P100
RIDE REVIEW I THAILAND MOTO TOURS
Day 02
Day two had us leaving Mae
Sariang City and going straight
into the Salawin National Park,
and at this point, if you didn't like
water crossings, you might as
well head back to Chiang Mai.
During the next six hours, we
traversed well over 100 of these
crossings, every rider soaked
to the skin but with smiles so
wide cheeks genuinely started
to hurt. The riding wasn't overly
technical, but when crossing
water on motorized, handlebar'd
machinery, one must exercise a
large degree of caution and con
-
centration. The water crossings
were
interspersed with massive
sections of soaked red clay
tracks, meaning you really had
to be on your toes lest you go
flying over your handlebars with
a wedged front wheel, as Jasper
gracefully did.
Brian had a treat for us on
day two. As we gently rode into
another tiny jungle town, we
took a sharp right under a gate
and rode right into a school,
where the kids were all stand-
ing there waiting for us.
If ever
you need to perk up
your faith in mankind, a visit to
a remote school such as this
will make even the most stone-
hearted of riders blush. With
big curiosity and even bigger
smiles, the kids surrounded the
bikes, and although we couldn't
understand them, sign lan
-
guage about the different parts
of
the bikes and what they did
seemed to suffice.
An hour later, we were back
on the bikes, the kids all waving
and cheering us goodbye like
some kind of dirt bike rock
-
stars, and we headed northwest
to
the gorgeous rural city of
Mae Hong Son that borders
Myanmar. Mae Hong Son is a
throwback to old Thailand, a
land of farmers and markets
and religious purity, and is
home to the Shan and Hmong
tribes.
Mae Hong Son is an ex
-
tremely mountainous region,
and
we got a perfect view of
the city the following day by
getting up at dawn and riding to
the stunning Wat Phrathat Doi
Kong Mu temple. Completed in
1872, the temple pays homage
to the Theravada sect of Bud
-
dhism and was registered as
an archaeological
site of Mae
Hong Son province in 1979. If
your cultural cup needs filling,
this is the place to do it as you
sip a sunrise coffee from the
onsite café.
The stunning little tourist town of Pai at early morning.
