Greetings Readers, I am pleasantly ensconced in the Amora Hotel, Chiang Mai. Imprisoned might be a more accurate descriptor. You see it is Songkran, the Thai New Year Festival. The time of year when Thailand descends into the anarchy of one giant water fight. I have endured (and also described in detail previously) this particular ritual on two previous visits. Bottom line is this: Go outside, you get drenched to the skin. Period. Apart from a few emergency runs to the nearest 7-11 to get beer (wearing my bathers and a t-shirt that needs a wash), we have been trapped in the hotel. Although we did duck out early yesterday to have a massage, to get the kinks out after a very rigorous day spent flying up here. The oil acted as a water repellent, rather like duck feathers, but the downside is that your feet get slippery. Anyway, its so hot here that being drenched is kind of doing you a favour. Except when the water comes via a bucket filled directly from the canal. Many buckets and drums and countless giant water pistols are filled with tap water, which is risky enough, but some were observed to come from the canal that surrounds the old town. The canal water looks alarmingly like those stagnant brown/green ponds they have at the zoo for the hippos to wallow in, except here in Chiang Mai, the shit content is undoubtedly higher. These areas are to be avoided at all costs.
We had a long day getting here, starting at 4.30 am to get to the airport, then a 7 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, a couple of hours to change terminals. This is usually done relatively efficiently via train, but the train was out of action, and we had to do it by bus. The disorganised bunfight where a vast number of people were clamoring to get on the bus was good practice for the mayhem of Songkran to follow, albeit dry. Then to Bangkok, customs and immigration, then recheck at the zoo-like domestic terminal for the flight to Chiang Mai, so there was a certain symmetry to the whole experience so far. We arrived at 9.30 pm local time, but about 1 am Adelaide time, so we were wrecked enough to crash immediately.
One thing I did notice on the flight out of Oz was that program on the inflight entertainment system, you know the one where you can follow the actual flight, it tells you how far you have gone already, etc. had a novel feature. There was a screen which showed a compass dial, with an arrow labelled as pointing towards Mecca. Being a Malaysian Airlines flight, this came as no surprise. What did surprise me was that on this screen there was another arrow labelled as showing the direction to Port Hedland. I think it was most considerate of the airline to cater for those whose religion requires them to point towards Port Hedland and pray five times a day. You can't say they don't go the extra mile. Although in the case of MH370, they went a few too many extra miles.
At this stage, we have clocked the bike we will be riding, its a white F800GS fitted with K2 adventure panniers and top box. The guys also fitted a Touratech seat for me, remembering my back problem last time. I thought that was a nice gesture, although I don't recall having a back problem last time. Knee problem, yes. But its the thought that counts! The panniers on all the bikes are a new development though, since my last two rides here were on bikes with no panniers at all. The luggage went into the truck. This time we have a large group of 15 bikes, which will change the dynamics of the tour quite a bit. And I guess the luggage carrying needs to be shared a bit to avoid overloading the truck. The panniers add a substantial amount to the width of the bikes, which will require some caution in heavy traffic, and also add to the risk of bike to bike contact. So my plan is to hang at the back for a while till I suss out just who I'm riding with, but hopefully not too far back as to lose touch and get lost. Not sure if they will run a sweep rider (Tail End Charlie) or not, but there will be a briefing tomorrow to establish how it will all operate. We have a dinner tonight to get to meet the crew and all the other riders, then tomorrow, we are into it.
I haven't taken any photos yet, in fact I didn't bring my camera at all. Now that I have a new phone which I can't use properly yet, I thought I'd just jump in the deep end and use that, since it takes better photos than my camera ever did. At some point I hope to be able to get the photos out of the phone and onto the blog. Or as people keep telling me, I could learn to use Facebook. Yeah, right, as if! My new phone tells me whenever I switch it on that I have over 100 notifications from people who want to be my friend. Well sod off, there are no vacancies. Besides, the five friends I already have are enough work. And I really, truly, just don't give a rat's what people who I've never even heard of are having for lunch, much less see a photo of it. I've seen food before. Wtf is the attraction?
We had a long day getting here, starting at 4.30 am to get to the airport, then a 7 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, a couple of hours to change terminals. This is usually done relatively efficiently via train, but the train was out of action, and we had to do it by bus. The disorganised bunfight where a vast number of people were clamoring to get on the bus was good practice for the mayhem of Songkran to follow, albeit dry. Then to Bangkok, customs and immigration, then recheck at the zoo-like domestic terminal for the flight to Chiang Mai, so there was a certain symmetry to the whole experience so far. We arrived at 9.30 pm local time, but about 1 am Adelaide time, so we were wrecked enough to crash immediately.
One thing I did notice on the flight out of Oz was that program on the inflight entertainment system, you know the one where you can follow the actual flight, it tells you how far you have gone already, etc. had a novel feature. There was a screen which showed a compass dial, with an arrow labelled as pointing towards Mecca. Being a Malaysian Airlines flight, this came as no surprise. What did surprise me was that on this screen there was another arrow labelled as showing the direction to Port Hedland. I think it was most considerate of the airline to cater for those whose religion requires them to point towards Port Hedland and pray five times a day. You can't say they don't go the extra mile. Although in the case of MH370, they went a few too many extra miles.
At this stage, we have clocked the bike we will be riding, its a white F800GS fitted with K2 adventure panniers and top box. The guys also fitted a Touratech seat for me, remembering my back problem last time. I thought that was a nice gesture, although I don't recall having a back problem last time. Knee problem, yes. But its the thought that counts! The panniers on all the bikes are a new development though, since my last two rides here were on bikes with no panniers at all. The luggage went into the truck. This time we have a large group of 15 bikes, which will change the dynamics of the tour quite a bit. And I guess the luggage carrying needs to be shared a bit to avoid overloading the truck. The panniers add a substantial amount to the width of the bikes, which will require some caution in heavy traffic, and also add to the risk of bike to bike contact. So my plan is to hang at the back for a while till I suss out just who I'm riding with, but hopefully not too far back as to lose touch and get lost. Not sure if they will run a sweep rider (Tail End Charlie) or not, but there will be a briefing tomorrow to establish how it will all operate. We have a dinner tonight to get to meet the crew and all the other riders, then tomorrow, we are into it.
I haven't taken any photos yet, in fact I didn't bring my camera at all. Now that I have a new phone which I can't use properly yet, I thought I'd just jump in the deep end and use that, since it takes better photos than my camera ever did. At some point I hope to be able to get the photos out of the phone and onto the blog. Or as people keep telling me, I could learn to use Facebook. Yeah, right, as if! My new phone tells me whenever I switch it on that I have over 100 notifications from people who want to be my friend. Well sod off, there are no vacancies. Besides, the five friends I already have are enough work. And I really, truly, just don't give a rat's what people who I've never even heard of are having for lunch, much less see a photo of it. I've seen food before. Wtf is the attraction?
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