Thai Enduro Tours

Start at Chapter One

Chapter Six

After a hearty breakfast with plenty of cholesterol, salt and other essentials we head out. Salt is actually pretty important when you're sweating all day, and I always carry a small container of sea salt with me in case a rider starts developing muscle cramps.

We fill up at the other gas station, which has modern pumps with automatic shutoff. No overflowing here, despite being at the centre of attention anyway....

A Thai army guy shows up with a modified step-through scooter. It can carry up to four disposable anti-tank missile launchers, two of them in black waterproof canisters! It seems the Thai army is making clever use of mass produced vehicles, with spare parts supply in every village.

We head north. At first it's quite dusty, then the dirt road winds through a beautiful forest. Squirrelly Bob stops with a flat. We pull a strange looking object from his front tyre - two bent nails welded together to form a tyre spike! I'm glad he picked it up and not our truck.

We replace the inner tube and continue. Until two weeks ago the trail was impassable for trucks because of a landslide, and now it's supposed to be fixed. In the worst case we have to send the truck back all the way to Pai, then take the main road to Chiang Dao, while we continue on our own.

After just ten more minutes there is tree across the road. We get the axe out and take turns chipping away, until we can pull the tree down the side of the trail.

After a military checkpoint where we have to sign in the bikes and the truck, the trail gets more technical. We pass the landslide - the information that the trail has been repaired was correct, great. I hate spending the evening and half the night in my riding gear because the support truck is late.

The guys are pretty quiet. Two of them have been taking malaria tablets as recommended by their doctors, and they don't feel too well. I don't bother, I've been here full time going on twenty years and I can't eat this stuff all year round, it would kill me, or at least eat my optical nerves and make me blind.

But what everybody is really contemplating is the fact that it's almost over - tomorrow is the last day. I can see it in their eyes, there is a quiet reservation and they are sort of putting their every-day lives on the left side of the scales, and this holiday-of-a-lifetime adventure on the other side.

They are all well established - business careers, families, kids, houses, cars, bikes, mortgages, and now they are sitting somewhere in northern Thailand, 10 km from the Burmese border, contemplating life.

This happens with most groups - they break out of their everlasting rut just to come here, get a good close-up of the alternative, think about it, and finally they are very happy to go back home, with a list of adjustments they want to make.

As always, the moody moments are fairly short-lived and optimism takes over. "I'll be back", "I'll get a dirt bike!", "I'm not too old for this shit!".

They want to know how I keep up, pushing the big five-oh, when they are all in their late thirties and early forties.

But, this is no comparison; I opted out decades ago, and have chosen my own lifestyle.

For keeping fit I recommend them to start trial riding, which is a lot tougher than it looks, improves riding skills tremendously and is very cheap once you've got the bike. Tyre life is measured in years, and a training session will cost you one to two litres of gasoline!

We continue to Wiang Haeng. It's steep, with deep ruts, water run-offs, nasty stuff. Drop into one of those, and the bike will stand up straight without the side stand, only handlebars visible. I'm glad that Uan, our Thai guide who's driving our truck, is an experienced 4WD driver.

Slowly we make it to the army checkpoint near Wiang Haeng. While we wait for the truck, we can hear a fourstroke bike coming up from the other side.

Nagging Bill, our "big fourstroke" aficionado, is looking expectantly down the dirt road. The rider is decked out in the latest hot-weather offroad gear with vented pants and jersey, wears an expensive Shoei helmet and Alpinestar Tech 8 boots.

But what is he riding! I can't believe my eyes: it's a 200 cc Honda fourstroke with twin shocks, drum brakes front and aft, a road tyre in the front and a bald knobbie on the rear wheel. Even Nagging Bill's expectant looks have changed to disgust.

A second rider follows, also wearing expensive gear and riding a dead mule, this time it's a 125cc Honda MTX, rented from the Flintstones. More riders arrive.

Obviously this is another tour group. They brought their own expensive riding gear and got supplied with these pre-historic contraptions.

I know very well how difficult it is to get decent dirt bikes in Thailand, but this is a museum on wheels! I take a quick professional look at their tyres, brakes, chains and other details. It's not only pathetic, but outright dangerous and irresponsible.

The other riders take off their helmets and we start talking. They are not too happy, and keep looking at our bikes and tyres. Handsome Martin gives me a hearty whack between the shoulder blades. "Mate, am I happy to be here and not over there with them!"

Our truck arrives, the guide signs in at the checkpoint and we saddle up. Both our Thai support riders can't help it, they keep doing wheelies and stoppies right in front of the other group, which looks pretty grim, until we all have started our bikes and get going.

We continue towards the main road. Since there was neither a Thai guide nor a tour leader with the other group, they wouldn't know which way to go!

We assume they are under instructions to stop at every turnoff and wait. Promptly we pass a little Suzuki Caribian churning up the trail, carrying the museum warden.

At the main road we eat a late lunch at a noodle soup shop, then I have to decide which way we continue to Chiang Dao.

Looking at the wall clock and then at the guys I opt for the short one: an hour and a half on tarmac, with several hundred curves, some of them nearly 270 degrees.

As we gear up and get on the bikes, Nagging Bill can't get his leg over. He musters all his remaining strength, swings his leg high up and promptly smashes the heel of his boot into the taillight, which cracks right in half.

For the first time he is lost for words, while everybody else is roaring with laughter.

I tell him not to worry - these lights are position lights for trucks, made in Thailand, and I buy them by the dozen, because we change them more often than he changes his shirt. His riding shirt, anyway.

Maybe I should have told him that this is an expensive original Honda import part, but this is day five and he is still riding. And I promised to myself I'd be nice.

We wind our way through the mountains. There is hardly any straight piece of road, and some curves seem to never end. It's getting cold, and my knees start hurting, so I ride standing up. Quick Andy is fooling around, first hanging off the bike like he was on his Fireblade, then doing brake slides around the hairpins. He is really enjoying the bike, I'm glad to see.

We are using fairly soft IRC enduro tyres, which are also pretty good on the road, considered they are knobbies.

In Chiang Dao we stay at a resort just out of town, and our truck can drive right through to our bungalow. There is teakwood everywhere, even the coffee table outside the bungalow is carved teakwood relief, showing a village scene complete with kids and elephants.

As we checked in I already ordered the first rounds of beers, as well as fried worms and cashew nuts for appetizers. Not everybody is keen to try the worms, but they are a good conversation piece and I like them.

Dinner is the usual feast: steamed fish, red Thai curry, green Thai curry, fried prawn cookies, stuffed omelet, spicy pork salad with kale on ice, tofu soup, sweet and sour chicken, fried noodles, stir-fried vegetables, stuffed cucumber, crispy shrimps, and of course rice to combat the fire from the chili.

We share all the dishes, Thai style, and eat until we're bursting at the seams. As soon as a glass is half empty, a waitress appears and refills it. There's no way we can keep track of how many beers each one has had.

But we don't care, at the end of the meal we divide the total by eleven, and I pay for my three guys and myself, then collect from the other seven guys. It's 400 baht each, that's 8 euro or 10 dollars in real money!

Four of the guys go to bed for an early night, with the rest I wander over to the sing-a-song hut, which is part of the resort. One girl is already on stage, hard at work strangling the cat. Because Thai is a tonal language, where the same syllable has up to five different meanings, depending on the tone, it all sounds off-key.

The sentence "Mai mai mai mai? Mai, mai mai mai mai" correctly pronounced means: "Does new silk burn? No, new silk doesn't burn." It's not exactly the easiest language on the planet.....

They are using a computer and karaoke CDs, and the girls read the words from a tiny computer monitor mounted on a post right in front of the stage. One girl keeps squinting and misses some words, obviously she needs glasses.....

I order a bottle of scotch with sodas and ice, while Handsome Martin is looking through the songbook. Last year we had a blast in this place, singing on stage with the girls. Tonight it seems a bit dead. Well, it's only a quarter to ten.

The wife of the owner comes over to say hello, and to invite us over to her table where she sits with a couple of lady friends. They are all in their late forties, married to Thai Army officers, and some speak good English. Soon we have some funny conversations going - where we've been so far, what adventures we've had, and of course how we like Thailand.

In the meantime our Thai guide, Uan, keeps chatting with one of the singers. I know her, she has two young kids and her Thai husband ran off with another girl, the usual story. During the day she sells vegetables at the local market, and in the evening she sings here.

Uan is pretty good with the guitar and can also sing, sort of o.k., anyway much better than the girls here. He walks over to the computer and after a while finds something he likes: Desperado.

After donning his shades he belts it out, looking a little bit like a Thai version of the Hell's Angels with his sleeveless leather jacket, mirrored shades, grizzly white moustache, fat tattooed arms and the beer gut.

A couple of old Thai songs are next: "Tom Tom where you go last night" and others written by Carabao, some 25 years ago.

In the meantime the place has been filling up, and our Thai ladies excuse themselves. We find that our previous table has been taken by a group of Thai Army Special Forces, and they insist on buying us a drink.

We sit down with them, and I try to translate several conversations at the same time. Uan is still on stage, no help from him. Suddenly Handsome Martin pricks up his ears. Uan has found the Elvis CD and started singing "Jailhouse Rock".

Martin is up on the stage in a flash and they both belt it out, egging each other on. There is only one little problem: the text on the karaoke monitor is in Thai, and Martin has to remember or make up the words as he goes.

Still, the crowd is applauding and Martin even gets a few garlands slung around his neck, there must be an admirer in the audience, hopefully female......

They keep the Elvis CD going for at least ten more songs, Martin keeps collecting garlands and the Thai Special Forces guys keep refilling our glasses.