If it was mountains what you wanted to ride, mountains u will have to ride.

When we crossed, once again, that bloody border, the only things we had in mind
where food, coffee, pass out.

The beginning of the climb, getting away from the busy roads.

Pretty lucky we where and got two out of three, the lovely lady who made us coffee the last time was closed. When we raised from our dusty napping spot behind closed the market it was already four o'clock, at least the only thing we had to do was to roll our bikes down the hill to the village of Chaloem Prakiat, a place i heard about before but never though of going. This time was the time because we wanted to get to Nan by a different route to tick another road off the map of Thailand and this one was the only possible one, it basically runs south, along the Thai Laos border of Nan province.


That humid and cold Thai morning feed us a nice 6 kilometers uphill for breakfast, soon we started realising that we choose another amazing road, the villages where getting fewer and smaller with amazing wooden houses surrounded by a mountainous farm land, no shops or anything up there and had to earn our first electrolyte drink in the village of Ban Ku Chan, very nice and picturesque, really, whatever, i just need a refreshing drink!!!!!!!

From there we where on the crest, we had many up and downs, we where pushing through a pine forest a scenery i only saw once before in Thailand, i later found out we where over 1000 meters high. Finally a 10 km downhill lead us to a river and the 1 o'clock roasting sun made us decide to stop for lunch and a bath. At 3 pm i was pretty reborn, as last thing before jumping on the saddle i drink a coke a car driver donate me on the way up.

It' s so rewarding to get on tot of a long  up hill just to found out you have even more to do!!

I though that was it, I'm high on sugar, here is the river, probably flat all the way to Nan!
Couldn't be more wrong! 4 more kilometers uphill, then getting to the Nan river, tiny villages once again and an impressing view over the wide valley where the narrow stream was running, on the dry rice fields around it buffaloes and cows where eating the few green plants left.
Amazing road the "1081" i really enjoyed it, it felt like a jump in the past; but what a push! After lunch i lost counts of ups and downs, 1 up, 2 downs, 3 ups, 1 down, it was endless, i started feeling the fatigue more and more and the only thing that kept me going was the spectacular view and a package of coconut cookies.
We had to give it all, all the way to Bo Kluea, the roller coaster never ended, it just gives us the impression now and then.

Mountains, mountains, and more mountains, i love it!

Finally we got back to civilisation, for some silly reason more bigger villages gave me the impression i could stop anytime and have a fried rice at a road stop and all was gonna be good. The sun was going down and we still had 20 more k's to go, we entered a patch of rain forest, it got humid and cold, i really hoped that was over soon because the road was running on a slope and the jungle looked impassable, which meant, very hard to camp there.

A random poster of the queen in the middle of nowhere.

After riding for an hour in the darkness we finally reached destination, two big fires on the side of the road welcomed us, in a surreal apocalyptic view, town was so small we didn't realised we passed it and had to go back.
Found the police station and a restaurant open till late where we had the tiniest but best looking portion of fried rice in Thailand. I was really tired, bought a selection of crappy sweets and a soy milk at the shop, eat everything before going to bed.
The following morning we decided to ride back to an intersection we passed the night before to check if the village stretched along it but it wasn't.
Found a  busy shop instead which sold bottles of fuel for motorbikes and sat at the eatery in front of it and actually got the biggest portion of fried rice of the trip with an egg on top.
Ready for another day we still had to push almost the whole way to Nan; i guess this is what you get when u decide to ride mountains.

Is it ever gonna end????

The opening of the valley

Serious?!

The gorgeous valley was pretty wide, unfortunately the road
kept on by the side of the hill.

From the top of one of many mountains, it was getting dark
and no singe of town

A very bad picture of our entrance in Bo Klua.

Bo Klua, not exactly a big community.

The restaurant in the morning.

Just when we though the worst was over, a nice dirt track till next town.

Finally in Santi Suk, very close to Nan we decided to have
a coffee break at an old lady's stall,
but getting closer we realised he was a warn out old rocker
who wanted to take picture with us.