Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai consists of a sprawling urban landscape surrounded by undulating green mountains. The focal point of the city is a large square, the old city, encapsulated by a relic moat morphed into a scenic canal. Trees line the walkways on either side of the moat creating a shady promenade with fountains spaced throughout. Once you enter the old city the crowd and businesses turn touristy; loads of guesthouses, internet cafes, and western restaurants. Despite the preponderance of western oriented businesses on the main streets a little wandering would lead to the maze of back alley ways and lanes taking you into the heart of the old city and away from the tourist facade along the moat.

We ended up staying in Chiang Mai for a little longer than we had planned, mostly to take advantage of a hotel deal of stay three nights and get the fourth for free, I'm always a sucker for those. The extended stay did give us a chance to hit up a few bike shops and take care of some necessary repairs that we had been putting off due to a lack of adequately equipped bike shops. As it turned out my bike required some additional repairs and replacement parts after our one day ride in Chiang Mai, so the few extra days turned out to be quite necessary. Over the course of the last few months my chain had worn away the teeth on my front and rear cogs which frustratingly resulted in the chain slipping of the rear cassette any time I applied pressure to the pedals. Not an ideal situation when the next few weeks were going to be cycling in some of the steepest terrain of the trip. Fortunately a replacement Shimano crank set and cassette only set me back $60, a steal considering in that in the US a cassette has cost me up to $70 by itself. If you ever end up in Chiang Mai and need to find a bike shop go to Jacky's bike shop, they were quick and knew what they were doing with the repairs and didn't rip me off.

The day trip that brought about the end of my cassette and crank set took us 20k up to the top of Dusthep Poi. I found that trying to climb 20k with the chain consistently slipping off the cassette any time I tried to crank up a steep section is frustratingly slow. Add to that the chain periodically falling off when I shifted, made the whole climb an extra special one. But make it to the top I did, although with no small amount of grumbling as I'm sure Paris would attest to.

From the top it was a bit of guessing as to which way we needed to go to hit the trail that would take us back down the mountain. The maps we perused in the bookstore had a clearly marked trail that could potentially take us down, but once we were at the top it wasn't at all clear where that trail started, if at all. With only a vague idea of how to get down we hit up an expat mtn. biking tour operator for some friendly suggestions on which way we should head. Unfortunately for us the guy wasn't exactly overflowing with information, at best he was cagey about relating any trail info to us. I'm not sure if he was trying to rope us into his tour, or if he was afraid of liability issues, but either way he didn't give us much and made it sound surprisingly difficult to find the trail down the mountain.

As it turned out there were plenty of locals along the road who were quite happy to point us in the right direction, and in the end we found our way down via a series of dirt roads in various states of repair. We wound down from the upper slopes through a Hmong village and a smattering of liche plantations before being spat out on a little reservoir about 9k from town. After stopping for a waterfront lunch and some cool drinks we hit the road and cruised the last little bit back into town.

We finished up our stay in Chiang Mai in somewhat unsettling circumstances due to the political situation in Bangkok. On our second to last day in town the Thai military stormed the protest barricades in Bangkok bringing an end to months of protest and at times bloodshed between protesters and the military. This sparked outrage and protests in many provinces around the country and led to the government calling for a curfew. For us this meant an early dinner and picking up extra snacks before holing up in our room for the rest of the night to sit out the curfew. I'm not entirely sure if there were any significant protests in Chiang Mai that night, but on my way to the store there was a tire bonfire raging at the end of the street that our hotel was on. Even that didn't last all that long since it was extinguished during the three minutes I was in the store. The rest of the night passed uneventfully and life seemed to carry on as usual the next day. Paris came across a few vandalized pay phones, but other than that all seemed well, at least where we were staying. Curfew extended for one more day and than we headed out of town early the next morning to the tackle the hills leading up to Pai.