So I have just caught up on work and time for my thoughts on the trip.
Day 1 - BKK to Mae Sot - 711 kms in 8 hours
As I didn’t sleep the night before the ride in anticipation I was already awake when I decided to get up at 4am for the epic ride ahead. The lights in my house were all turned on and not being completely with it at 4am I sent everyone a text explaining how sunny it was outside when in fact it was the glowing fluorescent lighting within my own home. One can understand the confusion I was going through...
anyway I rode past Caltex where some of the members were meeting, beeped and waved as I continued onto the main meet point PTT to have some breakfast and coffee.
Waiting already was Gerhard and Tony and immediately I was excited for the days ahead. Not far behind was the roar of the almighty Tiger, Dunder and Neil and we sped north at around 6.30am
As usual the h'way was quite uneventful as we maintained good pace towards Tak and arrived Tak at 9:30am, left and onto Mae Sot. I don’t favor the road between Tak and Mae Sot as it’s quite slippery from oil and cars seem to target my banana suit when overtaking on the wrong side of the road. I was glad to be done with that small leg of the trip.
Mae Sot, a meal some fuel and off we went to Mae Sariang. All in all a great relaxing pace with some new and improved sections of road from last time we did the trip and other parts a little beat up which could do with some fixing. I love this section of road as its quite challenging from predictable twisties to heavily pot holed mountain roads. Normally during this section it wears me down but having a good pace with Neil it was a breeze and we arrived safely at Mae Sariang to enjoy a well deserved BBQ and beers.
About 8 long necks of Heineken into our BBQ the boys arrived from Chiang Mai and joined us for something to eat and drink. It was great to have more people along for the trip, the more the merrier. Glad to have you along boys!
By this stage we needed a shower and a couple mins to relax and we were staying at the resort across from the restaurant we headed back to enjoy the pleasure of pre rolled goodness.
By this stage Dunder had already consumed 2 beers and as we later found out this was already 1 beer too many, we enjoyed some more beers at our resort before we headed out for more beers at the restaurant down by the river.
A couple of beers at the restaurant and Mae Sariang decided we have had enough beers and shut down the power to the city... This didn’t deter us so in the rain we found our way back to our resort and enjoyed some more beers in the dark until finally there were no more beers left.
Time for bed.
Day 2. Mae Sariang - CM
Most of us woke early, fresh and ready for the ride ahead. Dunder didn’t wake so easily and was in need of panadol/Tylenol to jumpstart his day. We headed to the boys hotel down by the river to drink coffee and wait for Franz and Nik to arrive from CM. Great coffee and a couple of panadol for everyone and we were off... CM here we come!
I knew the journey ahead was long and tough so my trusty side kick Neil and I took it easy ....oh I forgot to mention. Neil and I were in the "not so fast group" and we were blessed to be joined by Dunder for the day as his headache from last night’s activities were out of control. I begged the "insanely fast group" to take him back but they refused and slipped me 1000 baht for my troubles.
So off we went... me in my banana suit leading, Neil on his stealthily quite Sprint in quite pursuit and Dunder about 2 inches off Neil’s rear.
Magnificent day... great scenery, awesome riding, good company, perfect cool weather (sometimes a little too cool) and I knew we were meeting for beers at the X Centre so I was happy all day.
We stopped for breakfast in Mae Hon Song which I really love, a great cool little town with awesome nightlife, a cool culture of its own and LONG NECK women!
After a refill of coffee and American breakfast we were off again for Pai then CM.
Very challenging roads before Pai and its always wise to be cautious on the slippery descending u turns during this section. I hear the liter boy’s wrists enjoyed this section alot and I heard Dunder complaining more than once about his sore limp wrists from that leg of the journey... me? I loved it!
Somewhere between Pai and CM with Neil and Dunder in toe Dunder decided it would be a good idea to overtake his leader...me... and a few corners later I come around a corner to see Neil and his sprint and Dunder but no ninja... now where has that ninja gone? After checking Dunder hadn’t sustained any injuries I parked my bike and dived for my camera...didn’t want to miss this one for the world.
Dunder has parked his ninja down an 8 foot ditch for something different to do. Dunder Down but thankfully he was a-ok!
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Franz arrived soon thereafter and thank you Franz for controlling the situation maturely as my typical buffoon nature told me laughing was the best way to keep the situation light. Well laughing once started is not easily contained.... as you all know... so as a large crowd of Thai's so generously stopped to help the less able farang on his green toy parked in the ditch I rolled with the camera.
Dunder gave me an exclusive interview about he parked his baby in the ditch, we wiped off the mud and blew the dirt outta the exhaust and off we went again. This time Dunder kept distance and reduced pace... probably a good idea as the panadol obviously hadn’t kicked in yet.
We arrived at the X Centre wet from the rain but in good esteem from the days ride. I was especially anxious to arrive and view Dunders snorkel cam he had suctioned to his helmet when he crashed. Apparently the impact of the crash corrupted the file and so we couldn’t view his account... but don’t worry I had my own camera on the ready.
A couple of beers, a great meal and some laughs we headed into CM for a well deserved shower and 30 mins break from laughing. A couple more beers and pre rolled goodness and off to meet the boys at the Kafe for some more...you guessed it beers and laughs.
Seriously... by this point I already had an awesome trip and was in very good spirits. Thank you Dunder and everyone else for making this possible.
We decided an early'ish night was in order as we were to awake and leave 6am the following morning to leave for Loei but as things turn out this wasn’t meant to be. I really wish now I had of taking Luke up on his invite to join him at the Siamese twin’s midget bar as he had VIP membership there already.
Retired back to Tony room for some more beers and a recap of the past 2 days and some more laughs until Tony kicked me out of his room for being... well ...me!
Day 3. CM - Loei ..... I mean CM - Nan (revised leg of the trip...thanx Gerkard)
We were supposed to push the starter button at 6am but the only problem was Gerhard starter button didn’t want to work properly as his bike was suffering from lack of sufficient maintenance and wouldn’t work.
So anyway... long story short we acquired a pair of jumper cables, a new battery and off we went for our revised leg of the trip Nan.
From this point on the "not so fast group" changed name to "support group" as we carried the jumper cables for Gerhard and his VFR.
This day’s weather could not have been better! We were truly blessed to have such awesome weather, great company, nice roads in such an awesome country which living in Bangkok sometimes we tend to forget... it’s when we actually get into places like this we realize how lucky we all are to be living here. I don’t want to let this feeling go away.... I hope it’s not too long until my next trip... I want to keep this buzz going.
Amazing roads with some very fast corners all throughout the day, my partner in crime Neil was grinning from ear to ear the whole day until coming soon... his crash.
So we were coming out of a fairly fast section of road into a town and I decided to give me butt a rest and stood up as we slowed down the pace of the ride. Neil overtook me and the very next corner Neil dived off the road to plant some seeds in one of the local rice patties.
As we approached the corner I could see it had a dirty shoulder and Neil’s head didn’t turn the corner so neither did his bike. I saw his looking directly down the ditch...so guess what happened? He landed exactly where he wanted to go...down the ditch. Lucky for him he dodged the cement pylons before making his brave leap.
Neil was uninjured from his ditch experience and clearly a little shaken. Again it reminds you how kind and generous Thai people are as literally everyone that drove past and saw a bike parked in the ditch stopped to help. It took a good effort to get the Sprint out of the 8 foot deep ditch and back on solid ground. Lucky we had muscle man Tiger there to help, great effort.
We stopped nearby to refuel and shake off the experience before continuing on our way.
The pace was a little slower for the support group after this experience and I’m sure Neil took alot away from this and will learn and come back stronger next time with more experience. He will also be fluent in jump starting a VFR next time also...for that matter we all will.
We arrived in Nan and I was a little hotter than I would of liked as stopping for the VFR all day is quite tiring but it was made up for after Gerhard got the beers, food and everything else in which was very nice of him.
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We sat and watched the sunset at the river restaurant and watched the local boys practicing their paddling skills in the dragon boats. Those heavy wood boats looked heavy and we counted 49 men in one of the boats giving it their all to show us their skills! Amazing to watch and I’m sure they enjoyed showing off to us as much as we enjoyed watching them at play. Really cool... this is something you don’t see every day!
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We retired to our hotel and enjoyed a few last beers and pre rolled goodness before getting in some young grandmothers to massage our aching muscles and bones. I could have done without...no more comment.
Day 4. Nan to BKK
We awoke the next morning expecting to see Gerhard bike fixed as he had the battery on charge all night but as expected we were disappointed and we knew we were in the a long day.
Breakfast at HOT BREAD was really really good and nourishing and exactly what we need to soak up the liquids from the previous nights activities and focus on the days ride ahead. Again a jump start and we were off... but not that lucky. What seemed like every 5 mins Gerhard’s VFR was failing to win my heart and at that point in time I could care less about Gerhard feeling and I wanted his bike burnt to ashes right there and then! It was hot in the middle of the day, no shade as we waited for people to pull over the jump us.... overtake them and then break down again. Enough was enough and Gerhard ended up just whacking it ahead of us to keep revs up and made a bee line for BKK. Neil and I were left to enjoy what we could of the remainder of the days ride and made good pace towards the big smoke.
Some amazing long sweeping corners in top gear full throttle which excited me and Neil was happy also to experience such nice roads! Wow... great piece of tarmac. It made me forget about Gerhard for a moment as we powered through some nice scenic mountainous roads.
Somehow...don’t know how....: P we lost Gerhard. It turned out Gerhard broke down again and put his VFR on the back of a farm yard pickup and rode in the back with the farm animals all the way back to Bangkok. I wish someone took photos and I’m grinning just thinking of seeing him in the back of the pickup with his VFR, some pigs, some chickens and a buffalo coming to city to slaughter.
So with Gerhard out of the way Neil and I dodged the ever increasing traffic and hit h'way 32 into Bangkok. As we approached Don Mueng the faster group caught up with us and escorted us into BKK and Tony waved us goodbye at his exit as did Neil on his. Tiger and banana boy went for some more beers at the German bar on soi 11 to relax from our 4 day epic ride.
We laughed talking about the good times we had and didn’t want it to end as we knew after that Heineken we would eventually have to return home and needless to say work tomorrow...
As I sat in my lounge room smelling of rain, sweat and Heineken nothing could take away the smile from my face as I reflected on the past 4 days riding with the SSR group.
Thank you Neil and the boys for such an awesome adventure. I look forward to our next ride with anticipation.
Franz - again great to see you. You are always smiling and I thank you for your help with getting Dunder out of the ditch. You controlled the situation perfectly and made what could have been a lengthily experience effortless (probably because I didn’t help as I was too busy diffusing the situation with my laughter).
Mark, Luke and John - really cool to have you guys join us. It was good fun, a pleasure meeting and speaking with you and hopefully we ride with you again very soon. I remember Mark coming past me most times on his back wheel...amazing stuff and really impressive to watch. Luke ... wow talented rider with absolutely no fear at all. Save a dwarf for me! John, I never knew a D Tracker could go so fast...really cool stuff.
Nik - great to meet you. Great riding with you! Nice riding shoes; D I hope we get more time to chat next time.
Neil - a special thanx. Having someone travel at my slower pace is much more fun than trying to stay on the tail of the liter boys. Thanx dude, I look forward to riding with you again soon.
SSR boys - I haven’t laughed so hard and so much since our last trip together. For me, this is what life is all about. Escaping the pressures and stresses of work and everyday life, getting away and just enjoying every second we have.
See you all again soon! Thanx for the good memories.
Trent
Banana boy
