Mae This and Mae That

I'm in Mae Sariang on my way to Mae Hong Son tommorow. I had a fun two days coming over the mountains via a big ole' no-mans land to get here. I stayed in two quite fine villages and was again shown some awesome hospitality.

(Also, I believe my Taiwan-met, Canadian friend called Aaron will be landing in Thailand tommorow to begin his biking odyssey northward from the Thai-Malay border. On the right of my webpage you'll find a link to his site (where I'm rightly refered to as Brett "I'll have cabbage and white rice" Ratchford, a site which highlights many misplanned but somehow completed adventures we spun in the mtns. of Taiwan. You can follow his trip and mine, as we pedal and hopefully meet up somewhere in Asia. It might be funny.) Aaron's website: http://taikuazhang.blogspot.com/

I made my bike lose some weight. Upon riding it in its new lighter form the muses inspired me with the words of EAZY-E. He was refering to Snoop Dogg in jest; I'm refering to my bike in praise.

"You're only 60 lbs (maybe 55) when your standin' wet (water bottles are full) wearin' boots (with slick tires on)

Out of Mae Sot I had a long day to get to Mae Salit. In Mae Salit I stayed in a cool little cabin on the banks of the Moei river, just a stone skip from Burma (I use this cheesy unit of measure as that's what me and the guesthouse boss did, skip stones, after our mutually understood foreign phrases were exhausted) .

That night he came over to my cabin and kept inviting me to come to the main cabin. Reluctant, (as his jerky actions of explanation appeared to be something like slamming glasses of the local moonshine) but I eventually went, as I had nothing to do anyway. Turns out his junior high aged daughter and all her friends were having a party because they just finished some type of holiday and had to go back to school tommorow. They made this excellent Burmese salad (with a nut I've never seen before) and bought every kind of snack food from the village store that I had puzzledly examined earlier. (That's dad on the far left. A pretty cool guy.)

Between my Thai phrasebook and what they've gleaned from their one-day-a-week english class we had fun listening to Taxi and David--who are only Thailand's hottest pop stars of the moment. Like duh, you didn't know that?

At 9pm it was time for me to retire and to let those young whipper-snappers have their party.

In the 50 steps or so back to my cabin it was pitch pitch black and quiet. The sound of the river underscored the now international music, as it made it's echoey trip back from the black wall of mountains on the Burmese side of the river.

The next day I seemed to be climbing hills all day, never seeing anybody. I've never seen roads wind link that.

In Taiwan it's usually a calculated switchback, followed by his complementary brother but here the road just follows the contours of the mountain (as the mtns. here are more round and clay-y less rocky). So, when you're riding it's like interval training. 10 min. up 3 down, 8 up, 2 down, 20 up, etc. It's pretty fun, but can be tiring. I ended up stopping at this little village and decided it'd be best to stay for the night as it was the first sign of anything I'd seen for a few hours.

For the hour before sunset I just hung out at the general store and drank ultra-sugary soymilk till my stomach hurt. It was really cold at night so the shop guy let me borrow a blanket. (Me thinks its never cold in Thailand! I need not sleeping bag. Bad idea #10002)

(Those are both morning pics by the way)

Don't let this soft exterior fool you. I'm really a jerk at heart.