Our trend of ridiculous climbing continued the next morning as we paralleled the border up a 5000 foot ascent to Doi Ang Khan, a mountain tourist destination predominantly for Thai people. Several decades ago, the late king of Thailand established a Royal Development Project in this area to supplant opium with alternative crops. Now, tea and non-opioid flowers are interspersed with secondary growth forest, and the drug trade has drifted into Myanmar. Brooke enjoyed wandering the grounds of the project, where exotic crops such as swiss chard, parsley, apricots, and artichokes complemented bonzai exhibits and pony rides.
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| Palaung woman in Nor Lae market |
I foolishly got back on the saddle to see the neighboring Palaung hilltribe village Nor Lae. Here, garishly dressed Palaung women gather above a Thai border post to sell jewelry, clothing and other souvenirs. While the poverty and aggressive hawking from the merchants left no doubt that this was a tourist destination, the betel nut stained grins of the women, and the occasional ivory bracelet (6 dollars) gave Nor Lae more than a hint of its frontier heritage.
After we returned from our afternoon trips, Thai people again impressed us with their kindness over dinner. We had been eyeing the boiling dishes brought out to large groups of tourists across from our hotel, but Pai-rot, the proprietor of Ting-Ting restaurant, seemed to think only large groups could finish the meal. However, he had seen us ride our bikes in, and after showing off his mountain bike, decided to make an exception for us. According to Pai-rot, the dish, known as sukee, is a blend of Thai and Yunnanese cooking. Similar to a hot pot, it consists of boiling broth served in a bundt-shaped metal container over a small volcano of coals. Various cuts of pork come with the broth and the diner adds mushrooms, rice noodles and assorted aromatic greens before eating with one of several sauces. Pai-rot may have been slightly tipsy, or he may just have liked us, because he couldn't seem to help but compliment us on how good looking we were and how we obviously loved each other a lot.
Brooke and I got out of bed before sunrise to climb above morning mist filling the surrounding mountain valleys. Deviating several kilometers back to Nor Lae, we hoped we could pass the Thai checkpoint and save retracing our steps. Unfortunately, the Thai army guard's "no" was clear despite all my efforts. It may not have helped that I had asked the same guard if I could pass the day before … but at least Brooke got to check out the village, and the early morning mist over tea fields was worth the extra climbing anyway. Our brakes held as we dropped four thousand feet in roughly eight miles down precipitous switch backs, but our legs were fried from four days of intensive climbing, so an initial overnight stop in Tha Ton turned into a full day of rest.
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| Palaung woman walking to work |
The Kok River splits Tha Ton in half as it widens after descending from the Burmese hills. Apart from having very pleasant river views, this city also occupied the flattest ground we have seen since leaving Chiang Mai, which may have contributed to spending an extra day there as well. An enormous chedi overlooks the valley, so we overcame physical and mental inertia to ride our unloaded bikes up the hill for sunset, followed by tom kha gai at the restaurant/house of a friendly Thai woman.
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| Wat Tha Ton |
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| View from the Tha Ton chedi. |
Sleeping in the next morning was a welcome relief from our usual, sometimes successful, efforts to rise with the sun. I took a truncated, but still very steep, ride into the hills west of town, taking time to get off the highway to slow roll through two mountain villages. A Thai army post guarded a road I had been eyeing for days. Running literally along the border all the way to Nor Lae, it promised to be exceedingly hilly, and having been repeatedly denied by border security, I didn't even try to pass through the post. Brooke passed the day, if not more excitingly at least more intelligently, by getting a Thai massage. With Brooke spending lunch sighing compliments about the massage, there will likely be more in our future, but I'll leave that to Brooke to tell.
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| Our route so far |
We'll try to catch up before entering Laos in the next few days…
Another awesome posting and fun reading. Awesome pics too, especially the temple cast against the sky. And thanks for the map, which helps put the blogs into geographic perspective. Glad you didn't argue too much with the guards and glad the brakes are holding up. Impressed that Pai-rot recognized what a great couple you are. Do you have plans there for Thanksgiving? LD
ReplyDeleteProbably be in laos in the jungle with Gibbons. We'll try to call before though
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