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P102 RIDE REVIEW I THAILAND MOTO TOURS and tarmac roads as we wound our way south, skating the out- skirts of Chiang Mai into lunch at Samung. We were all pretty knackered by this point. Four days of al - most dawn-to-dusk riding, much of it technical off-roading that takes it out of both your body and brain, had taken its toll, but as we rode into our digs in Mae Win for the night, there was a little surprise in store. Within 10 minutes of ditching our bags at the resort, we were in the back of a truck tray and driven to the Mae Win Elephant Sanctuary, where we were greeted by the head of the sanc - tuary, Kikki Bee, and a 17-day-old baby elephant named Hug Koon (which is Thai for Hug You), who spent the first 15 minutes hiding behind her 40-year-old mom, Mae Wong (Mother Wong), be - fore coming out to play with the riders for a good half hour. cruised into the divine tourist town of Pai, with its charming city center off-limits to motorized traf- fic. This is southeast Asia at its best: tiny shops, street food ven- dors, bars for days and a general good-time vibe put the perfect full stop on what was an exception- ally gnarly day's riding. And the fact we all had a hammock in our little private bungalow on the river to chill out in made it all the nicer. Day 04 After the intensity of day three, day four dawned thankfully a little later, and as we rode out of the bungalow digs in Pai, we had a rather sedate ride ahead of us. Day four was more a transport stage than a flat-out blast, one where we could take in the scen- ery at a sedate pace on easy dirt were all amateurs. Off he went, back into the same handlebar- wide, helmet-high wet clay single track we'd just hit in his flip-flops without ever missing a beat. To say we felt small would be an understatement. From that embarrassment it was wide open through the jungle, bouncing off little berms with the endorphins racing so hard it's a wonder no one's helmet flew off. As said in On Any Sunday, "the best fun you can have is to go riding with your buddies," and this was never truer than in the second half of day three. Up and up and up we rode, higher and higher, un - til we got as close as we could to the Myanmar border. From where we stood, the Burmese soldiers in their guard towers would be able to reach us with their .50 caliber sniper rifles, so it was perhaps a little risky to hoist the drone, but whatever, you only live once. Having survived all that, we The road riding was just as good (and in some cases better) than the off-road riding. Chiang Mai's country roads became one big supermoto course.