Simply cycling around
This time I found what I was expecting being a proper and real road in northern Thailand. On this picture, I’ve push my bike from bottom to top. In that case I prefer to save the belt of my bicycle than pushing so hard on the pedals and shorten its life just to say “I’ve done this”. I had to tackle several steep hills today and walked many times too but the landscapes were different than what I’ve seen until now in Thailand. I have no regret suffering a bit to enjoy more.
Last step towards Laos. In few days I will be cycling across the Mekong. I repeat myself I know, but I’m still waiting for these famous hills situated on the north of Thailand where I’m now. Effectively, today was definitely not flat but that’s because I chose purposely a little road that goes through the hills (see the map). I could have been straight to the north an avoid that but it would not be interesting. I don’t like when it too easy ;-)
Today we visited the Royal Park Rajapruek. It has several different areas like a garden, a “district” with different cultures represented by their building construction (like India, Japan, Cambodia, Bhutan, and others). This one was my favourite and represents Bhutan. It has very nice style and colours. Of course, the main attraction is the Royal temple (I don’t know if I can call it like this). Anyway, let’s start the visit :-)
Wua Lai Road is a famous street in Chiang Mai where hand crafters are specialised in silver and aluminium. The streets has dozen of shops who sell jewels, accessories and certainly coins. But I’m not here to buy coins here, but just to have a look to a special looking temple and some craft work around.
Today we finally reached Chiang Mai after 21 days cycling. We have done 51 km per day in average and stopped 3 days on the way. For this last day, we joined the Ping river again and followed it until the entrance of the city. The landscape did not change very much today. In fact, we avoid one more time the big roads which leads to the centre. Ours did the same but the road was nearly trafficless.
Mmmh, delicious day today :-) The last night at the temple was pretty quiet. After breakfast we cycled few kilometres before we stopped to visit a temple. There was another gigantic statue of one of the three famous monk from that province. After that, we kept on cycling until we reached a very nice coffee shop. We stopped there maybe 3 or 4 hours :-) Later this afternoon we travelled a bit further expecting to find a temple I’ve spotted on Maps but that time it did not work. The people from the place where we ate told us that temple doesn’t accept people to stay overnight. We had to find another place then and it was not easy…
Today is THE day! The windy, hilly road is in front of us. All we have to do is smash it! Actually it was easier than I imagined. During the climb we could even enjoyed some downhill. The steepness of the road was gentle and the traffic, a part few trucks, was mainly quiet. After two and a half hours (including break time), we reached the summit and visited… a temple, of course. Monks (and religions in general) have good taste. They always build temples on hills, close to the water or anywhere we can see them.