So I slept through my alarm, and managed to get out on the road a little before 8. As I left the place I noticed that the guy who’d been playing WOW or something like it the previous night was still at it. He was there almost every time I came back to the guesthouse.
Getting out of Chiang Mai was a bit of a ride, with traffic, at first, and then a stretch of sprawling, unattractive commercial buildings. But once I got past that stretch, and into the countryside northwest of the city, it was really quiet. Only the occasional other vehicle, little town or isolated 5-star resort broke the peace of fields, forest and countryside. I saw a coffee shop, and decided to stop for breakfast. They didn’t really have food, but I had the best mocha latte ever. I bought a package of cookies, and kept on going until I got to Mae Sa waterfalls. I paid the admission (again, special foreigner price!) and parked. I wandered up past the first little falls, which was really peaceful that early in the morning, and found a nice rock to sit on in the middle of the river. I ate the cookies, and then headed upstream.
Don’t read this paragraph unless you’re somewhat interested in the technical side of photography! Some of the falls were situated in the direct bright sunlight, and even though the Canon G7 has a built in neutral density filter, I couldn’t get a slow enough shutter speed to blur the water as much as I wanted. But by using my sunglasses in front of the lens, and recalibrating the white balance, I managed to get a couple shots that were not too bad. I also got a few where you can see the sunglasses frame, but hey, nobody’s perfect.
After that, I rode out in a big loop west, south and back east towards Chiang Mai. The road got very windy, with some steep, sharp curves, but as there was rarely any traffic, I had no issues. I really didn’t take as many pictures as I would’ve if I was walking, I think because I was just enjoying the riding. I may have to go and get a motorcycle license somewhere (try not to worry too much, mom)! The only minor problem with riding was that I got nicely sunburnt on my arms and the backs of my hands. As I came through the Samoeng valley, I saw a sign for some kind of SDA church or school, but didn’t stop.
I got back to the main road south of Chiang Mai in the early afternoon, and headed a bit further south, just for the heck of it. The main road was pretty boring, so I turned off into what was a small village. I was hungry, and out of water, so I stopped at a small roadside restaurant. I say restaurant, but what that means is that there were various cooking pots around that looked like they had food, and a few tables. The woman spoke no English, but I looked in the pots, saw something like green curry, and asked for that with rice, and water to drink. The curry was a bit weird, with what looked like the ribs of a very small animal (hopefully chicken…) and other assorted bits of bone. I was expecting a bottle of water, but it came in a glass, and I thought “probably shouldn’t drink this,” but drank it anyway!
After that, I headed west and then north back to Chiang Mai. There were some really nice peaceful roads through some small villages, and until I hit traffic outside of Chiang Mai, it was really nice.
When I got back, I was pretty tired from the riding, so I went to the massage place next door and had a Thai massage for an hour. After that, I had a regular massage for an hour. Total cost, about 600 baht. The Thai massage was good when she was applying pressure, but the stretching really didn’t do much for me. After the massage, I went (completely relaxed) to the coffee shop, and had a nice mocha and a couple of fantastic desserts (chocolate macadamia nut brownie and orange chocolate mousse if anyone’s interested).
In Chiang Mai, there’s a night bazaar just outside the central city area. I rode over there, eventually found parking, and wandered through. It mostly consists of cheap souvenirs and name brand knock offs, but it was entertaining for a bit, and I did find some reasonably priced souvenirs (although I probably should’ve bargained harder than I did). After that, I headed back and called it a night.
No comments:
Post a Comment