Day: The Tenth

Big ride day today. We did a lap of Doi Su Thep, a big mountain next to Chiang Mai. What a ride! It had everything, city madness as we left and returned, stunning scenery, corners and hills, some serious offload trial riding, even some road racing.... And a picnic! Onya April for the picnic idea. The corner store was asking huge money for your traditional kiwi picnic stuff (imported) so we cheated and bought a foot long at Subway. There are a line of roadside fruit stalls on the way out of town so I bought half kilo of rambutan, a bunch of small extra sweet ladies finger bananas (tree ripened fruit of any description is so much better then fruit picked green) and half kilo of dragon fruit which was three fruit. Rambutan look like hairy red ping pong balls and taste like lychee only better, dragon fruit are bizarre looking, pink and even more pink on the inside. They taste quite bland, a little like kiwifruit with a hint of earthy carrot. Wish I could put up a picture.

About half an hour in, we stopped for drinks, iced chocolate for April, coffee for me. The road around the mountain is made for bikes, great surface and s-bend combinations that go on for kilometres, up and down the ridges, with towering trees and graceful bamboo, small villages, farms, banana palms growing wild and not much traffic. We stopped often and took photos, and took videos while we were riding. Around lunch time I spotted a side road with potential. It was a one lane strip of concrete that ran off into the jungle for miles. Covered in moss and leaves, it was obvious that it was seldom used and in places the bikes struggled with the steep grade. There was a loud squawk from April when a small black animal almost ran into her front wheel (probably a squirrel). We ate our sandwich sitting on the ground with only the sounds of the jungle to be heard. By that I mean there were various animal noises, and I'm pretty sure one was a distant gibbon (and not one of Mums relatives!). On the animal note a bit farther on I stopped to wait for April, and there were two elephants in the trees looking at me!

There were a few other foreigners riding bikes as this is a well known loop that's a good days ride. Most were on scooters or scooter-style motorbikes like the ones we had but some had forked out the big Baht to hire bigger sports bikes. I  stopped a few times to video April riding the bends and at one point a couple of other tourists on big Kawasaki motard-style bikes came past. For those outside the biking circles, these are big bore trailbikes with road wheels, tyres and brakes, and perfect for this style of road. They passed me at the start of an uphill section and I thrashed the little Honda trying to keep up. I made up lots of ground on the numerous hairpin bends but they had heaps of power over my little 125cc Honda Steppie. By the time I got to the top of the ridge, the bike was a bit lighter, having worn away some of the ends of the footpegs! They were about 50m in front and had been looking back at me for most of the way up. On the way up we had also passed April, with one of them carving her up going into a corner and then almost turning into her. They were trying by this stage, so I took great delight in taking both of them about a third of the way down and getting to the bottom in time to get my camera out before they got there. As they went past, they didn't even smile or wave... It was then that I saw the elephants.

A bit farther on we a sign by a bridge pointing up a walking track to a waterfall. The track looked like perfect trail riding so I convinced April we should ride it. It forked a few times and we ended up in a farm compound at one point (probably some of the hill tribe people that are fairly common around here still), but after a bit of doubling back we found the waterfalls. There was three young boys swimming in the river who were a bit surprised to see two foreigners, also swimming, but in their own sweat. April was not too keen on trail riding, even before she bounced her new "Raybans"out of the front basket and ran over them.... However she replaced them with two new pairs for about $12.

We got back, and found our hotel quite easily. We were starting to learn the street layout finally. We both declared it a fine days riding, even if Aprils bike started to fart about a bit once you got it on to the main jet. My bike was named Mona on account of the hideous noises from the back brake that startled other road users off the road, thinking a truck had sneaked up on them. Aprils was christened "Chuck", in tribute to her hero Chuck Norris.