World Adventure

Mae Hong Son 2

After getting over the shock of arriving in a tiny town and a couple of days to fill we decided that we couldn't just sit around the room watching movies. We found that the trips offered were unappealing we decided to hire a scooter and see what we could find. Only concern was that neither of us could ride a motorbike. We sent caution to the wind and hired one. It was a pretty cheap deal really. The 125 cc semi automatic scooter cost 240 baht including insurance per day to hire. A quick rundown on the workings by the rental company and off we went...well very wobbly and very slowly as I hadn't ridden a scooter before. So we got our motor running headed out towards the highway armed with a photocopied map of the area in search of the fish cave. All going well until a red light in town and I realised that I hadn't figured out how to change down gears. Not such a problem when  travelling at 35km\h. We putted away slowly winding through the smoky hills and discovered that it doesn't take long before your backside starts going numb. So we were relieved to arrrived at the fish cave which was only 16km away from town. It was early in the morning so no other tourists were around. We didn't really have any idea of what to expect and were pleasantly surprised to find a clear river filled with large blue fish that originated from a cave. Fish cave. An old lady was selling lettuce in a bag for 20 baht for feeding the fish and we amused ourselves for a while and then amused her by getting her to put on my polaroid sunglasses, look at the fish and then move her head from side to side. She was so pleased she gave us some lettuce to feed the fish for free. There were bamboo pipes in the water flow that filled and emptied making a pleasant hollow tap each time. The only down side was that there were sandflies and we didn't have any insect repellent.

We hopped back on the scooter ready to go and then I realised that I didn't know how to start it. Oh well. Press the buttons one by one and hope that something happens. Phew it started. Ok. I decided it was time to get serious and adjusted the mirrors and become familiar with the workings of the scooter. We got going and I practiced changing up and down the gears, working the indicators, horn and starting and stopping. Still it took a while to get the hang of things and we hit some very windy roads as we continued along at our cracking 35km\h pace. Standard uniform for riding so we had teva sandals, light pants, top, sunglasses and helmet. The scooter was really working hard and could barely climb some of the hills in 2nd gear with both of us on board. We made it only to have to go down a just as steep windy and hill road on the other side. Eventually we had to stop and pulled up for a break at a covered area on top of a mountain as we could no longer feel our backsides. It was starting to warm up as the temperature was expected to be 38 deg C so we were glad to have packed a large bottle of water.

We kept on travelling along and came to coffin cave. Vanessa waited with the scooter and I went for a look. Must have been intuition as it was quite a climb to get to the cave but inside was quite interesting as there were some 1600 year old teak burial coffins. It wasn't long and we were back on the scooter. The sun was really intense and I realised that shorts were not such a good idea and was glad to be able to roll down my sleeves to protect my arms. It was a long ride but we found a turnoff to a hostel that we were intending to visit called caves lodge. We were getting a little hungry and found a shop and bought some seaweed biscuits before continuing. A crow like bird with beautiful bright blue on it's wings landed on the road in front of us. It flew off before we could get a photograph. When we got to the hostel I said there was no way we were going to stay there. It was really isolated but also quite near the famous lod cave so we headed down for a look. The cave is 600m long and you can take a raft through it but we didn't have time so just sat at the entrance with the music from the cows with bells nearby. A quite impressive cave. I read later that there are numerous caves in the area and many are much less touristed. The owner of the caves lodge is a well known Australian caver so maybe no way should be maybe one day! I was really torn about whether we should go but Vanessa convinced me that there were some better caves in Malaysia.

Time was pressing and we had a 80km ride back to Mae Hong Son. So we got cracking but soon ran into a problem. We hadn't noted which was the direction back to the main road. Too many choices. We committed to a road which was unfamiliar but actually turned out to be correct. We made a dirt crossing due to some road works and I found that we had no power. Turned out that I was standing on the foot brake while trying to go up hill. Can't have done any good to the scooter clutch and we found on hill climbs on the way back that we needed to sit in first gear to climb. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Well at least my gear changes up were getting smoother. I was getting more confident on the way back to Mae Hong Son and could ride at 60km\h. We found that we needed to stop quite frequently on the way back as our backsides became numb more quickily. We took a detour to look at a wat which we didn't end up finding but instead found a troup of monkeys coming down from the trees and bamboo for their afternoon forage on the ground. Nice. Eventually we got back and were glad to get off the scooter. I think it cost us about 300 baht in petrol. So our day outing cost us about AUD$20. Not bad at all.

Vanessa was pretty sore after the ride. Not so good on the back as you would expect.

Next day.

We headed out to look for a long neck village near the Burma border. Our trusty map had no topography indication and we found ourselves climbing a very steep hill indeed along the way. There was a waterfall along the way and again there were large fish in the pools below and we also spotted a metallic green dragonfly sitting on a rock nearby. Back on the scooter and up we kept going into the jungle. It was so steep that Vanessa had to get off the scooter as it could not carry us both. I don't think the japanese ever expected a 125cc scooter to be carrying 2 westerners up a very steep hill in Thailand when they sat down to designed it. We got to the top of the mountain and decided that we couldn't be bothered going out to the village which was only another 10km away and turned around.  I think the brakes on the scooter now are suffering the same as the clutch. We were hoping that they didn't give out on the way down. Our plan B was to head to some thermal mud baths but it didn't look open and the 70 deg C water of the main pond didn't seem appealing in near 40 deg C temperature so we just took a few photographs and watched the bright pink dragonflies racing around before heading back to Mae hong son to book our tickets to Chang Mai before heading for some pad thai next to the lake near the hostel.

4hrs in a mini van. We already know what to expect hill climbs and literally hundreds upon hundreds of hairpin turns and bends in the road but it will be quite scenic.

Bye,
David and Vanessa