Neda takes the time to put the last few cross-stitches into her pattern


Voila! It only took six months to complete!!! She's so proud of it!


Doing what I do best: nothing.

Our houseboat has no Wi-Fi, so I have a lot of time on my hands to organize all the pictures I've taken in Thailand and jot down a few blog posts to upload when we get back to civilization. I'm slowly getting caught up!


In the distance, we watch oxen graze by the edge of the lake

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

In the distance, we watch oxen graze by the edge of the lake


Our houseboat has kayaks that you can take out into the lake


We go shopping for another houseboat

Neda and I take one of the houseboat's kayaks out and we paddle out to the opposite shore to where we saw some of the nicer houseboats. We've only booked one night in our current place and we thought we could knock on a few doors in person and see if there are any vacancies. Then maybe we could switch for the next evening. Is it bad of us to use their kayaks to shop for a new place to sleep?


Well in the end all the nicer houseboats in our area were fully booked up, and the other ones
were of the same quality as ours, so we decided to stick with the one we have and stayed another night

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Neda says hi!


Watching the sunset on the lake. Very relaxing.


The light show from our room in the houseboat

As the sun sinks below the horizon, we stare at the lights from the houseboats across the lake reflecting off the water. But what really captivates us are the the fields on fire on the hills around the lake. Burning season has become much more vivid at night-time. This is what we'll have to ride through in the next few days!

Fun times ahead!

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

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On the longboat back to the shore, I keep squinting at the shoreline trying to see if our bikes are still parked behind the huts. Neda is shaking her head at me.


*phew* Still there!

We're heading back to the Mae Hong Son Loop. The road to Pai (B on the map above) is the twistiest stretch of the Loop. Glen had told us that there was heavy construction all the way to Pai, but we decided to brave it. Glad we did, because it looks like all the roadwork has just finished. Aside from a few construction vehicles and some piles of dirt by the side of the road, it was smooth sailing!


Still a bit hazy though

The terrain starts to get more mountainous just west of Chiang Mai and on that 150km ribbon of freshly-paved road, there are 762 glorious curves! We're getting a bit more comfortable on the 250s, even leaning them into the corners a little bit! Still have to be wary of oncoming vehicles crossing the line - two wheelers are definitely second-class citizens on the road in Thailand! We wind the Hondas up and shoot them up the steep climbs, negotiating a combination of tight switchbacks and 4th gear sweepers, passing hordes of farangs on scooters. Pai is a very popular farang destination.


Along the way we stop for water breaks, to take in the scenery and of course... pet the stray dogs

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

The landscape around us consists of mountains, wild jungles and farmer's fields


Loving the Loop!


Just outside of Pai, we stop for lunch. No, not bacon... Burritos, actually. And Neda stops to pet more animals

Pai is very westernized. It's been popularized on a lot of TV shows and movies lately, so it's built itself up as a major tourist draw in the area. Tattoo parlours, bars with live music, burrito places... Not really very Thai...


A neat bridge we passed on the way into Pai

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Pai is a funky town, lots of hippie places to eat and hang out in

We don't spend too much time in town. Too many farangs. We are actually staying 40 kms further west in a tiny village called Soppong, which is basically a line of shops and stalls in a cluster less than a km across. If you blink while riding by, you'll miss the village entirely! From what we saw of Pai riding through, we like this a lot better!


Passing more fields on the way to Soppong


Our accommodations for a couple of nights, right on the Soppong River! Beautiful!


The real reason why we are staying here. Neda: "Where are your dogs? I would like to pet them now."

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Walking around the Soppong River, our little inn above us


A missionary baptizing some hill tribe members in the Soppong River. The indigenous people here are predominantly Buddhist





Trying to catch up on the blog. Or watching some motorcycle racing...

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

We were told that there was a morning market in the village, so we walked outside to buy some fresh fruit


From the style of dress, I think this woman is from the Lahu tribe

There are many hill tribes in the Northern Thailand, the Karen are the most well-known, but other tribes like the Lahu and the Lisu also live in this area. On certain days, they set up stalls on the main road through Soppong and sell food and arts and crafts.


Of all the things in our travels, I am the most drawn towards anything depicting indigenous history and ways of life

We are staying in Soppong for a couple of nights, so the next afternoon we ride back into Pai to visit some of the sights that we passed the day before. The road between Soppong and Pai is nice and twisty, so we totally don't mind spending a half hour on the bikes shuttling between the indigenous hill people and the hippie farangs. Having said that, we did drop into a vegan Belgian Waffle place for lunch in Pai...

Dread-locked, Birkenstocked, Granola-Farangs are a tourist attraction too!

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Just outside the waffle place, is Wat Phra That Mae Yen, otherwise known as White Buddha on the Hill
Speaking of which, our Hondas *used* to be white as well...


From the top of the steps by the Buddha statue, you can get a pretty good view of the area surrounding Pai


After the White Buddha, we rode over to the Pai Canyon to hike around a little bit

It's not a very big place, just a few raised ridges of reddish rocks that snake around a valley full of green pine trees. We came around sunset, which turned out to be a great time to take pictures as the rocks were glowing with a nice colour and the temperature was not too hot that we could walk around without dying of heat exhaustion.


Some places you had to scramble up and down the ridges. Fun!

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Taking a break from hiking


Brave Neda out on a ledge


On our way back to Soppong, we come across some more temples


The sun is getting lower, so we say good bye to Pai

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Great seeing the photos of Pai Canyon, its been awhile since I was there
all the best
Wayne

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Our days on the Loop are quite lazy. Sleep in, then start off with a nice and late, relaxing breakfast at our inn, watching the sparse morning traffic pass by us. Then mosey on down to the bikes in the parking lot to pack up for the day's ride, which is probably going to total less than 150kms. We probably won't leave till just before noon! Today, we're heading further west towards the actual city of Mae Hong Son today.

The rhythm of packing up, moving on, then unloading the bikes is quickly becoming familiar again, like muscle memory.


See those memory muscles flexing? Definitely not the physical muscles...

This is version 2.0 of our pack'n stack jobs. There's a lot of movement in the luggage behind us while riding. The bungie cords and bungie nets just aren't secure enough, so we ditched them. Good thing I remembered that we brought Rok Straps with us from Europe. We love these things. They cinch down nice and tight and nothing moves behind us now!

I like that our bags don't make our bikes wider. We're really getting used to filtering past stopped cars in traffic and big panniers wouldn't allow us to do that as easily. Although we both still miss the comfort and power of our GSes, we love how we are able to squeeze and maneuver these smaller bikes in the tiniest of spaces, in traffic and also when parking.


The haze of Burning Season obscures the distant treelines surrounding us

Although the twistiest part of the Loop is behind us, there is still enough entertaining curves in the road to keep our throttles happy, as our motorcycles cut their way through the dense jungles of NW Thailand. The temperatures up here in the mountains are perfect for riding, we just need to talk to someone about this damn haze!


Before heading south towards Mae Hong Son, we turn off onto a northbound road and head towards the Myanmar border

We're going to pay a visit to a small village called Ban Rak Thai. Neda read up about it and told me that it's a Chinese Tea Village. Neda is a tea connoisseur, so we have to go and take a look around!

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

As we ride into Ban Rak Thai, we do a quick tour around the town's reservoir which they've turned into a little lake called Mae Sa-Nga


Although not a big tourist destination, one of the larger resorts in Ban Rak Thai has guest houses lining the hill with tea plants all around them


One of the larger shop/restaurant/hotel in town


Taking a stroll around the reservoir

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

There are Chinese writing and decorations all around town!

Ban Rak Thai is not that large, about 1,000 people, most of them of Chinese descent. They arrived here shortly after the Chinese Civil War which ended in the 1950s. The previous ruling party in China was ousted from power and fled to Northern Thailand. Some of them set up in the mountains around here, and the biggest trade back then was running opium and other drugs across the Burmese border.

Nowadays, tea is what Ban Rak Thai is famous for, drawing tourists in to sample the brews from different tea plants that grow in the area and also to eat some Yunnan food in the restaurants, brought down from the south-west region of China.


Tea stores and restaurants make up the majority of the businesses in Ban Rak Thai


Neda is perusing all the different types of tea they sell in the stores. They are packaged like bars of soap!


Walking by the up-turned curved-roofed of some Chinese-styled buildings. I think these were built just for the tea tourists' benefit though...

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

We did have lunch in a Chinese restaurant, then later walked down to the shops to sample some tea


The lady who worked there gave us some free samples!


Okay, let's go riding! These crops behind us are tea plants


Riding around the tea fields, we are just a few kms away from the Myanmar border!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com