Ahh, we’re back in Thailand again, land of smiles, pad Thai, and people who water their driveways and the roads in front of their houses. Why is this a thing? More on that in just a minute. But first, some photos over the past few days.
Oh, and I’m completely recovered from the bad food incident now and feel 100% normal, except I seem to be lactose intolerant suddenly, something that has never happened to me. I’ll give it a week and try some dairy products again; I’m hoping it’s temporary. Luckily it’s super easy to avoid dairy in Thailand so no big deal.
Yangon’s Shwedegan Pagoda is one of the most important sites in Buddhism, so we couldn’t miss it!
Detail of a pillar.
Carvings of scenes from Buddhism.
Every night at 6:30, thousands of small oil lamps are lit surrounding the pagoda.
The use of LED lighting adds a strange bit of modern-ness to this timeless Buddha statue.
We got a chance to wear our longyi!
(Sorry it’s a bit blurry…) Back in Mae Sot at the night market, there appears to be “a thing” going on at the Mae Sot night market; as you can see we ran into 3 more cycle tourists and met up with Ton again. Mark is the guy on the solar-powered e-bike we met in Myanmar; he’s waiting in Mae Sot on a part to be shipped. Briana and Nick are on their way into Myanmar on their way through Southeast Asia. As always we exchanged stories and advice for roads ahead.
One of the great suggestions we had was from Ton to avoid the busy highway between Mae Sot and Tak. Instead he suggested taking the old road between Mae Ramat and Ban Tak. Briana and Nick had ridden that way and really liked it, so we gave it a try. It was really beautiful, almost no traffic, well-paved roads. Only challenge was a 3-4km climb that averages 10% and has sustained sections of 12+% grades. So we walked a lot of it. But it was a much nicer option than the busy highway, and we’d recommend it to anyone who has the extra day or two you will need to make the detour.
15km east of Mae Ramat near the top of the climb is a national park where you can rent tents for 250baht or bungalows for 500 (“baan pak” in Thai). We had a lovely evening but the food options were seriously limited; the restaurant only had ham fried rice and only opens on request. So we bought a few instant cups o’ noodles and a cup o’ jok (rice porridge with pork) for dinner and breakfast the next morning. The staff don’t speak English but are super friendly, and we didn’t see any other guests the whole time; it’s an amazing place to get away from everything! It felt different from anywhere we’ve been in Thailand so far.
Riding into Ban Tak, there was a section of road that for some reason had been watered recently. Maybe you’ll say it’s to help keep the dust down? Well this is how that works out when you’re on a bike. Of course, we’d just spent 2 hours a few days ago meticulously cleaning our bikes, and 30 seconds of freshly-washed roads made them the dirtiest they’ve been since we cycled through muddy trails in Portugal. Sigh, it’s a good thing our shower is big enough to sneak the bikes in and hose them down!
We’ve got about 6-7 more days of cycling through ancient Thai ruins and small villages before we reach Chiang Mai, where we are planning to chill for a while.
Watering driveways and roads in front of homes is a cleanness thing. Thais take great pride in their homes especially those living in nice houses. It’s also a symbol of status. In fact, Thais believe us westerners don’t bathe enough. To them we smell a bit but this is because of our diet. We eat quite a lot of meat so our body odor is different to theirs. Even those Thais who live in shacks will always send their kids to school in immaculately clean condition with freshly washed uniforms every day.
Ahh interesting. They must really wrinkle their noses at us in our sweaty cycling clothes!