Day 67 & 68 ..... Tues 6th & Wed 7th October .... 687 km (20590 km total)
Some of my favourite roads - when its not raining!
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This is a lovely journey in riding & scenery terms with quite a few nice stopping places (waterfalls etc). I have ridden it a few times before and so thought I would introduce it to the Tiger.
The road leaving pak chom, twists & turns following the Mekong for quite a way, but you saw pictures of that yesterday, so here are a couple as it starts to go inland. Great roads and little traffic.
The road then swings northwards around the edge of a piece of Laos that juts into Thailand west of Loei. At the same time it starts to climb and heads into a series of beautiful national parks.
This area is fairly remote, so not too many opportunities for coffee or fuel stops. The scenery is lovely though.
I had been watching clouds building up for some time & shortly after ran into the first of a whole series of tropical rainstorms. I did'nt bother putting on any waterproofs as, typically at this time of year, if you are moving you will usually ride through the rain in 10 minutes or so.
Of course you can get very wet in 10 minutes of late monsoon rain, but at least its warm rain! The biggest problem really is it makes the roads slippy and the twisties less fun.
There is a nice waterfall en route which I always stop at. Unfortunately the landscape gardeners have been out and planted a load of trees & shrubs almost spoiling the view from the road.
What was wrong with natural beauty!
Then it started raining again so I headed off.
Next sunshine break stop was a bridge over the Nan river, a very full river at this time of year.
Did you say its about time for a selfie?
Oh!, go on then!
Got a bit of a rhythm going for a while, sunshine stop, rain starts, ride on to next sunshine stop ....
This one in the hills before descending into Nan.
And this one from another nice hill, unfortunately photo bombed by a space invader!
More rain ...
... And more sun ...
Down in the valleys the rice fields are a rich shade of green.
The next day was more if the same, if anything with more rain.
I did plan to go up Phu Che Fa, but it was belting down, so decided to leave it to the day after.
Approaching Chiang Rai, it brightened up again.
Random dinosaur - absolutely no idea why!
I had decided to stay in Chiang Rai for a couple of days and take some trips out into the surrounding areas. I also needed to get some insurance for the bike as I couldnt find the booth at the border 2 days ago - oops
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