Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding...

[Lightcycle]

After playing around the the tea fields, we turn back south towards the main road to Mae Hong Son.

Did I mention the smoke here is really bad?

This is not farmers burning their fields, this is just the Thai way of maintaining the grass by the side of the road. We saw this in Latin America as well. Saves them from having to cut the grass.

Shortly after this picture, I lost my blue point+shoot Nikon somewhere on the road.

I usually carry a small camera in my tankbag on my GS, which I can quickly bring out and stash while riding. That's how I take all the riding shots. However, here in Thailand, I didn't want to buy an expensive tankbag for the Honda, so I picked up a cheap bumbag which I use to keep the camera in. When I'm done taking pictures, I just drop the camera into the bag and leave the zipper open.

The bumbag is not as secure as a tankbag, and as I was riding I could feel the camera come out. I swear I thought I saw a flash of blue bouncing behind me in the mirror, so I stopped the bike and radioed ahead to Neda to come help me search the side of the road.

We must have spent close to an hour riding slowly up and down a 2-km stretch of road, scanning the ditch where I thought I dropped the camera. In the end, it wasn't where I thought it was. Neda found it about a hundred metres ahead of where I originally stopped. It must have bounced or slid down the road past me!

These workers by the the side of road saw us walking up and down the road and gave us some suggestions on where to look for my camera. When we found it, they gave us a thumbs up! They were really friendly!

I took this picture of them with the camera just to make sure it still worked! Yay for shock-resistant cameras! 555!

I hate losing stuff. Especially since we don't own a lot of things, so everything we carry with us is something we use everyday. And most of our gear was specially ordered, not easy to find in local stores, even in Canada. I was soooo happy Neda found my camera!

But now you know I wear a bumbag... There are two things I swore I'd never wear when I starting motorcycling because I thought they were really nerdy: A bumbag and a flip-up helmet...

I will voluntarily turn in my motorcycle key if you ever catch me wearing fluorescent yellow non-rain gear.

 

[Lightcycle]

On the way to Mae Hong Son, we saw a little bamboo park, so we stopped for a little break and to walk around

If it sounds like we stop every 25kms or so, it's because we do. It's a very leisurely ride! And those CRF seats are so punishing on the butt. Even with the AirHawk cushions.

When we first got these bikes, I was all over the Internet forums researching modifications: Aftermarket seats for more comfort, Electronic Jet Kits to coax more power out of the engine (but get less mileage), panniers, tankbags, etc. But these might not be our long-term bikes if we can manage to bring our Beemers into Thailand, so I don't want to keep throwing money at them.

I'm not to be trusted with the small camera anymore...

Neda is now the keeper of the bright blue point+shoot camera that she rescued from the side of the road

Oh yeah, here are the bamboo trees!

 

[Lightcycle]

We eventually reached Mae Hong Son. It's a fairly big city and we rode right through it, stopping only for gas and to do some chain maintenance on the bikes. Well, Neda did the chains, I just helped rock the rear wheel off the ground on the sidestand and watched from above because she has more experience than I do. "Lube the chains? Don't all motorcycles come with shaft drive these days?!?!"

Man, we need to do lots of "manual" maintenance on these bikes. No electronic oil temperature gauge, no low oil warning on the dash, no tire pressure sensor. It doesn't even tell you when you need to change the windshield wiper fluid. Our BMWs have really spoiled us...

What do you mean motorcycles don't have windshield wiper fluid? It's right here...

We're staying in a really nice resort just outside of Mae Hong Son because all the hotels in town were fully booked.

Although it may look rustic on the outside, it was so luxurious inside!

We found out at check-in that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stayed here when they visited Thailand. Probably here to adopt a Thai baby or two. There were pictures of them all over the lobby! Of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, not of Thai babies. Well, if it's good enough for Angelina, it'll be okay for us! The resort, I mean, not Thai babies. Not that there's anything wrong with Thai babies...

So this is what happens when you play with all the dogs in the resort

Everywhere we went, these hotel dogs followed us because we were the only guests to play with them and pet them. Neda's working on a new cross-stitch, BTW. I'm still pretending to work on the blog.

But really I'm doing this.

 

[Lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/286.html

After a couple of restful nights spent in movie-star luxury, we're back on the road today. The plan is to forge ahead south, parallel to the Myanmar border towards Mae Sariang. Although this could be considered the "back straightaway" of the Mae Hong Son loop, zooming in on the map of the road reveals that it's anything but straight! More twisties in store for us! Yay!

Packing up and saying goodbye to Angelina and Brad's place

In Thailand, we're able to afford more luxurious accommodations than pretty much anywhere else in our travels thus far. So when we take advantage of this and splash out on a fancy resort, we really want to milk every dollar's worth and not leave the premises. "Come back'ere Doggy! I'm not finished petting you!!!" We felt just a little twinge of guilt that we didn't venture outside the grounds to visit the actual city of Mae Hong Son. We just rode right by it the day before. Not even sure if there was anything to see there!

I think maybe we should stay in lower rent places. More incentive to get out and explore! 555!

Heading south out of Mae Hong Son

Stopping to admire the beautiful mountains in Mae Hong Son province

 

[Lightcycle]

About three hours directly south of Mae Hong Son is the small town of Mae Sariang, which is where we'll be spending the next couple of days. On the loop, it's located on the diametric opposite corner of Pai. Not many tourists make it out this far so there's a more authentic feel to the town, however we have to use sign language a lot more because English is spoken less here.

I kind of like that. Neda... not too much. She speaks so many languages so well that when she finds herself somewhere where she can't communicate, it really throws her off.

Me, on the other hand, since leaving North America, I've had three years of experience not being able to understand anything being spoken around me, so I'm totally used to it by now!

For the first time, I have to give Neda lessons on how to communicate - albeit like a two-year old: Sign language. Single-syllable words. Talk SLOOOOOWWWWly. As I'm dispensing this helpful advice, she looks at me the same way I look at her when she says, "We should go for a hike"...

Our little guest room right on the Yuam River

If you are pre-booking a hotel in Mae Sariang, you have to remember the exact name when you roll into town. Because most of the hotels and guest houses are located beside the river and *ALL* of them are called "River" something: "River Inn", "River View Resort", "River House", etc. Even now, because of our non-existent Thai, I'm not even sure if we're in the right hotel... But it has a balcony so we're not leaving this place!

Watching the sunset from the balcony of the River-something hotel, which may or may not be where we originally booked...

We wake up bright and early the next morning. Big plans for today. We're going to spend the day off-roading in the Salawin National Park, just outside of town. Neda did some research and she forwarded me some great-looking trails. There should be some amazing scenery in the park! And we've finally got the right bikes to do it with, so we're pretty stoked!

Passing by the early morning corn fields outside of Mae Sariang

Not sure you can see it because of the haze of The Burn, but there are actually mountains in the distance...

 

[Lightcycle]

Before we left, we stocked up my topcase with lots of food! Neda is preparing breakfast by the side of the road just outside the entrance to the park

I think our route for the day is just over 100kms of dirt trails. Normally we're getting about 200-220 kms between fill-ups on the road on our CRFs, which is about half the range of our BMWs! Not sure what our dirt range will be, hopefully a full tank should get us back into town? If not, I'm sure there will be an interesting story to tell at the end of the day...

A Buddhist Temple, I think it's Wat Huai Pho. Not many people make it out here, so there are no pictures on the Internet for reference

Running with the bulls, Thai-style! I hope Neda's red jacket doesn't give them any ideas...

The road into the park is fairly well maintained until it hits the Thanlyin River, which denotes the border between Myanmar and Thailand. As soon as we hit the river, the asphalt beneath us devolves into a gravel road. We turn southwards, running parallel with the Myanmar border, passing many Karen villages situated on the cliff overlooking the river.

I'm so surprised how close we are to Myanmar and how there aren't any controls at all preventing us from crossing the very narrow river into a (another) military-controlled country.

Passing many Karen villages along the Thanlyin River

There are a few 50cc scooters that travel between the villages. They negotiate the rough roads effortlessly. As we pass them, they stare at us in bewilderment as if questioning: "What are you doing here?" Not in an unfriendly way, just more curious. Because we stop and take a lot of pictures, these scooters eventually catch up to us and as they pass us while we're snapping pics of (what they probably think is) nothing, they can't stop staring at us the whole time. Probably more at Neda...

I wave to one of the passing scooterists and he flashes me a toothy grin. Well, mostly toothy, he was missing a few teeth in front!

 

[Lightcycle]

Hey, I guess we don't have to worry about gas!

We found an automated gas dispenser inside the park. Since our tanks were already pretty much full, we didn't bother to fill up here. I'm going to assume there are others as we venture further into the park...

Looking across the river. That's Myanmar... Just a short water crossing and we're in a different country... hmmm...

In one of the villages, a tiny chick has imprinted on Neda's bike and is following her around. So cute!!!

Curious kids probably wondering, "What are they taking pictures of?!?"

 

[Lightcycle]

Gorgeous scenery here, despite the haze

My GPS only has the road to the river, so as we followed the Thanlyin southwards, we were now off the map.

Glancing once again at Myanmar. I can hear the wheels turning in Neda's head...

Passing more villagers

 

[Lightcycle]

We're not going to cross into Myanmar. We're just too straight-laced for that kind of mischief, but we are feeling a bit adventurous. So when we find a path that leads off the gravel road, we decide to explore a bit. We're now totally off any marked roads on the GPS, so I have to keep my eye on our mileage and which direction we're headed in. If it looks like we're straying too far away from the main road and we're at half-tank, we should turn back, or risk running out of gas. Speaking of which, I haven't seen any of those automated gas dispensers in a while...

I think maybe on our next off-road run, we should carry extra jerry cans.

Our dirt road descends quite a fair bit into the valley

This is a proper full-on dirt road now, I wouldn't even drive a non 4x4 vehicle down this steep, narrow descent. I have to modulate the rear brake to regain grip as we slide down the slippery slope. All the while I'm thinking, "Is there another road at the bottom that brings us back up again? Or do we have to turn around and do this gnarly climb uphill?"

Over a km of sliding down and it's looking like the way is devolving into a foot path that someone hacked away the trees on either side with a machete. We're going to have to turn back. Ugh.

The hill climb wasn't that bad. Better than sliding down. So glad we have these dirtbikes!!!

We take another dirt path that climbs up onto the ridge of a mountain range - spectacular vistas on both sides as we clear the forest!!!

Posing at the top of the ridge. We have absolutely no idea where we are right now.

I zoom zoom zoom all the way out on the GPS. We are directly in the middle of the park heading generally eastwards towards the main road again. The gas situation is okay, not dire. As long as we keep heading east without any detours, we should make it back...

 

[Lightcycle]

The dirt road where we came from

I kept the GPS zoomed all the way out as we traversed the path we were set upon. Further ahead, we came to a fork in the road. We made an educated guess as to which way was out, but a few kms later the little arrow on my GPS suddenly pointed southwards. We were headed deeper into the park!

Now this was an awesome dirt road, the scenery was great and we were having a lot of fun. But I was still worried about the gas situation, so we turned back to the fork and took the other way. We're close to half-tank and it's the middle of the afternoon. It's the hottest time of the day right now and the red dust has stuck to everything, bike, clothing, face... and as I found out on one stop: the lens of my Sena Prism helmet camera was blanketed with dirt...

Damn, how much footage did I lose?

Oh well...

I radioed Neda and informed her that if we hit half-tank and it doesn't look like we're headed to the main road, we should turn around and retrace our steps. Kilometer by kilometer, we slowly inched eastwards on the empty field of the GPS screen. And then finally, a line appeared at the top edge of the screen, we were close and headed in the right direction!

Made it back to Mae Sariang. Plenty of daylight and gas to spare. Just a bit dusty is all...

Rough map of our route for the day...

Maybe I worry too much, but I think if we're going to go exploring like this in the future, we should come better prepared. Extra gas at least...

But it was soooo much fun! I don't think we're in love with these CRFs, at least not yet. But today, they've grown on us a little bit!

 

[Lightcycle]

And, I managed to salvage some video from my point and shoot, and also the helmet cam from when I remembered to periodically wipe the lens:

[video=youtube;BLmyr2vehdc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmyr2vehdc[/video]
In the first few seconds of the video you can see how helpful the GPS was! 555!

 

[gcrouse]

Truly an epic journey!!!! I'm sure im not alone living vicariously thru you two on this trip !!!When will you be returning to Canada ? Gary

 

[Riceburner]

You need tear offs for your cam....lol

 

[MacDoc]

Excellent fun ...CRFs are wonderful durable bikes but limited range. Spare fuel a VERY good idea.
BTW Garmin has a custom app for Thailand for - off line for SmartPhone.

The smartphone app was custom designed for Thailand. It works fine, though entering addresses can be a bit dodgy, city, town and landmarks (hotels, shops etc) are easily found
Does all the usual gps tricks like lane suggestions, upcoming turnoff warnings etc.
Out in the country even dirt farm tracks are marked.

Both english and thai options. Best 20 bucks I ever spent.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/garmin-thailand/id524258843?mt=8

I suspect there is an Android version.

•••••

Just reading Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels with his adventures in the 70s around the world. When is your book coming?

I see you skirted the MyaMar border...any concern with that?

 

[Lightcycle]

BTW Garmin has a custom app for Thailand for - off line for SmartPhone.

Yeah, we have the Garmin maps for SE Asia, they are not as good as the Open Source one:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/17.9125/97.7905

The maps are continually updated by contributors and between the time we did the trails and today, they've already started charting out some of the dirt roads in the park that we rode.

Completely routeable, lots of waypoints that are current - hotels, restaurants, gas stations... And the best part is that it's free!

Just reading Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels with his adventures in the 70s around the world. When is your book coming?

Haha! You're reading it right now!

I see you skirted the MyaMar border...any concern with that?

None as far as we could see. I don't think the Thai or Myanmar governments really care too much about the hill people that live on both sides. When we entered the park from the Thai side, there was a checkpoint, so I think if we had exited the park on the Myanmar side, there would have been some 'splainin' to do...

There is no way you can take your own personal vehicle into Myanmar without arranging for a government-approved guide to accompany you (more like make sure you don't venture into military-sensitive areas). It's a similar regulation in China and North Korea. So we'll do that some other time when we're more organized.

 

[Lightcycle]

When will you be returning to Canada ?

Other than to visit, I don't know if we will settle back in Canada.

It's funny, after the first year of travel, we still considered Toronto home for us.

Three years in, we came back for my brother's wedding and found that the ties to the city have weakened somewhat. It was still nice seeing family and friends, but we were way more critical of the cost, the congestion, the winters, etc.

I think no one place is going to be absolutely perfect, but since we're constantly on the move anyway, it doesn't hurt to try on a new homebases for size. After spending almost half a year in Thailand, we found we really like it, especially Chiang Mai. I think we'll try to make a go of it here for a while.

But that's just a thought for the far future. Still many more places to see right now!

 

[Lightcycle]

You need tear offs for your cam....lol

Wonder if they make VR46 ones...?

 

[Lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/287.html

We got the phone call!

The Honda dealership called us while we were in Mae Sariang and told us our license plates had arrived! Finally!!!

Packing up and heading straight back to Chiang Mai. In the morning, we met a F800GS rider in our parking lot.

It's very rare to see a big bike here in Thailand, much less a BMW GS! I felt like a local, eyeing his beast of a bike. How does he filter through Thai traffic on that thing?!? He also seemed curious about us, probably because we had just as much luggage on our CRFs as he did on his GS! Unfortunately he didn't speak much English so we couldn't really have a full conversation, but through sign language and pointing at the stickers on his bike, he told us that he had just participated in the GS Trophy, an international off-road competition hosted by BMW. This year, it was held in Northern Thailand. BMW Riders from all around the world took part and our new friend represented Thailand.

Very cool! I wish I spoke Thai. We were all bursting with questions for each other, but we all ended up smiling and shrugging and wishing each other a pleasant journey.

Went straight to the dealership. We're legal in Thailand now!!!

So we kinda rushed through the last part of the Mae Hong Son loop. Didn't take a lot of pictures, but it was more of the same... twisty roads, jungles, scenery, scenery, scenery... you get the idea. We just wanted to get back to Chaing Mai to pick up our license plates so we could go exploring South-East Asia!

Not to say the Mae Hong Son loop wasn't awesome. Neda did an amazing job planning our route and we rode it in *only* 10 days! Just to put it in perspective, most people manage to complete the loop in 3-4 days, so our lackadaisical pace is about on par with the rest of our trip! 555!

I've finally derived a formula to calculate how slow we travel: What's the longest anyone has ever taken to travel this segment? Multiply by 2.5. That's how long we'll take...

 

[Lightcycle]

Booked a nice AirBnB place on the outskirts of Nimman

It's too expensive to rent our old apartment just for a few days, they'll only give you a deal if you're paying monthly. But we're not planning on staying very long in Chiang Mai, so although we're not right in the middle of town, this will do for the short-term. Neda and I were discussing our future plans and when we move to Chiang Mai, we'll probably try to sign a long-term lease with the old Nimman apartment, we like it that much!

The Mae Hong Son loop was a good test run because now we've discovered a few things we need to fine-tune and change up before we head out into Asia. And not just with the bikes.

Ever since we started our trip back in 2012, I've suffered on and off from bouts of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It usually flares up after I climb back on the bike after an extended period of not riding. I've successfully kept it in check with wrist splints but unfortunately I've left those behind with the majority of our stuff in Europe, so now we have to buy a new pair in Thailand.

I really hate spending money on stuff we already own, but it was very hard to anticipate what we needed when we flew from Croatia so many months ago and we just couldn't bring everything with us...

While we're town, we find out that there was a hot air balloon festival happening

Unfortunately they launch the balloons to coincide with the sunrise, which means I have to drag myself out of bed in the early early hours of the morning. Since I normally go to bed around 3-4AM, I just stayed up a few extra hours. Problem solved!

It's pitch black as they unroll the huge balloons out on the field. The burners start to fill the envelopes just as the horizon starts to brighten

 

[Lightcycle]

This cat balloon is my favorite. It made me laugh every time I looked at it. I have 300 pictures of it. I won't post them here.

Filling the envelopes is a two step process, first a huge fan blows cold air to partially inflate them and the burners are used for the last little bit to force the balloon to rise

Okay, here is another Cat Balloon picture.

Neda is a morning person. There won't be any pictures of me in this entry...

It's with a bit of envy that I watch these hot air balloons floating up to greet the rising sun. I wish that we could be in those baskets looking out to the horizon.

It struck me that these balloons were like the natural evolution of the Yi Peng lantern festival that we saw when we first came to Chiang Mai almost four months ago. Staring up at these hi-tech lanterns, it made me reflect on how comfortable we are in this city. Comfortable enough that within a week of staying here, we knew that we would want to try living here full-time.

It also made me think about all the "almost" places we considered moving to over the last four years - La Paz in Mexico, Medellin in Colombia... Although they were all in countries with very foreign cultures and languages than where we came from, these cities were very middle-class and westernized, that we had no problems feeling at home there.