December 4, 2022
Lamphun to Chiang Mai
Following the "Kapok Highway"
We loved our time in Lamphun but we were excited to enter Chiang Mai on what we were already calling, The Kapok Highway. So, we had to say goodbye to all the excellent food, coffee and, oh yeah, beautiful temples we enjoyed in Lamphun and head north on our final leg to Chiang Mai.
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I had some fuzzy memory of huge trees right alongside some road just south of Chiang Mai from when I was on a bus more years ago than I want to think about. I was sure it was the main road that went between Chiang Mai and Lamphun. I love trees, especially big impressive trees, so the impression they made on me was still lodged in my memory albeit fuzzy. I told this fuzzy memory story to Andrea adding that I seem to remember maybe 25 enormous trees in one small section. She was excited to see the trees I spoke of.
The road, still 106, was pretty quiet due to it being early Sunday morning. There was the occasional convoy of dump trucks, oddly, but other than that, traffic was much diminished from what 106 had been like for days. I wondered if the huge trees had something to do with it since I remembered them being right next to the road.
Before we got to the huge trees there were teak trees here and there. Andrea and I have always had a bit of a game (not much of a game really but I don't know how to refer to it) of running over big brown teak leaves that have fallen in the road. They are enormous, like the size of the biggest paella pan you have ever seen. Since I am usually in the lead I aim for and crunch the leaf first and behind me I hear Andrea's tires repeating the crunch. In past trips the leaves have been so brittle that they really crunch loudly and split into pieces. It's very satisfying. But so far this year the humidity has been so high that the crunch has been very disappointing. In fact, 'crunch' there is not. It's been more like riding over a wet shirt (as one often does). I had been so looking forward to crunching teak leaves on this trip and, well, you can imagine my/our disappointment.
Instead, I've learned that the wet-shirt teak leaves have served as a way to calculate humidity! From judging the sound of the crunch, or lack thereof, I come up with the humidity. I've gotten quite accurate too! (These are the sorts of things that entertain me on the road.) I can also tell you that the humidity has been going down slightly each day. This day the crunch was starting to be more apparent, although still far from acceptable. I was in mid-crunch calculations, then, when I saw the first kapok trees. The fog was shrouding them and making them look majestic as well as mysterious. You can imagine how quickly I forgot about crunching teak leaves.
I was surprised the big trees started so soon after we left Lamphun because I remembered them much closer to Chiang Mai. I couldn't help stopping to photograph them often. Finally Andrea, who had done some reading on the trees, told me that they went on for miles. I couldn't believe it. There were certainly many more than the 25 I thought there were. The roots lifted the asphalt around their bases and to stay as close to the shoulder as possible, away from traffic, we bumped over many a root slope.
Apparently the people living along the road loved their trees and many were out sweeping up kapok leaves and filling enormous bamboo baskets for pick up. It didn't actually seem like they were going to burn the leaves as they would have done anywhere else in Thailand. I was happy to see that it seemed like the people respected the trees and wanted to preserve their unique highway.
We stopped for noodle soup at a very cute noodle soup restaurant run by a nice older woman. The restaurant was situated right behind one of the biggest of the big trees and across the street was a beautiful little temple. What a place!
The noodle soup woman rattled off a lot of Thai about the two sizes of bowls she offered. It seemed like she was suggesting I have the more manly large size which was twice the size and price of the small bowl. I thought I was agreeing with her that, yes, I was manly, and needed more of a bowl. But when she set our bowls of soup down in front of us they were both the small version. Maybe I was wrong about the whole thing and she wasn't discussing my manliness at all. It was a bit of a letdown but the soup sure was good. In the end I was happy I was given the smaller bowl because it was plenty and, well, yes, maybe I didn't need the larger bowl. She had assessed the whole thing correctly. But I wonder what she was talking about.
This happens all the time since I am not at all fluent in Thai. I understand some and then make a stab at the rest and try to put it into context (such as manliness!) and then wait to see if I was right or not. About 50% of the time I'm wrong as can be. But that's the plight of someone who has spent a lot of time in Thailand but has never had a language class. My learning of the (very difficult) language has been about as slow as the humidity has been to back off.
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By the time we were done with our 70 cent bowls of soup the fog was starting to lift and the rest of the ride to Chiang Mai was magical through what I have since learned are just under one thousand trees! In the late 1800's two thousand trees were given to the residents along the road by a governor so that the road would be shaded. I also learned that they are not kapok trees at all nor are they what all the articles about them say; rubber trees. They are actually hairy-leaf apatong trees which are dipterocarpus grandiflora. I guess the Thais want to think of the road as the, 'Chiang Mai - Lamphun Rubber Tree Road' as opposed to the Hairy Leaf Apatong Road. Every way you look at them, they are gorgeous.
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2 years ago
Mr. Boof Rides the Hairy Leaf Apatong Road
2 years ago
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We rolled into familiar Chiang Mai as if we were coming home. We made a left onto the Nawarat Bridge over the Ping River, up Tha Phae Road to the ancient Tha Phae Gate where, in the plaza in front of the gate, were more tourists than we have seen total on our entire trip so far including Bangkok! Nevertheless, we had to walk our bikes through the crowd and symbolically through the massive gate as a way of celebrating our accomplishment of riding from just north of Bangkok to Chiang Mai, something I had wanted to do for a long time. It felt good to be in what I've always said was my Second Home.
If you want more of an explanation of why I think of Chiang Mai this way you could read this entry in a previous journal of ours: https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/tomorrow1616/my-second-home/
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This one does not look like a wet shirt .. but would it feel like one if you rode your bike over it?
2 years ago
2 years ago
lovebruce
Today's ride: 22 miles (35 km)
Total: 494 miles (795 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
We humans are sense-making creatures and it's fascinating to see how our minds fill in blanks where there is missing information.
I wish we could all keep records of how often we create inaccurate stories this way. About both ourselves and other people.
If only we could all see how scary it is that most of us make a habit of believing that these stories are true!
2 years ago
2 years ago
Those trees are very impressive indeed. What a splendid way to shade a highway, regardless of the species of tree. I would love them too if I lived there.
Cheers,
Keith
2 years ago
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2 years ago
Psychedelic Selfie! 😵💫
2 years ago
2 years ago