Well, wadda y'know, talk about lucky. There is an annual bike show in Chiang Mai, and yesterday was the day, and it was held just down the road from the hotel. There were bikes of all sizes, types and ages on display. Contrary to popular opinion, there are plenty of big bikes in Thailand, and plenty of good roads to ride them on. This aint Vietnam, where there are more scooters than blades of grass. In fact, there were some full-on outlaw bike gangs (Hells Angels, Bandidos, Diablos and more) represented, as well as vintage BMW's, lots of Harley cruisers, and then the just plain bizzare. Even various types of cars, including some I hadn't seen in years. You just never know what you are going to see in Thailand! Funny thing to see all the bikie gangs parked next to each other, shaking hands, drinking beer and checking out all the other bikes. They didn't look too intimidating to me. The biggest, baddest-assed SOB I saw was about 5ft 6in and about 90 lbs, and was buckling under the weight of his tattoos. Time for less talk and more pictures.
Some mint condition BMW's
750 Honda 4 engine, no suspension, no front brake, no mufflers, no mirrors, no indicators (and no engineer's certification on the frame, I'm guessing)
Da bad boys
Honda 350 scrambler, circa 1971, with a top box, using a real box!
A couple of customised scooters. Everything here has to make noise.
A Clockwork Orange mini
Outa my way, sonny!
Its amazing what you can put on the road here, where there don't seem to be any rules at all. Unlike our regulated to death environment, where you can't do anything because you might enjoy yourself, or worse still, you might hurt someone. This is what you get when universities pump out lawyers instead of useful people. You drown in a sea of bullshit. But I digress.
This a.m. I went out walking in the old part of town before it got too hot. The Lonely Planet (usually a source of reliable info) told me a "must see" is the Wat Phra Singh, the most revered temple in town. Well, it was certainly infested with busloads of tourists who had clearly been told the same thing, but I reckon there are heaps more interesting Wats (temples) around, and I found plenty of them and had most of them to myself. I make no claims as to being able to understand what the heck is going on in any of them, but I enjoy the architecture, the timelessness, the calmness and the serenity. Walking through the manicured leafy gardens is quite refreshing and gives one an opportunity to reflect. There were a few well placed cue cards to help that process in the Wat Phra Singh, but I did prefer the other temples, one of which was about 700 years old.
So rotate your head.......... do I have to do everything?? Goddam computers.
Some mint condition BMW's
750 Honda 4 engine, no suspension, no front brake, no mufflers, no mirrors, no indicators (and no engineer's certification on the frame, I'm guessing)
A Clockwork Orange mini
Its amazing what you can put on the road here, where there don't seem to be any rules at all. Unlike our regulated to death environment, where you can't do anything because you might enjoy yourself, or worse still, you might hurt someone. This is what you get when universities pump out lawyers instead of useful people. You drown in a sea of bullshit. But I digress.
This a.m. I went out walking in the old part of town before it got too hot. The Lonely Planet (usually a source of reliable info) told me a "must see" is the Wat Phra Singh, the most revered temple in town. Well, it was certainly infested with busloads of tourists who had clearly been told the same thing, but I reckon there are heaps more interesting Wats (temples) around, and I found plenty of them and had most of them to myself. I make no claims as to being able to understand what the heck is going on in any of them, but I enjoy the architecture, the timelessness, the calmness and the serenity. Walking through the manicured leafy gardens is quite refreshing and gives one an opportunity to reflect. There were a few well placed cue cards to help that process in the Wat Phra Singh, but I did prefer the other temples, one of which was about 700 years old.
So rotate your head.......... do I have to do everything?? Goddam computers.
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