Loperamide | cyclethailand

Day 37 (8.5.13) Phayao to Chae Hom
114km 6.5 hours
The mountain range today has a name, Phi Pan Nam Mountains. Looked nasty on bkeroutetoaster and across the lake.
Guts still dodgy so full of Imodium and active charcoal washed down with water full of hydration powder I looked at the room with the sun shining in, nice wooden floor and desk and wondered. But being made of stronger things I left. Busy road at first but when turned left to climb the mountains became better.
Tips:
· dry your socks on the AC. The unit outside is warm so will dry clothes overnight when the AC is on. If dirty just cover with a plastic bag (AC not the clothes).
· A healthy snack that is easy to make:
1. take some squashed brown bread and make it fairly flat
2. Take one squashed over ripe banana, take the skin off and put on the bread
3. Take a tube of 7/11 honey (think I have mentioned this before) and squeeze generously over the banana.
4. roll into a tube (you may need another piece of bread) and put it in your mouth.
Don’t worry about honey dripping onto your hands. It improves the grip on the handlebars.
How can so many Thais afford SUVs? Today I would like to mention the damage they do. I see a lot of dead or dying butterflies on the road. Most of these people would not grab a butterfly in their garden, throw it to the ground and stamp on it so I wonder how they can do this with their vehicles. Perhaps there should be some research into this and then a public awareness campaign. There are also other creatures squashed on the road like snakes and scorpions but they don’t look nice and hurt.
I of course didn’t intend to go to Chae Hom. I thought the 60 km over the mountain to Wang Neau would be enough. The road over the montain had been engineered by a humanitarian or a cyclist. It wound in long waves up the mountain limiting the gradient and thus was far easier than I thought. That is the beauty of being a pessimist. You get pleasantly surprised more frequently than optimists who must suffer a lot with disappointment. I arrived in Wang Neau feeling ok and cycled around the village. Two very quiet residential roads and a main crossroads did not impress. It is a place between places. A road junction with a garage, 7/11 and small market. Finding itwas 54 not 74 more kilometers to Chae Hom finalized it. On the map it looked like a flat river valley. An example of rare optimism bringing disappointment. It went up and down a lot but was not too bad and made me feel I had justified all my healthy snacks.
I am used to people shouting and waving encouragement but today one man carrying his whole family on his motorbike coming down hill waved with his thumbs up in the air shouting,’Welly goo, welly goo’. One has to admire a man that is willing to risk his life and the lives of all his family to encourage me.
Chae Hom is a small town without much interest. I know as I went around it four times trying to find the only accommodation. A combination of vague directions and my Thai wasted over an hour. in fact it does have some interest. A lovely lady that sells noodles and speaks some English. You just know when some people are good. Spend some time chatting and laughing with her. After that I checked the town again but the 7/11 was the only excitement so returned to my pink dwelling with the heart shaped key ring.