135 km: Pai to Chiang Mai aka Day16 and Days 18 and 19

When we arrived to Pai from Chiang Mai the bus service we took also rented motorbike for local use around the city. It's very easy to see Pai on a motorbike and ride to the serval waterfalls close by or even some of the elephant camps that aren't within walking distance. They also gave you the option of renting the motorbike for a trip back to Chiang Mai for 500 Thai Baht (roughly about 15 American Dollars). From the moment my travel buddy told me about this I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. How great would it be to have a "Motorcycle Diaries" experience, minus the communism, in foreign country. I wanted to take that ride back to Chiang Mai on a Motorbike and have a pseudo Che Guevara experience. So early Friday Morning I woke up and got my stuff ready and I paid the 500 Baht and took off for Chiang Mai. If i hadn't mentioned it already in the previous post, the ride from Chiang Mai to Pai was one winding rode... one that would inspire Sheryl Crow to write enough songs to make 2 albums. The ride was great. Funny how much thinking you can do while riding a motorbike 100km/h (roughly 60 mph) on a straight away and bobbing and weaving through traffic. It was a great experience. I could go on for hours about this solo excursion, but I'll let you look at the photos instead.

Name of a guest house right outside of Pai.

Cool little display.

Not mad... just determined (to not die on the road).

Pai

View from ontop of a Buddhist Temple in between Pai and Chiang Mai.

Buddhas



I arrived in Chiang Mai after 5 hours of travel. I stopped a lot to check out the view, offer a Buddhist Monk a ride, rest, and get gas. There was this sense of peace traveling through the mountains of Thailand on a motorbike. Feeling the wind and sun on my face. The Arcade Fire's Song "The Suburbs Continued" kept playing in my head long after I took my earphones off... My ride was a cathartic experience. Don't try and synthesis too much out of that. It's amazing how much you think about when you're on your own. My mind and body were exhausted that once i got got a guest house in Chiang Mai I fell asleep for close to 10 hours. And those how know me know that i never get more than 5 hours of sleep a night on a good day.

Day 17 and 18 - Jungle Flight was so much fun i did it twice.








Check out dude's glasses. Half rounded and half square frame. This guys was an interesting cat... very smart and actually had learned Thai very quickly. From what his gal pal told us, he seems to catch on foreign languages fairly quickly. He credits it to knowing several computer languages and asking questions about other languages like "How many alphabets does the Korean language have?" about a million times. Aside from his repetitious questions, he seemed like a cool cat... and a good dancer.

Enjoy!
posted by m
p.s. sorry for the long breaks in between posts. I've been back from Thailand for a little over a month and I'm still posting photos. in my defense i've been crazy busy with some projects that i will reveal very soon. so check back! tvb