Day: TheDay: The Fourth To Seventh Part Fore

So the next morning April and I made an executive decision; one more night in Chiang Mai because we wanted to ride up the highest mountain in Thailand which is close by. We booked another night here at Vanilla Place (well why not? Its very close to everything that we want, walking distance to food, the old town (a Nigel aside:, in the centre of Chiang Mai, there is the remains of the wall of the old walled city. Its really big and must have taken a huge amount of time and effort. The old wall enclosed 1.8 sq kilometres and on two sides its over 1 km long. There were gates in the middle of each side and a stepped series of moats the whole way around. The steps were because, although it's a regular rectangle, there is a very noticeable slope down to one corner. This is helping my navigation because the corner closest to our hotel is the lowest corner. The wall was about four metres high, and at least that thick, made of solid laid brick, not earth and brick or stone and earth like many European castle walls. I have no idea how many bricks went into it, but it is at least hundreds of millions. There's no rock nearby so bricks it was. There's lots of ordinary businesses inside the old city but a lot of tourist-based businesses too.)

Anyhooo, we think a ride up a big mountain is the go for the day. We find our way around the moat to the diagonally opposite corner and up the slope we go heading for Doi Suteph. Its a gentle but obvious uphill that slowly becomes steeper. It goes from three lanes down to two (but bare in mind that lanes are a very nominal concept here) and starts to get very twisty. Great riding road, but masses of traffic heading up hill. We ride in a veritable swarm of bikes, pretty much all about the same as we are riding. There's about one car, truck or bus for about 20 bikes. The reason there's so goddamn many people on the road become apparent after we get about 2/3rd the way up and stop at a small settlement for coffee. There's an important buddhist temple here and this day (friday) is a religious holiday. We wander around the temple, two of thousands walking, photographing, eating, watching various school/religious groups performing, ringing religious bell assemblies, and praying. I must admit to doing very little, if any, praying.

We head on uphill, and immediately the road gets more narrow and the traffic disappears. Before too long, the road is only 1 1/4 lanes, with dead leaves on the edges and vines draping the road. It starts to rain as we get to what seems like the top. There's a hexagonal shelter so we run out of the monsoon rain and prepare to wait out the downpour. Soon two other bikes also stop and an interesting three way conversation grows between the young Thai couple of university students, April and I, and French guy who is unusually defensive. I didn't even mention the Rainbow Warrior! It was also a bit of a surprise to me to find out that this was not the tallest mountain in thailand... Oh well, it was a great ride and the 20 Baht

lunch was grand.

April had had enough as she was wet and, for the first time in weeks, cold. We headed down and the rain eased. Two throw-away plastic ponchos were purchased from a roadside shop, and home we went.

Getting home, we realise that there is plenty more that we want to see and do in Chiang Mai, so we cancel the next hotel we have booked and extend our stay at the Vanilla Place. Nothing is too much problem for the owners.