The Mae Hong Son loop, 1,864 curves and 1 crash!
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2010
1
31
Trip End
Aug 28, 2011
Pai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
We rented a battered CB400 which was such a fun bike to ride, not too powerful but still plenty of poke when you needed to overtake that massive slow lorry winding its way up the mountain at about 2kph.
Our first day we had a slight stumble, after riding up Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand we set off down the mountain towards Mae Chaem. We were up in the clouds and it was pouring with rain. I braked too hard coming down a very steep hairpin and the bike just slid out from underneath us. I remember sliding down the road thinking 'oh shit I'm glad I'm in shock as this is going to hurt like hell in about 5 minutes' then getting up off the road after having sliid about 10 meters. The bike took out a very heavy wooden bollard and landed in a ditch at the side of the road.
We picked ourselves up and checked for damage but surprisingly we weren't very badly injured at all!
We must have aquaplaned across the road as I'd only lost a couple of stitches from the pocket of my trousers and Annas biking trousers looked unscathed. I had a bruise on my knee from hitting the tarmac when we came off and Anna had a graze on her arm where she slid on it slightly but it was nothing serious. The bike was surprisingly fine too, just a couple of scratches and a broken indicator. Luckily, any scratches it did sustain didn't stick out any more than the previous battle scars it already had and we fixed the indicator with some super glue and zip ties. We were frightened we were going to get stung for damages when we returned the bike but everything turned out fine and nobody noticed the bikes extra wounds, it made me glad we picked a slightly battered bike instead of one in mint condition!
It was a bloody lovely few days anyway, barring the crash we had a fantastic time, the landscape really is something else up in the hills and being able to stop where you like to take pictures or get some food really makes it special. I stopped at some roadside stall at the top of a mountain set up by a couple of hilltribe ladies and bought myself a handmade hilltribe washbag (my old one died and this one is perfect!) for 35 baht, bargain!
Enjoy the piccies and see you soon!
Sean :) xx
