Life Behind The Thunderdome: 04/12/13

We took a rest day in Fang, not because we where tired, but because i read on the Internet that the steepest uphill in Thailand, is actually not too far from here and right on the route we planned to do. No way we could get up there with loaded bicycles.
Instead i decided to face the climb on my own the day after, just to see how worst it could get compared to what we already experienced, i mean, "the hardest in Thailand" its a hell of a statement!
They where right i must say!it was seriously steep but not too long really, around 10 km climbing all in all, very hard to do in one go without stopping.

Very hard to capture how steep this is on picture.

View of the peaks of Doi Ang Khang

...And a downhill.

My sugar and oil shot at the market
once down the mountain, great to keep the mood up
and the joints lubricated!

Stine on the other hand, took the day to visit the hill tribe market happening in town, we met later that afternoon and i was seriously tired, we only had time for some munching at the market and was time to go to bed.
It didn't happened so easily, a sort of celebration was going on at the temple with music and some sort of local gambling games, where you had to bet on an animal pointed on a wheel or on some dice and hope for best, the locals where going wild and didn't look like they mind to be cheap with their bets!
The day after we tried a smoother approach to the mountain, got a secondary road further south, Fang is rather fresh at dawn so we had to wear extra clothes most of the morning till the sun warmed us up.

Getting out of Fang early in the morning, freeezing!!!

It was very hard to have a view of the mountains ahead, the humidity is so high, it covers everything in the background, but the mountains where still there, yes they were!
Already the first town at the feet of the climb, had a very different character from the usual Thai stile, the gate , the houses and all the banners hanging outside where all written in Chinese.

Gate of the first Chinese village at the feet of the mountain

From the middle of the first climb looking over the village, the high way is just 5 km away and already invisible.

So misty everywhere around here it made it hard to take a clear shot of the landscape.

This side of the mountain was just as steep as the one i faced the day before, but at least much shorter and the view certainly unbeatable, going through the bamboo forest and the many plantations of winter fruits, strawberries and passion fruit, of course, we where there at the wrong time. This area use to be one of the big productions of opium back in the days, actually the only crop for the hill tribes since it grows easily and turns into a lot of money. Later in time, the King started a plan to change the production into organic winter fruit that could be sold to health shops and fancy hotels and restaurants and ensure the growers could make a living out of it.

Having lunch at a checkpoint with the military.

First they invited us to some grilled fish and when we told them we were vegetarian they brought us whatever they could put together, nice gesture anyway.

The gloomy landscape of the area.

Many more amazing mountains at the horizon
but invisible until you got really close to it.

Later through the day, the ride just got better and better, we got close to Burma and on the top it looked like we stepped into another world, we reached a plateau, surrounded by limestone mountains and spiky rocks sticking out of the fields.
Finally we made it to the lost town of Arunothai, a border settlement, where i was thrown back to Yunnan in China from the so many similarity. We found a guest house, of course total Chinese stile, where you can roll the bike to the door, and had a walk around, the staring was at it's highest level, you can really tell not many tourists makes it up here!

Outside Arunothai and the sign for the guest house, one and only,
better get the directions right because there will be no more ahead.

Gray and dusty town.

Unexpected lake in the middle of town.

Burma, over the mountains in the background.

The Arunothai Guest House Drive Trough, not much walking to do to get to bed.

The morning after, ready to go, the owner of the place told us to go and see the market, we couldn't find it the day before so we just thought we looked in the wrong part of town, sounded odd when town is two roads... We followed her indications and ended up into one of the usual fair markets randomly happening along the road. Once again, i had China in my mind because of the many products i tasted there and are not really sold in Thailand usually.
We stock up on goods for the day and watched the amazing happening going on, taking our staring revenge at the wonderful hill tribe dresses the women wear for special occasions.
Full stomachs and full panniers we rolled down the mountain towards our next destination, a town called Phrao north of Chiang Mai still trying to avoid the main highway. Thinking nothing could beat the nice ride of the previous day we had a nice one again crossing a range, most of it was sadly burned down, i wondered how nice it could had been before but seems like this is the way it goes during the dry season.