Long weekend in Northern Thailand for Ashley’s birthday weekend. We headed to the airport Thursday after school. Right after we surprised Ashley with our trip shirts! Shout out to sweet Ella for helping me hack Ashley’s “Big Ash Trip” file and helping me with creating the design.
First stop Chiang Mai. We got our car at the airport and headed to the hotel. Mel and Lindsey were going to drive the car for the weekend and Ashley and I were each getting motorbikes.
Friday morning we had breakfast at the hotel then headed to pick up the bikes at Tony’s Big Bikes. Ashley had reserved our bikes under her name. When we walked into the shop the guy told us he was expecting a boy named Ashley… not 2 girls. Ha!
We got helmets and some health insurance coverage and we were off. Headed 3 hours north to Pai, Thailand.
Ash and I had some troubles finding a gas station on the way out of Chiang Mai so we got a bit of a late start. Mel and Lindsey were well ahead of us. Then… we had a run in with the police. There was a road block and of course they made Ash and I pull over. I don’t have an international license, or a motorbike license. Option 1: The man told me I needed to drive 20km back into town and pay a fine before I could keep driving. Option 2: Pay that man my 500 Baht fine and be well on my way. Option 2, check.
The road to Pai is known for its 762 curves. The drive was absolutely beautiful through the mountains and small villages. The weather was perfect, warm but not too hot.
We stopped along the way for some pictures and then stopped about halfway for some coffee. We met some other riders that had driven up from Malaysia to Pai. They were much more hardcore than we were.
We made it to Pai, met back up with Mel and Lindsey and went for some food. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to relax and unpack a bit. Mel and Lindsey had arrived a bit before us and when they checked in the front desk knew it was Ashley’s birthday weekend. They asked Linds and Mel if we would eat dinner there that night so they could give Ashley a cake. What! How did they know? The three of us were talking and came to the conclusion that the hotel was on top of it and noticed her birthday when she gave the hotel her info while booking the rooms.
We had some dinner while playing our favorite card game, Cheyenne Rummy. After our food had settled a bit out came the cake! MMmm, the most delicious cake any of us had eaten in Thailand.
We were telling Ash the story of how nice the hotel was and how they had known it was her birthday weekend. To our surprise…though this really shouldn’t have surprised us… she said that she had told them it was her birthday when she booked the rooms.
Not as cool of a story.
In the “additional comments” box she wrote: ‘Coming with friends for my birthday weekend. Any special accommodations would be appreciated.’
Oh. My. Gosh.
After a night full of cake and cards we went to bed. Saturday morning we got up and headed to the Farm. Our hotel had a farm about 3km up the road so we stopped in. There were some goats and a couple alpacas with really bad haircuts. We did though, get to walk around the farm with these cute umbrellas.
After the quick walk through the farm we headed to the Pai Canyon. Not really sure how this place is so open to the public, or how more people don’t get hurt here…. Maybe I’m just a sissy. The cliffs have no protection, it just straight drop offs on both sides! AHHH.
The canyon was absolutely beautiful. Mel and I were too scared at first to try anything… getting across this tiny walkway was enough for us.
Then Mel and I decided we would be really mad at ourselves if we didn’t try it. We went the opposite direction of Lindsey and Ash… the path was a bit wider our way.
After the canyon we headed for lunch at a beautiful hotel with such a great view of the valley. Played cards and relaxed for the afternoon.
We decided we would do some adventureing and look for a Geocache…. a real life treasure hunt. There is a phone app that you can download that tells you of all the geocaches in your area. You have to follow the clues to find it. We hopped on our bikes and in the car and headed out for a drive.
And we drove.
And drove.
And drove.
For what seemed like 5 hours until we finally decided to give up. Unfortunately we never found the geocache, but we did run across this fine tourist attraction…
Roadside hot spring geyser.
We also had to do a stop for Yak crossing.
That evening we went for dinner and headed to bed early since we had to make the drive back to Chiang Mai in the morning.
We tried to get an early start back to Chiang Mai but it was raining. We instead did some morning shopping. I got some new tie-dye to add to my collection.
The rain finally stopped and we headed out. Lindsey had bought us some ponchos just in case it started raining again on the way. Thank goodness she did because about an hour into the drive we pulled over for gas and it started pouring rain. Yikes. I must say, I think I have mastered the basic skills of driving a motorbike. I drove through the mountains, 762 curves, in the pouring rain. Boom.
We made it back to Chiang Mai in one piece, no scrapes or bruises.
We turned in our bikes and Mel and Lindsey came to pick us up in the car. We grabbed a late lunch and then headed to the Sunday Market.
This market had such great stuff. There had a lot of things that I hadn’t seen in Bangkok. I went a bit crazy and ended up with a bag of things bigger than my backpack.
We headed for the airport to return the car. We all made it! Road tripping through northern Thailand for the win!
Ps. This was Mel’s first time driving in 3 years. I say she did pretty stinking good!
Motorbike things I learned from Ashley:
(This was obviously her idea. “Karen make sure you add some bullets about the things I taught you so your parents know I am a ‘safe friend’”)
- Always wear a helmet. A full head helmet, not a helmet that is cute. Also make sure the helmet has a face shield that can open and close. You will want to keep it closed while driving or A: your eyes will water like a crazy person or B: you may get bug juice on your face.
- Always wear long pants, preferably jeans. They are ticker and in case you take a tumble you wont get gross road rash scars like you would if you were wearing shorts or active wear.
- Always wear long sleeves/a jacket. If not, you will get nasty road rash if you fall, bug juice all over you, or a bad sunburn. It also gets chilly up in the mountains so a jacket is always nice.
- Close toed shoes are a must. You want to keep you toes around if you take a tumble.
- To start your bike you must hold the left break while pushing the start button….don’t try holding the right break. Ashley didn’t teach me this, the guy at the gas station did because Ashley drove off and left me.
- Your bike wont start if your kick stand is down.
- Wear gloves. I forgot this import rule on the drive up and the tops of my hands were the color of a tomato.
- Always break with both hand breaks.
- Listening to music is OK. Only 1 earphone so you can still be aware of the cars around you. Sing loudly, because nobody can hear you with your huge helmet.
- Finally, its okay to mildly freak out when you realize that 100km/hour is the same as 62 MPH and that’s how fast you went for part of the drive.
Tulsa to Thailand 