Happy to report that my fitness campaign goes on.
Having made 3 visits to the gym, in Chiang Mai,last week I also made sure I did some serious swimming whilst at the Lake in the Mae On hills.
As usual it was a beautiful place to be.
There towards the end of the afternoon and early evening, on a dry but cloudy day, the differing light around the lake and the hills was quite something and really added to the ambience.
I said dry, as it was for us, but not so far from the lake they were not so lucky.
We watched this isolated storm making its way across the hills infront of us.
Then, after a great afternoons teaching yesterday, it was back to the gym again.
Not so much visible evidence of much change, but they do say that it generally takes 3 months before you get major change after not having excercised for some time. Despite this I definately am feeling a change, which is good.
Next plan is to add either swimming or bicycle riding to a daily routine. During our ride from Lamphun, up the River Ping, I now know that there is an extensive pathway along the river, perfect for cycling.
Maybe I might even get to a level where I feel able to join in with the kids playing football. Good target to have.
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here
Hopefully I’ve finally given my long suffering mother a bit more peace of mind by finally getting to Lamphun Post Office and posting a letter to my UK bank and closing my account, they’ve been bugging my Mum for months.
I love being there, seeing what goes on. Although I’m dubious about the need for it , there is a different uniform for everyday. I’ll list them in the future. The main one that sticks out is Wednesdays being Scouts day. It’s easy for me to remember that one because the days activities often disrupt my schedule.
Two weeks ago saw another bar-b-q sunday at a local childrens home, with obligatory trip to the lake.
Last weekend saw us attend a Temple Party at Roz’s, Mums village , further down the road to Nikom. There were many fair stalls and foods stalls. With Glen, Roz and Mark, Boon and I sat for a beer or three and enjoyed the entertainment on the stage nearby. It was very well attended by the locals. Again I was a bit lax in not getting either the name of the village or the name of the Temple.
This weekend there was yet another Party at our local, Wat this time.
Other highlights were yesterdays 
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).
