Big Bikes

Scooters are all over the place in Thailand so they deserve a whole separate post, but more on that another time. Like our good friend Dave, crashing scooters is a very common occurrence as well, I think about 7-8 of the people here in my group have gotten in some kind of scooter mishap. Despite this most of us here at the collective have rented them and a bunch of us have them rented for a month at a time. I figure if you go super slow and drive defensively you can avoid most accidents and if you do get in one it shouldn't be bad. Most of the accidents happened the first day a person had the thing and they had no idea what they were doing.

A bigger motorcycle is harder to come by though and quite a bit more expensive. There are lots of bike rental places in Chaing Mai (3-4 hours from Pai), but only 2 or 3 places here in Pai. Sometime during the 'Plan B' night I found out from Jeff that he was planning on renting a 'Big Bike' as they call them here and going on a road trip up a road he had previously tried to explore on his scooter. He had driven up the mountain road for 2 hours until realizing he had used over 1/2 of the gas he had started with and was forced to turn back. The seed was planted and he needed to know what was at the other end of this wonderful mountain road. I had been thinking of renting a dirt bike and doing some exploring so volunteered to join him on whatever big bike I could find. Weston is looking to actually buy a bike and do some serious traveling after the collective so once he got wind of the plan we had a real biker gang in the making.

The plan was to meet at 10am and get bikes and hit the road. After putting ourselves to bed at 3am we still were up and so excited to get on the road we were out the door by 9:30. We went to a place we knew had big bikes and they had 4-5 different kinds on the sign, but only one real bike in stock at the time. Since it was Jeff's idea and he wanted a sport bike (the one they had), we let him take that one and decided we would go on a smaller scooter tour instead. We agreeed to call him once we got scooters and then figure out a plan but probably not ride together since the big sport bike would be so much faster. We headed to the old standby scooter rental shop that many of us had rented from and got in line. Since it was Saturday morning there were tons of people just renting for the day. While in line we looked up and saw a little sign saying they had Honda Phantom 200's and Kawasaki Boss 175's but none were in sight.


Once we got the owner guys attention we pointed at the sign and said we were interested in the Honda Phantoms. As most things in Thailand and many countries you just don't know what you are going to get, so the guy says he has no Hondas but does have some of the Kawasakis which immediately lights up our eyes. He leads us back into the garage and around the corner to find 3 big cruiser bikes all lined up and covered in dust. Perfect! at least 2 of them have to work right? The guy is super busy with scooter rentals so, says he will be back in 5 minutes and leaves us standing there. We motion to him that we are going to start pulling the bikes out and he nods ok. So pulled the bikes out from their apparently long term parking places and started to check them over. Finally the guy comes back once we start attempting to fire them up. He motions for us to let him do it. One fires up immediately and seems to run ok but eventually stalls out. He fiddles with the other one for about 10 minutes and the whole time we are thinking, great what good is only one bike then one of us can't go. Finally he checks the gas and it is completely dry. (see pic)

After adding gas and some more jiggery pokery they are both idling nicely and ready to drive out of the shop. We pull them out and get ready to try and get a better price than the 450 Baht per day we were quoted. You pretty much bargain for almost everything here other than in restaurants/bars and really big stores. We try to get a better deal especially since we are getting 2 and we are good customers (rented scooters there before). He won't budge and we are ready to hit the road and meet up with Jeff, so we shell out the dough leave a passport as deposit for both and pull out onto the main drag. Since this place barely has enough helmets for the scooter customers and they are not even very protective we didn't even bother asking for any. I had seen a couple of real motorcycle helmets over at the Wai Lin house and so set out to find Dave the owner and borrow them. The helmets were even dustier than the bikes, but I value my head so we dusted them off and put them on. I felt much safer with a real helmet then the crappy one I use on the scooter.

These big cruisers are much more stable and powerful than the little scooters we are used to. A lap around the block and we are confident that they will take us on our prospective journey. Initially the guy told us to stay within 15km of town and we thought it might be because they won't run long enough to get us any further. We had no plans of staying that close but just nodded in silent agreement and said we would be riding around in circles around the mountain roads near the town, which is sort of mostly true. We stopped back at the Wai Lin house to get our gear then cruised over to the Mango Tree house to meet up with Jeff and get breakfast and pack a lunch for later. Revving the engine to clear out the meandering pedestrians certainly felt good as we exited the center of town.


We packed up some lunch, I tied my GPS on the handlebars over the non functioning speedometer and then strapped my backpack in the backseat. We were finally ready to go except I had no money and no gas. We caravanned to town and I went to the ATM and then we went straight to the gas station to fill the tanks. I put in quite a bit of gas (about 10 liters) not sure how long that would take me but it was almost full and better safe than sorry, since my bike was the one that was completely out. Now we were really ready. Jeff led the way since he knew the road he wanted to explore and find out what was on the other side.


We cruised down the road towards Chaing Mai, looking for a big monumental bridge dedicated to the king that crosses the road and then to take the next right up a twisty mountain road. The road was beautiful and very curvy. Thanks to Andrea and Chris I had some good practice this winter riding dirt bikes in the desert so was very comfortable driving the big cruiser. The seat position is much different but the controls and concepts are all the same. I keep saying this is big, but really as far as bikes in the US go it is pretty small, which is nice it is lighter and more forgiving for us to handle, the last thing we wanted to do was drop it and not be able to right it again. We took turns leading the way through the mountain passes stopping often to enjoy the view or take some pictures. After an hour and a half or so we paused by a river and enjoyed the lunch we had packed and then pressed on.


We continued up the road until we came across a big resort type place that looked interesting so we stopped to check it out. This place turned out to be pretty fancy and was clustered around a small lake with bike and walking paths all over the place. We took a nice long walk down to and part of the way around the lake and then back up into the hills to the top of the resort passing a herd of cows in the woods and some fishermen sleeping by the shores. Manicured lawns surround individual small cottages for rent. We knew there was supposed to be a nice Wat up the road so we found our bikes and continued on.


Not too far up the road we came to a small town with a Wat complex in the center surrounded by a white wall. There were some beautiful buildings in the Wat and a nice open space in the middle. On the corner of the whole thing was a giant tree. This was basically the end of this particular road, one road continued on the long way to Mae Hong Son and there were a couple of much smaller roads around the square leading to parts of the village. We wandered around the temple area for a bit and then into a tiny restaurant/store for a bite to eat. For about 100 baht ($3) we got 3 meals a couple soft drinks and a beer. Now that it was getting late in the afternoon we decided to head back to Pai, driving the windy roads in the dark didn't sound like a good plan.


We made very good time getting back down the mountain with fewer stops. We had seen a back road that led back to Pai and decided to mix it up and take that on the return trip. This was a really nice little country road a lot of fun to ride on. More narrow than the main road we had been on, but almost no traffic and really fun to ride on. Back in Pai we rested for a bit and then decided to really get our money's worth out of the bikes and went on one last blast up another road that goes by the Mango Tree House and the Pai airport. On weekends we are usually on our own for food for the most part. Tonight there happened to be a group dinner at 'Mama Falafel' for anyone who wanted to go, so we went over there and ate some yummy falafel and fries. Turns out Andrew and Shonali were really excited to learn to ride a real bike so we agreed to take them out to the dead end airport road by Mango Tree and give them a quick lesson. Overall everyone did well, one bike was dropped but there was little to no damage and no injuries. Gotta wrap this post up and get to work, more later...