talk SLOOOOOWWWWly. As I'm dispensing this helpful advice, she looks at me the same way I look at her when she says, "We should go for a hike"...

Our little guest room right on the Yuam River

If you are pre-booking a hotel in Mae Sariang, you have to remember the exact name when you roll into town. Because most of the hotels and guest houses are located beside the river and *ALL* of them are called "River" something: "River Inn", "River View Resort", "River House", etc. Even now, because of our non-existent Thai, I'm not even sure if we're in the right hotel... But it has a balcony so we're not leaving this place!

Watching the sunset from the balcony of the River-something hotel, which may or may not be where we originally booked...

We wake up bright and early the next morning. Big plans for today. We're going to spend the day off-roading in the Salawin National Park, just outside of town. Neda did some research and she forwarded me some great-looking trails. There should be some amazing scenery in the park! And we've finally got the right bikes to do it with, so we're pretty stoked!

Passing by the early morning corn fields outside of Mae Sariang

Not sure you can see it because of the haze of The Burn, but there are actually mountains in the distance...

 

[lightcycle]

Before we left, we stocked up my topcase with lots of food! Neda is preparing breakfast by the side of the road just outside the entrance to the park

I think our route for the day is just over 100kms of dirt trails. Normally we're getting about 200-220 kms between fill-ups on the road on our CRFs, which is about half the range of our BMWs! Not sure what our dirt range will be, hopefully a full tank should get us back into town? If not, I'm sure there will be an interesting story to tell at the end of the day...

A Buddhist Temple, I think it's Wat Huai Pho. Not many people make it out here, so there are no pictures on the Internet for reference

Running with the bulls, Thai-style! I hope Neda's red jacket doesn't give them any ideas...

The road into the park is fairly well maintained until it hits the Thanlyin River, which denotes the border between Myanmar and Thailand. As soon as we hit the river, the asphalt beneath us devolves into a gravel road. We turn southwards, running parallel with the Myanmar border, passing many Karen villages situated on the cliff overlooking the river.

I'm so surprised how close we are to Myanmar and how there aren't any controls at all preventing us from crossing the very narrow river into a (another) military-controlled country.

Passing many Karen villages along the Thanlyin River

There are a few 50cc scooters that travel between the villages. They negotiate the rough roads effortlessly. As we pass them, they stare at us in bewilderment as if questioning: "What are you doing here?" Not in an unfriendly way, just more curious. Because we stop and take a lot of pictures, these scooters eventually catch up to us and as they pass us while we're snapping pics of (what they probably think is) nothing, they can't stop staring at us the whole time. Probably more at Neda...

I wave to one of the passing scooterists and he flashes me a toothy grin. Well, mostly toothy, he was missing a few teeth in front!

 

[lightcycle]

Hey, I guess we don't have to worry about gas!

We found an automated gas dispenser inside the park. Since our tanks were already pretty much full, we didn't bother to fill up here. I'm going to assume there are others as we venture further into the park...

Looking across the river. That's Myanmar... Just a short water crossing and we're in a different country... hmmm...

In one of the villages, a tiny chick has imprinted on Neda's bike and is following her around. So cute!!!

Curious kids probably wondering, "What are they taking pictures of?!?"

 

[lightcycle]

Gorgeous scenery here, despite the haze

My GPS only has the road to the river, so as we followed the Thanlyin southwards, we were now off the map.

Glancing once again at Myanmar. I can hear the wheels turning in Neda's head...

Passing more villagers

 

[lightcycle]

We're not going to cross into Myanmar. We're just too straight-laced for that kind of mischief, but we are feeling a bit adventurous. So when we find a path that leads off the gravel road, we decide to explore a bit. We're now totally off any marked roads on the GPS, so I have to keep my eye on our mileage and which direction we're headed in. If it looks like we're straying too far away from the main road and we're at half-tank, we should turn back, or risk running out of gas. Speaking of which, I haven't seen any of those automated gas dispensers in a while...

I think maybe on our next off-road run, we should carry extra jerry cans.

Our dirt road descends quite a fair bit into the valley

This is a proper full-on dirt road now, I wouldn't even drive a non 4x4 vehicle down this steep, narrow descent. I have to modulate the rear brake to regain grip as we slide down the slippery slope. All the while I'm thinking, "Is there another road at the bottom that brings us back up again? Or do we have to turn around and do this gnarly climb uphill?"

Over a km of sliding down and it's looking like the way is devolving into a foot path that someone hacked away the trees on either side with a machete. We're going to have to turn back. Ugh.

The hill climb wasn't that bad. Better than sliding down. So glad we have these dirtbikes!!!

We take another dirt path that climbs up onto the ridge of a mountain range - spectacular vistas on both sides as we clear the forest!!!

Posing at the top of the ridge. We have absolutely no idea where we are right now.

I zoom zoom zoom all the way out on the GPS. We are directly in the middle of the park heading generally eastwards towards the main road again. The gas situation is okay, not dire. As long as we keep heading east without any detours, we should make it back...