At the border with Laos

After a few days of postponing, that turned into a whole week, we finally got our stuff together and started cycling.
It was hard to leave our new home and friends and especially the climbing routine, it needed to be done after all, we are here to ride! We spent our last days at Jao's and family hanging out with Miquel, Iris and Aifei, what a laugh! Just when we thought it wasn't gonna be the same anymore after Enio's and Ben's departure...
Right away everything worked as planned, mountains, through the districts of Chiang Mai, into Chiang Rai and Lampang to Phayao and now Nan, following a beautiful road i was familiar with and riding again on the amazing roads 1148 and 1097 through misty villages and hills. I mostly done this route last year but the opposite direction and i must say i found it much easier this time considering we are only cycling since 4 days and leaving early is not our speciality...
 

As usual the first hills of Chiang Mai felt the hardest but i know they where not, after we got the Chance to spend a day in the city of Phayao, small and nice with a long walk along the big lake where Thai tourists like to take pictures and sit by, eating their dinner and looking at the sunset.
The day after we started going up the mountains, a whole day up and down, mostly up really. The villages got smaller and the sun was going down and we where running out of options...so we pulled our favourite card, camping at the police station!

Phayao beautiful lake.

What a name for a bar...

Our first horror hotel!!!!
Hanging in the lobby drinking our nasty instant coffee.

At the small village of Ban Hae, Mr. Suthash, welcomed us and sorted us out by letting us pitching our tent next to the police box,just by the road, showed us a restaurant where to eat and sat down with his friends eating salty fish and drinking whisky.Through the whole evening he was coming by the camp checking on us, exchanging some world making less and less sense the more whisky he had, by the time i was going to bed he could only smile and say "Ok!, Ok!"
I though the cars might give us trouble sleeping, but not, no cars on that road, instead at an outrageous hour in the morning, something like 4 A.M. we could hear the whole town just outside our plastic walls laughing and talking about this two crazy Farangs.
It was a very nice feeling to ride on a road i already knew, it didn't matter how hard we had to push or where we had to camp we knew that sooner or later something good will appear.
Our destination now is the border with Laos in the north of the region of Nan. Continuing cycling on the memory trail we stopped once again in the amazing guest house of Thung Chang, visiting Marco and Dao (the owners) and staying up late hanging out drinking beers, even eat home baked focaccia bread!
It was worth it but not exactly a good idea because the day after we had some more mountains to face to the border. I remember it to be hard, from last year, when me and Stine did it return in a day with no load, but me and Serjio did pretty good too, left at 9 right when the sun starts to be hot, once again great planning, on the other and nothing is worth giving up your morning coffee!!! Got at the border at 2, smashed, and had lunch and a nap before facing customs.
Around 4 o'clock we where in Laos.

Got to Ban Hae.

On the right the small police box where Mr. Suthash let us camp.

Mountains, great views but what a killer!!

Nasty roads on the way to Laos.

Thailand - Laos border.

Our home in Mae On

Leaving Inter Hotel

Left Chiang Mai behind and all the chaos that comes with it, after some intense experience at our favourite place, the "Inter Hotel" which we only reveal in person, one sunny morning we loaded our bikes, said good bye to the last remaining of the group, Zosia, and took off towards the small village of Mae On.
The ride took no time and after getting a bit lost we reach destination at 12 just in time for a nap in the shadow around the market before sort out practicalities such as place to stay and most important where to get coffee.
Everything got fixed fairly fast, took us a long detour around town and hot springs to find out that the best location was right in front of the crag we where gonna climb.
Here we got really sorted, better than expected, with a little house, living room, toilet, and two double rooms, one for me and Serjio and the other one for our housemate Enio, an Italian man. The place has two more Thai style wooden houses with a great terrace in front. There is also a camp yard where our friend Ben lives. No need to say, strictly climbers.

Crazy Horse Buttress

We planned to stay a week and already two passed by fast, at the crag, called "Crazy Horse Buttress"  climbing is great and at the beginning we found hard to take a rest day.
Many walls, and every morning our climbing team meets at the restaurant at the guest house craving for our fried rice and anxious to get to move as soon as possible. That's the idea anyway, but most of the days the mood is so relaxed that we get a bit lost chatting or making a plan about the day. We manage to be at the spot by 10 anyway and the choice of shady routes is pretty big allowing us to climb till sunset taking only short brakes.
The mountain is made of limestone with crazy rock formations impressive to climb, stalactite, stalagmite and a couple of caves that offers great climbing during the hottest time of the day, one of them is actually called "Windy Cave" and the route right out of it "Air con Wall" due to the fresh air blowing out of the cave.

Te amazing house.

                                                               

Climbing gear hanging everywhere

The fine art of "palomoing" left over chalk.

Climbing over a cave.

And climbing inside a cave.

Our new friend Ben posing for a post picture!

Climbing at "Heart Wall".

Some crazy rock formations going on in this place!

 

Some nice resting between climbs.

La cabeza e Serjio Garcia.

Going for a multi pitch adventure.

Getting ready at pitch 2.

The head of expedition.

The crew is climbing up

The top of the climb, standing in a tiny space.

From the top, all secure an preparing to go back down.

Safety madness going on up here.

Finally on the top.

Ready to get down.

A long descent.

The route 2014

So everybody, here is the first attempt of a plan we made one night, very tired after a whole day climbing.
It turned out to be some 2500 km to be cycled in two months, well, so far we are very comfortable here in the small village of Mae On outside Chiang Mai and the only thing we are thinking about is climbing, eating and sleeping.
As usual i tried to ride as close as possible to the border, for some sick reason i love that, and chose the smallest street i can find. Part of the route is the same as last year so we decided to shortly cut through Laos to see something new and renew our visa on the way.



Visualizza Bike Tour 2014 in una mappa di dimensioni maggiori