November 28, 2022
Mae Phrik to Thoen
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After our usual bungalow breakfast with papaya et all, we were out the door and into 99% humidity by 6:30AM. The temperature was a nice cool 75 degrees (24C). But the humidity overrides, no matter what the temperature is. The odd thing that I can't figure out is that there are no mosquitoes. We learned in past trips to travel with one of those tennis racket mosquito execution devices. With such a device I can clear a room of the dangerous little high-pitched things in minutes and then we can sleep safely. But this trip, three weeks in, I haven't even put the batteries into that thing. There are absolutely no mosquitoes. But how can that be after a summer of heavy rains and still raining and the humidity, water standing everywhere.....I don't get it. We can be riding on a road bordering lots of standing water that has been there for weeks but no mosquitoes. If this were Minnesota, a ride along such a place with standing water in the middle of the summer with high humidity, the ride would be intolerable. So, it's a mystery. There are plenty of frogs and birds so I doubt the Thais are using massive quantities of DDT. Maybe it's Buddhism.
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Anyway, we had a lovely ride on very small roads this morning. Some were dirt trails, all in an effort to follow the Wang River. Well, it was the right river actually. It was all in an effort to stay off the big huge dangerous highway. We really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the roads we were on. They were so remote that I don't know why there weren't five foot snakes crossing our path every 100 meters. We saw no snakes at all, not even dead ones. The few people we encountered on motorbikes were genuinely surprised to see us but had big smiles. On a little larger road we were passed by two people on a motorbike and without turning around the guy gave us a thumbs up but his girlfriend smacked him on the head as if to say, "Hey buddy, keep your hands on the handlebars." Thais are funny but we get the thumbs up a lot from people on motorbikes.
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2 years ago
We went through a small, immaculate village where all the houses were very old, teak and with lots of bric-a-brac wood carvings, just beautifully preserved. There was not a piece of trash lying around anywhere in the whole town. That small town merged with another small settlement further on where everyone had turned their front yard into a vegetable garden. They grew beautiful greens mostly. It's kind of rare to see an entire front yard turned into a garden but it seemed everyone was doing it. That village merged with another village where everyone grew desert rose plants and had them in colorful pots lining the entire main street. It was like we had entered a place where no matter which little village you lived in you had to follow the status quo. I mean you could not live in the village that dug up their front yards for vegetables AND grow desert rose plants. Have a house full of bric-a-brac and also dig up your front yard for veggies.....no way. You'd be outcast. You had to do bric-a-brac or yard garden or desert rose plants, that's it. And you had to be in the right village to do it too.
You can't make this stuff up and you can't get to these places unless you had a car and put on a lot of miles exploring but even then you might be going so fast you might not be able to observe the subtle changes from bric-a-brac to veggies to desert rose plants in colorful planters that went flashing past. After you had passed it all you would say to yourself, 'I know there was something going on in the last three villages but I have no idea what it was', and then keep driving. Whereas, by bike you can observe closely and take photos and admire and be happy instead of being bewildered. So, bicycle is definitely the way to go - the way to see the subtleties this amazing world offers.
We saw evidence that the Wang River too had overflowed its banks a few weeks ago and caused major damage with collapsed banks which partially destroyed roads. To see way down where the river is today it is hard to imagine it so high that it was an overflowing, raging river. But none of the roads we were on were washed out.
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We bought a papaya from a lively old woman who was sitting inside her tiny fruit stand asking a thousand questions, completely in Thai. I had to ignore most of it because I simply didn't understand. Then I switched to talking about having ridden our bikes from Ayutthaya to here and then on to Chiang Mai. That impressed her greatly. Then she talked me into buying her other papaya as well. We didn't need two but she needed the extra $.25. We bungee-corded them onto Andrea's back rack and off we went into more deep forest, past sparkling temples and dogs lying in the middle of the road. At one point five chickens (5!!) crossed the road in front of me but I decided to quit asking why about chickens and shifted my attention to asking why dogs lie in the middle of the road? It's a more worthy question. Plus, they don't move when vehicles approach. Are they smarter than humans? Do they know they have overpopulated? How do they choose who goes to the middle of the road? Draw straws every morning?
We entered a bustling little town along the Wang that was super interesting mostly because we had been way out in the middle of you know where for a long time. Right in the middle of town was the central market on one side and a beautiful temple on the other. I had to go into each. The designs on the temple were a distinct departure from central Thai temples and I immediately recognized that we were now in northern Thailand. And specifically we were in the area of Lampang, northern Thailand. Lampang is a larger town north of us and centuries ago it was its own kingdom which means that the style of temples went slightly different from the rest of Thailand. The most specific difference is the large, blocky, solid looking gate at their entrances which have a rather narrow and low passageway. Such gates originated in ancient India. The intention was for people to be forced to bow low when entering the sacred space of the temple - forced to show respect.
This particular temple, Wat Lom Raet, has one of these very low and narrow entrance gates but it's also distinctive in that it is placed very near to the temple itself. For me this was very exciting because I love Thai temples but I especially love northern Thai temples which, in my opinion, are embellished with much more beautiful designs than central or southern Thai temples. They are more personal too with low roof lines, sometimes so low you have to duck in order to get a look at the sides of the temple. This is quite different from the soaring Bangkok style where the roofline is sometimes thirty feet up. I feel more akin to northern Thailand in many ways and to have finally arrived I am filled with a warm feeling and not because of the temperature. I feel like northern Thailand is my second home.
As we got closer to Thoen, still following the Wang River, the sides of the road were more and more built up with nicer houses and restaurants and all sorts of businesses. There was a big increase in traffic too. It seemed as though our time in the boondocks was coming to an end but we were fine with the change. We celebrated by stopping for some nice coffee! Then we found a hotel on the outskirts of Thoen.
After we had been in our hotel for a little while, we were surprised to hear English being spoken outside. I peeked and there were two women tourists, with bikes no less, who were also getting a room. Later we talked with them. Nelline and Lies, are from Holland and coincidentally also want to skip riding their bikes over the pass towards Lamphun. We had watched Google Street View of the road over the pass and there is no shoulder, the road is in bad shape, narrow, but the worst part is that it is super busy with truck traffic. No way were we going to ride it and they weren't either. So, we hatched a plan to go to the bus station later in the afternoon and ask about either taking a bus, minivan, or truck together over the pass to a town on the other side called Li.
At 4PM we all rode over to the bus station and talked with the one bus station employee and two people who just happened to be there catching a bus to somewhere. All three of them knew a little bit of English (amazing) and all four of us knew a little bit of Thai (even more amazing). Eventually the bus station guy called someone with a truck and he came to talk with us knowing no English at all (not amazing at all). But we agreed on a price for tomorrow morning at 7:30 and he would pick us up at our hotel. We were all thrilled but it was a mystery as to what kind of vehicle we got ourselves into. I was picturing an open pick-up truck with the four of us all huddled together with all of our panniers and four bikes piled up around us. But maybe I'm living in the past when stuff like that commonly happened in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. We shall find out in the morning.
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lovebruce
Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km)
Total: 405 miles (652 km)
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