12/19/12

Moving on

Finally it was time to leave Cave Lodge. Unfortunently my start was late, around noon, you'd think after my late night in Mae Hong Son I would have learned my lesson. But anyway, the first bit of my trip was dirt roads up to the north and east, parralleling the border with Myanmar/Burma.

I got a bit turned around in a tiny village in the hills and a guy came up to me and pointed me the way to go. Then after finding out I was from the US, he responded "Barak Obama!" It's amazing how small the world has gotten that I was in the middle of the jungle and he knew the name of our president.
The road was techincally two lanes but due to the rainy season there were mamoth rain ruts. In some places more like rain sink holes. Thankfully the scooters had already blazed a bath and I followed their route as best I could.
In some places there were go arounds that were particularly fun.
However this got me in trouble once because it was a foot path go around and ended up too steep for my bike with very low knobies... I'm sure I could have gotten it if I took another run but I was being good... You know, responcible.

As the saying goes, it's much steeper than it looks.
You have no idea how much I have become to treasure signs that include the Roman alphabet script.
I got out off of the dirt before dark but there was no way I was going to make Chiang Rai. I ended up crashing out at a Resort called Rim Doi by Chiang Doi.

My experience with a "resort" were less than positive. They first tried to put me next to the bar that had loud live music going until 12 am. Then after being placed far away from it, I had noisy guests wake me up around 1 am and then later another group around 5 am. A pretty place but I was a bit spoiled going to sleep to the sound of the stream, crickets and cow bells.

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