The day started normal enough, a bit cloudy but with no rain, so we started on the easy 100 km run to Mae Hong Son. Feeling we had lots of time we took a short detour to visit what could be described as the mini-Bryce Canyon of the area. The valley of Pai must had been an intermontane basin filled with hundreds of meters of alluvial sediments. The basin was then uplifted (or a new drainage outlet was established) and the basin fill was deeply eroded to form a net of steep canyons separated by narrow sharp ridges along which the adventurous traveler can move "floating" over the jungle landscape. Pretty but scary.
Getting back on the road we saw, for the first time in days, sunshine filtering through the foliage. Oh, my word, riding under sunshine is such a fabulous feeling. The road was dry, the curves were just right, and we much enjoyed what we though this last week was going to be all about.
Outside of the Valley of Pai, which look radiantly pretty, we entered a karst terrain marked by tall limestone pillars, broad sinkholes that have expanded to form broad valleys that embrace colorful peasant villages, and of course any number of caves. We chose to visit the cave called Than Nam Lod, literally the cave a river runs through. Maybe not on the scale of the subterranean rivers of Mexico, but a pretty neat phenomenon where a good size river is lost into the entrails of the mountain just to come back to the surface a kilometer away. The cave one visits is a shelf above the level of the current river, but clearly was carved by the same river at a higher stage. It was a very wet cave, so the formation of stalactites, stalagmites, columns formed when they meet, and stone curtains was very active. Unfortunately the road was very slippery, and I lost my balance once and got muck all over the seat of my pants, after which Pat had to lend me his strong shoulder to prevent further mishap.
We continued our spectacular ride, thinking foolishly that we were going to have a full day of dry riding, when our fortunes suddenly changed. The road went through a narrow cut in the mountains that acted as a wind tunnel, so all of a sudden we were faced with very strong head winds, backed by an ominous wall of very dark clouds. Branches were flying all around us, and we had to think hard about keeping our balance. We were riding about two minutes apart from each other, with Pat in the front, Karen in the middle, and me last. Karen then spotted a black dog sitting right in the middle of the road, as dogs tend to do here in Thailand where they think they have the right of way. So she slowed down to go around the dog when CRASH, this tree came down across the road and hit right in front of her, right where she would have been had she not slowed down for the dog. When I got there, two minutes later, she was still hyperventilating at the narrowness of her escape. Traffic was of course interrupted, but in a few minutes there were a group of men wielding machetes and hacking at the branches of the tree until it became light enough that with the combined efforts of all of us we were able to shift the tree to the side and continue our journey.
Then the water spout hit, and in no time whatsoever we were drenched to the bone. Karen and I passed Pat, who had stopped to put his poncho on, but after a kilometer or so were stopped by another enormous tree that had been torn by the wind and laid across the power lines and the highway. Out came again the machetes, but this was a big teak tree and was not to be moved until cut with a chain saw and dragged with a truck (which eventually is what happened). Motorcyclists are not as patient as that, so several pioneers just took up a small trail upslope, cut across the top of the tree, and then slid their way over the mud on the other side. We were a bit slow to follow suit, so by the time we went for it the track was a sea of mud where both Karen and I slid wildly but managed not to fall.
Another 30 km of rain riding finally brought us to Mae Hong Son, where we reached the Crossroad Guesthouse and warmly cheered Karen on her many accomplishments. When we started the ride she was a rookie embarking on her first long-distance motorcycle adventure. Now, with over 1800 sharp curves to her credit, and having faced monsoon rains, muddy tracks, and a close brush with death by a falling tree she is one savvy rider. And throughout all of this she never lost her smile! Brava!
To wrap up an exciting day, our hostess Pom, a petite Thai woman, offered a cooking class that would enable us to prepare our very own Thai dinner. We jumped at the opportunity, together with a Dutch family with two kids, and under her direction prepared a tasty cucumber salad with egg, a tom yum soup, green curry, and a pumpkin stir fry. We were at best sous-chefs, in charge of peeling, cutting and dicing, but she went through every step of the process, adding a squirt of this and a dash of that until the right flavor was reached. What a fun fabulous dinner to celebrate a crazy day!
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