Another great ride out with my good friend Ally.
Making sure I was properly prepared for the cooler weather we have now, I eagerly awaited Allys arrival at my home in Mae salab, keen to get a much needed break from the day to day running of The Stratton ABC Foundation.
Just after 9am she duly arrived and we set off on our journey, riding up to Banthi and left towards San Kam Peang.
Turning right at the main road from Chiang Mai to San Kam Paeng Hot Springs we headed up into the mountains around Doi Saket.
Our original destination was actually was Chae Hom Dam, via the winding mountain roads that, whilst looking like short cuts on the map, are a much longer ride than the highways due to the extreme inclines, hairpins, and potholes along the way. But all this taken in to account , treat the route with due respect and you will enjoy some spectacular views, peace, fantastic mountain air, and friendly greetings along the way.
Not far into our journey we started to see trays of coffee beans laid out at the roadsides, drying in the sun.
A little further we rode through a delightful village and came across further stages in the coffee production process…..follow this link for more.
After enjoying the delicious coffee as well as tasting some of the freshly roasted beans,we pressed on.
There is something about the lush green mountain forests and those twisting roads with their overhang tree ‘tunnels’, brightly coloured flowers and sounds of the wide variety of bird and animal life that means that I can never get enough of it.
Around midday we joined the road that Boon and myself had ridden before , on our way back from Phayao. That ride had been in the early evening and we were not at all prepared, for what was a freezing cold trip in the dark,
in extremely treacherous conditions.
Ever since that crazy ride I had been itching to take that trip in the day time.
The road appeared to be in mildly better condition than the previous time but there were still stretches of potholes that would appear suddenly; stretches where the forest was doing its place to reclaim the road, making it very narrow at times; and most concerning, places where the mountain was reclaiming the road.
This means that even in the daytime you retain an almost constant sense of nervous anticipation; a branch cracks and falls somewhere along the roadside and you quickly look for signs of slipping mountainside; then you look through the gaps in the forestation and gasp as the stunning beauty of it takes your breath away and whatever trepidation you may have about the state of the road fades to insignificance.
We soon realised that our extended stop at the ‘coffee village’ had delayed us enough to mean that reaching Chae Hom Dam and getting back in daylight just wasn’t going to happen.
So instead of carrying on to Chae Son and Muang Pan we took a right through the National Park. At the check point Ally explained that we were simply passing through on route to Chiang Mai and not actually visiting the waterfall there, and so we avoided having to pay.
We did stop for lunch at the National Park restaurant which sits beside a delightful mountain stream and we spotted many varieties of rarely seen birds as we ate.
From there it was more winding roads, more great views and many picturesque fords on the way to Huai Kaeo and the main road back to Chiang Mai.
Before reaching Huai Kaeo we stopped to see Mae Kapong waterfall, which is just a few metres from the roadside and then stopped at a wonderful new coffee shop in the village that has a great balcony overlooking the main village in the valley below.
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.
For a more precise instruction on the directions we took and more photos please visit Ally site here.
Well worth the trip yet again:) I got back to Mae Salab a little after 6pm as the sun went down.
We were on the back mountain roads going from Doi Saket over to Chae Son National park when we first came across many trays of coffee beans drying in the sun at the roadsides in many of the small villages we passed through.
One guy was doing it by hand whilst his neighbours opposite had mechanical help.
At the house that was using the machine there was also a lovely little coffee shop where we were able to purchase a cup of their fresh coffee, which was just perfect.
I found it delightful that rather than one mass producer it seems that there are many small scale coffee farming operations going on throughout these hills.
As we needed to return to the motorbike market to complete the paperwork for the orange Wave we had agreed to meet Ally there at around 9am.
Taking the right hand turn towardds Ban Huaw Kaow, Ally first took us to what she called , ‘the alternative hot springs’. There is a Hot springs further up the main road, at Pong Nam Rorn, with a market and several food and drink outlets , which is used as a tour rest stop.
The water is, without a doubt, extremely hot , but is also disgustingly black in most of the pools and stinks to high heaven.
We were met enthusiastically by the owners golden labrador who refused to stop barking until we’d all said hello.
All caffeined up, on we went, wending our way through the hills working our way over to our main destination of Doi Khun Tan National Park. It was a long and beautiful ride. On the way we made a slight detour to our surprise lunch destination,(thanks again Ally), Tharntong Kitchen, at Tharntong Lodges. This wonderful place, nestled up in the mountain forests, with a mountain stream running through it, has been beautifully landscaped and has many wood cabins spotted around in which you can stay if you wish. With the cheapest room being 1,200 baht a night , its out of my usual budget; but for the stunning surroundings and excellent facilities, including top notch food, I’d say its worth it.
Treating myself to wild pig in red curry sauce, (120 baht..excellent quality and good portion),
e you’ll get to say hello to the resident cockatoo who is extremely friendly and poses well for the camera. He was most gentle when taking the fruit that Ally offered.
Another long, but very enjoyable ride, through more stunning scenery.
This relatively modest compound holds some beautiful Temple buildings.
What a beautiful spot, its like something out of The Railway Children, with palm trees. Lovingly landscaped and manicured, you feel you are waiting in somebodies garden rather than a station. We came across a group of farang who had been staying in lodges and had a little gripe about how long they had been waiting for the train to come. I could only remark about what a wonderful place to have to wait.
We stayed for coffee and saw their train arrive, exiting the tunnel from the mountain, that looks too small from the platform.
We had had a long ride through the day, so from here it was basically continuing on to meet the Highway 11 at Mae Ta, where we also visited the train station. Although not in quite such a stunning location, this station was equally well cared for and landscaped, where waiting for a train could only be a joy.
Here’s yet another great day out for you. Quite a special one with lots of historical and cultural interest. We tend to start these days out at around 11am, due to business commitments, but if you were to set off a little earlier you’d give yourself even more time to take it all in.
When the River Ping changed course, during the Burmese period,the area became flooded and was buried under river mud and silt. In the 1980s, after rediscovery during construction of a football pitch, the ancient site was developed into an historical park.
There are several Temple sites revealed over quite a large area with a wonderfully rural feel to it.
A popular way to get around the whole site is by taking one of the pony and cart tours available.
So, after our brief visit to Wiang Kum Kam, it was a short excursion on the outer ring road (Rte 121) towards San Kampaeng and taking a lunch stop at Inter – Mini Golf, an 18 hole pitch & put obstacle course, on the San Kamphaeng Road opposite the turn off to Bo Sang.
Once again, even having been in Chiang Mai for 3 years now, I got that ‘newcomer’ feeling as we entered Bo Sang from the opposite direction to the one I have used previously.
Lo and behold I finally saw the main Umbrella factory that I have always missed on my previous visits.
Much more ‘touristy than the smaller affair mentioned in my previous Bo Sang report, from my family visit, it is nonetheless much more interesting, with a much better insight into what goes into the making of the famous Umbrellas.
Behind the huge shop is the ‘factory’ area, where you can stroll around at your leisure and watch the five stages of the manufacturing process.
If you are wanting to find out more than just what you get from looking it is possible to get a guide to go around with you, who can answer your questions.
A nice touch to the set up is that the artists, of which there are many, will, for a small fee, paint one of their many designs onto to virtually anything you give them. One present craze is mobile phones.
All that said, Wat Doi Saket is one of those that can be considered to be on ‘the tourist trail’, as many of the larger mountain Temples are.
Most notable for me was the Chedi ‘within’ a Chedi, something I’ve never seen before.
And the artwork inside the main Temple is another mind blower, with some quite surreal and futuristic works included on the huge walls.
At the top is a recently landscaped area with terraced lily ponds and even better views than you get from the Temple that it overlooks.
It has a grand statue of the Buddha aboard a multi headed pink elephant.
There are tables spotted around the terraced garden and it is a perfect place to sit in meditative thought. For more photos please visit our 
Now admittedly we were not there long enough to explore exactly what Phayao has to offer. The lake is huge, and I suspect good for boaters. But we were dissapointed to see no evidence of swimming areas and for me, apart from its size, I found the lakes landscape to be quite boring.
All efforts to find a guest house failed. The only information we got was on hotels costing 600 baht a night minimum and some lake side bungalows , which turned out to be closed down.
Having sorted our accomodation we went back down to the Lakeside where there are many bars and restaurants and had a very nice evening meal, where we ordered a few different dishes and shared. A little above Chiang Mai street prices but very good food and reasonable cost.
It was another baking day and we took it slowly again, always on the look out for more waterfalls , which proved to be quite elusive. We did find this small one just a little way into Chae Son valley.
Just a little way down the road we hit a long stretch of roadworks, where I thought it prudent to stop and put sunblock on as there was no let up in the scorching sunshine and my knees were starting to look very red.So it was a slow dusty ride for quite a way, and we were giving up all hope of finding the lake. It was around 2.30pm and we were about to turn around , when we spotted the sign post for Kiu Lom lake.
This trip was turning out to be full of anti-climax. I can only imagine that this lake increases in size considerably in the wetter seasons. Still we had been riding a long time in the heat of the day and it was still a nice place to take a rest and relax for an hour or so.
It wasn’t long before we found out why. And if I ever do it again I will use a more powerful bike. Be warned, the road from Mueang Pan is extremely steep in many places and takes you up and down several mountains as it takes you across to Doi Saket.
Once the light dissapeared it got bloody cold up in those fearsome mountains and all we had was our sunny day wear. Had we hit a problem, we had no tent, no chance of a phone signal, no food and little water. Ok , we had two bikes so hopefully one of us could have gone for help, but the look of those roads in places suggested that the chance of landslides ahead and behind us was not totally impossible. Just as well I hadn’t thought of all this before we started, or else we would have missed out on an awesome trip. I can’t say for sure how high we got but about half way down the last hill we passed a sign that read 14,500, (ft, i think).
