This section from Chiang Dao to Mae Ai is the thirty-sixth instalment of my bicycle loop through South-East Asia from Yunnan – if all goes according to plan. Titled “Slap the Belgian!”, it is simultaneously published on Crazyguyonabike.com, where you’ll find a map with the itinerary and many other bicycle diaries by me and others. I hope you’ll enjoy.
I haven’t slept this well for a long time, possibly not since the beginning of my trip. Almost ten hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep with the aid of a small bottle of Singha beer. Only when I wake up, I realise how tired I’ve been the last few days. I suppose only adrenalin kept me awake.
But now there’s birds singing and cicada chirping away even though the sun is still in hiding behind a thick veil of morning fog. I waste two hours playing Pixel Dungeon on my phone – best done when surrounded by only nature – and shaving and clipping my toenails and wringing the morning dew out of the clothes I’d hung outside to dry.
The landlady informs me that there’s a market on so I decide to take the road through town, it joins up with the 107 later anyway. I know myself: when there are too many people, I usually quickly push on, only to calm down when I’ve passed all the food stalls. So on my way to the market, I stop at a noodle stall and have a bowl of broad rice noodles. It tastes suprisingly good, but the bowl is tiny. I see an old man in front of me ordering two different bowls, so I figured I should do so too. The other bowl is equally small, but looks like egg-wheat noodle with crispy fried noodles and chicken, topped with raw veggies. I’m more or less satisfied and both bowls only cost 20 baht.
Market day means massive traffic jam. I can hardly park my bike to have a look around so I content myself with a peek from the roadside. There isn’t much interesting on sale: t-shirts, caps, herbs, fruit, the usual.
I start daydreaming about visiting a market where I can find something truly unique. I guess those days are over since the Industrial Age, and most of all since Made in China. From inside my ivory tower, I pity the tourists that visit markets all over South-East Asia, admiringly pawing trinkets they will be able to acquire at the next market in the next country or, simply, at the next stall. My dream is to find a beautiful and wooden Chinese chess set, hand made and previously used, for a bargain. Fat chance, as hand made is now expensive, and mass-produced the norm.
Waking from my day dream, I find myself on the 107 again, lustfully eyeing coffee signs. I’ve only 2 km on the clock but I already allow myself a break. While the grandpa manning the coffee stall puts on a pair of spectacles to call his daughter who will take my order, I dive into the fridge which holds Magnum ice cream. I play some more Pixel Dungeon (stupidly addictive, this game) while I sip on a deliciously strong ice coffee.
When I can no longer procrastinate, I hit the hills. They’re not that bad as people have told me – perhaps I’ve not come to the real thing yet. It’s undulating at first and then there’s one big hill as the road squeezes itself between two national parks. I check the altimeter and note that the highest point is slightly over 700m.
Traffic is not so bad but still very much present, and almost entirely consisting of four-wheeled traffic. The Toyota pick-up seems to be Thailand’s favourite private car. It annoys me so I put my earphones in and listen to Vietnamese Rock&Soul and Khmer Pop from the 60’s to soothe my brain and drown out the car noise. I can’t help but think that I enjoy riding in China and Vietnam more, if only because everything in Thailand seems to be made for tourists. There’s something… too slick about this country.
Something I do like about Thailand, is the availability of cheap water. By the roadside, water dispensers collect rainwater and purify it through reverse osmosis and ultra-violet treatment, and you can quickly fill your bottle or bag for 1 baht/litre. As bottled water goes for about 10-20 baht per 1,5 litres, this saves money and a lot of plastic refuse.
Having passed the nature reserves, the road widens again and drops me in Chai Prakan, a which is really a never-ending chain of villages along the road. I get hungry but I don’t see anything I like – mostly because I have no clue what’s on offer: everything is written in Thai. Finally, I decide that I’ll just have to take my chances and stop at a roadside eatery where attractive-looking pieces of meat lay dripping on the grill.
No-one knows what I want, and neither do I. So I just point at random stuff, and get papaya salad, sticky rice and a piece of chicken. The chicken, rice and papaya salad taste good, but when I spot a pair of pinchers I can’t help but retch – have they snuck in a scorpion? Fortunately, I see it’s crab and I quietly set it free in an empty plate. I have also pointed at another woman’s dish, but they apparently decided that’s too much for one person to handle and the dish doesn’t show up. Perhaps just as well, I feel pretty stuffed.
A second stop is at 7-eleven for a KitKat, some coffee drink and a coke. I consume while inspecting the bike for mechanical problems. When I leave, my stomach is upset. It feels like I have to puke, but after keeping it down for a few kilometres, everything seems to be fine again. Maybe there was mentos in my chicken.
I was originally going to stop at Fang but I pass the place more or less without noticing, so I head on to Mae Ai, 25 km further up the road. I also pass that place without finding a hotel and end up riding to the only English-language signposted guesthouse, something something Garden Hotel. At 300 baht for an air-conditioned room with my own bathroom, that’s not too bad. Yesterday’s views were more impressive, though.
At 7pm I feel hungry and decide to hit the town. I decide to try whatever I can find and order a bunch of things that I couldn’t identify even if there was a light. The woman refuses to sell it to me. “Pet”, spicy, she says. I say that pet is quite OK for me. A discussion between the people present ensues, featuring mainly the words pet and falang (westerner). I order a glass of Thai whisky to give the (false) impression that I know what I’m doing.
The food isn’t bad but seems to consist entirely of wild ginger. The other dish I got was a soup with some piece of animal in it. It wasn’t the meat. Rather some kind of cartilage or even fat and other organs. I have no clue, as I couldn’t see anything. Fortunately, enough sticky rice is served so I can keep my cool. It’s not enough so I decide to ride a bit further for more food.
This time I end up at a guesthouse that I haven’t spotted when I came up this way. I ask for the menu but to my disappointment they only have clay hot pot so I decide to go for beer only. The waiter is very nice/takes pity on me/is embarrassed about only having clay pot and brings me a complimentary plateful of fried pork fat, a great beer snack. When it’s time for the bill, he says “65”. “Sixty-five,” I repeat. “Eerrh 60, OK?” he pleads. I thought 65 was a bargain – bottles at 7-eleven in BKK cost more. He reminds me of Manny in Black Books nervously bargaining his buying price up instead of down.