A jump into China

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.

The market, next morning.

Everyone, tents included is half of my height.

Eating soy jelly at one of the stalls.

One of the snacks we got, steamed palm nut cake.

The gate in Arunothai.

On the way to Phrao, another amazing mountain range...

But most of it burned down, at least this time we could breath.

The passage on top of the range was between two mountains.

Riding through the limestone mountains, enjoying the view but on  a flat road, could it get any better?

Temple on the way.

Another amazing detour

We made it to Chiang Rai, loads of things to do in the city, practical things, laundry, update the blog, clean the bicycles, find a new route south...Not even in the city yet and i had the feeling i was entering another world while riding on the highway, huge, four lanes packed with trucks, buses, cars and scooters, beeping and stinking all around in a four lane road where everybody is fighting to get forward.
On the other and i was thinking of all the good things, mainly food, vegetarian restaurants, coffee shops and maybe a beer!!! everything in a walkable distance from the place we sleep...Wow!
To avoid more raving around for hours looking for a place we chose to stay at the same spot i stayed the year before, a cheap and quiet guest house close to the centre.
It was kind of shocking to be around all those tourist once again and the feeling of being social disappeared pretty fast, at least for me.
We tried to be active and went for some bike rides around the area with maps we got at the tourist information, really nice routes, secondary roads to temples and along the river.
To this add a lot of vegetarian buffet and five days where gone!
Made a plan about the new route, send a post and avoided the very lone traveller hanging around in the yard of the guesthouse and the bikes where loaded and ready to go again!

The Kok river that criss Chiang Rai, during one of our active days we follow it  upstream.

A suspension bridge to cross over the river, it looked  crooked but the locals rides their scooters over it!

Cows hanging under gigantic water trees.

We chose as destination, a little city west of Chiang Rai called Fang but couldn't find any straight way there so we had to be back on the main highway number 1 heading north, same way we came in basically , through hell. Music in our ears and steady pace we made it to the turn off on a minor road very enjoyable to ride on.
Soon realised that was the right choice, rolling among the hills, and the many villages attracting buses and minivan from Chiang Mai to visit the hill tribes from the area as if it was a real life zoo. I didn't even know, many towns names i read outside tour operators offices in the city, where actually here!And sure they are very well signed so it makes it hard to miss them.

The silliest sign for hill tribe watching pointing to the middle of the action...and there's even a seven eleven!

Entering another valley towards Fang.

Tha Tong, we just passed by, and Fang , where we ended our day after 107 km, surely left us with the feeling of  coming back as being great spots for a rest day and exploring the surrounding areas.

A great moment in driving history...

The gate at Tha Tong, nice town along the way.

Ban Pha Lak and down to Chiang Rai

On top of the first climb, between  Chiang Klam and Song Kwae on a minor road (nr. 1097). We hadn't at all expected  an uphill like that, but guess it made "the wall" much easier going the following day.

Same same as above. The little yellow dot on the road is Stine.

Small Hmong village we passed on top of the crest, stopped for a deep fried banana snack and some small talk with the locals.

Second climb of the day, just outside Song Kwae, was fairly easy compared to the  one we faced earlier on.

The downhill we are about to enjoy, leads down  to Ban Pha Lak.

Ban Pha Lak is a nice village located in a valley at the feet of a mountain.
It's kind of a surreal scenery up there, a chunk of flat land with some limestone hills in the middle (reminding a lot of southern Thailand) all of it surrounded by some strange shaped mountains in the background. It was amazing to ride through!
We knew we would not find accommodation or a police station there, so we aimed for the hospital which was a couple of kilometres out of town.
A teacher from the village attended us and showed us around the place that looked completely abandoned. Of course in such small towns, the rumours spread fast, so once our welcome guide left, two more people came by and felt like sorting us out, better than the person before: the first one, a man on a scooter, showed us the toilets all over again, opened the kitchen and told us to help ourselves with water from the fridge. He also offered  us a room inside the hospital, but we turned the offer down not to be too demanding.
The third visitor, topping up, was a woman working as a massage therapist at the hospital. She told us to pack up our tent quickly, cause there was no way we where gonna sleep under a roof at the open air, a storm was coming and the temperature was gonna drop to 20 degrees - so cold!! She quickly opened up her massage workshop and sorted us out in there, we had water, toilet, beds and even couches and table to turn our evening into a really comfy experience! What to say..those Thai, they did it again!
The room was filled with big insects, but the mosquitoes, as usual where the only annoying ones, so we ended up using the tent anyway.
For some reason, nights during a bicycle trip just fly by, so after what seemed like 4 hours of sleep, but really it was 10,we where awake and ready to go.

The valley where Ban Pha Lak is located.

We drove a bit around "town", well actually it was little more than one road, but you get the idea.

Our mansion for the night.

Tent is up, shower done and food consumed: time for an episode of The Wire in our new living room.

Mikis new best friend, among with the big Huntsman-spider that was living in the kitchen!

This morning we had to face the range, which we referred to in the past days as "the wall".
"The wall" translated for everybody to understand, is a 8+6km climb to the top of the mountain: the first 8km was more like a warm up, something close to a hard European climb, would guess between 6 and 10% steepness.
The fun part where the remaining 6km, which shifted between 10 and 14%. There was no other way, we had to go up, though once on the top, we both thought perhaps we climbed harder ones on this trip.
The feeling of going up such hills is really confusing to me, because the challenge and concentration is swiped away by a laugh: it' s seriously disturbing looking at the road going up and makes me feel like i lost the feeling of tridimensional view. What i have in front of me is a road painted on a wall...It goes straight up!...I mean who designed it?...Don't they know about switchbacks to keep the percentage of the road low?...I really don't get it and i just have a laugh! It just goes straight up!
The rest of the day...Nothing to worry about, we rode along the crest of the mountain, had great views from both sides and finally made it to Chiang Kham, where we spent the night at a very nice horror hotel...

Early morning start, for once, packed and ready to go at 7.30, the fog is still hanging low and the temperature is noticeable cooler than during the day,making it very pleasant to ride.

On top of The Wall, don't get fooled, i just got back up on my bike after doing some very hard pushing..

Going down into the next valley.

Views from The Wall. The place makes you feel like you are surrounded by mountains and nothing else -crazy feeling.

Actually the funniest hill came the following day. It dropped us down to a stream, then up again; if a bridge had been built between the 2 hills, it would have been no more than 300 meters long, instead, we went down a hill, that gave me the feeling that the bicycle was tilting forward, hit a flat spot crossing a small stream (felt like going over a step) and up again, this time feeling like tilting backwards on something that looked like 16% steepness! Total length, about a kilometre.

Going north from Chiang Kham-Wiang Kaen. We couldn't find any journals on crazy guy on a bike about this bit, so didn't really know what to expect. Turned out to be one of the best rides on this trip, riding along the big mountain of Phu Chi Fa.

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Here it is, the craziest uphill we ever tried, hard to capture in a picture, but damn was it steep!! Luckily it was only about 2 km long and we could see the top all along, knowing that the madness would end soon.

We didn't make it to far this day about 70km, still a good average considering the mountains, at least now we where back along the Mekong river once again, which meant no more hills for a while!
2 days after Ban Pha Lak, crossing even more mountains, we found our self riding through flat farm land and a thick fog, that opened up later in the morning, so we could enjoy the great views of the river. Feeling like the worst was behind us, we took a relaxing day on the bikes, stopped for coffee at the chaotic border town of Chiang Khong and rode along the river, trying to avoid the busy main road as much as possible.
We spent the night in Chiang Seng an old city of the Siamese empire full of ruins and a laid back feeling to it.
We really liked it but the call for the city was stronger and after the night we proceeded to Chiang Rai, terrible mistake.

RUN!!! Khum Luang Hotel, don't get fooled by the nice picture, this was the worst (and only) dumb we ever stayed at! Not even worth the 5 euros we paid. It was so bad, that even a group of young Thai kids left the premises laughing when they saw the 10 euros bungalows..Lets just say, if you slept in a place where you were scared of weather the toilet would eat you while being a sleep, you probably been to the Khum Luang Hotel.

Back on the Mekong river after some 1000 km.

Carabao, Thai water buffalo.

Back in the madness, going into Chiang Rai. A bit of a chock after so many weeks on minor roads.

Notice the nerd line..happens when you wear your gloves most of the day...and i have much worst!