A last minute road trip I couldn’t refuse.

Jeff from Have Pack, Will Travel had a just over a week in Thailand, visiting the northern city of Chiang Mai – a place I hadn’t been to in my previous trips to Thailand.  He was gracious enough to invite me to tag along.

I rarely need an excuse to go overseas and this was no exception. While it would mean stretching all available leave options at my office job, it would afford me the chance to finally meet my travel writing boss and it’s hard to turn down a opportunity to eat some cheap and tasty Thai food.

I booked my tickets and we brainstormed a few activities to do, trying to fit in as much as we could in as little time as possible.  There’s always plenty to do in Thailand but our trip this time took on a purpose a bit different from the norm: we were going to motorbike from Chiang Mai to Pai – some 762 hairpin turns through the Mae Hong Son loop – one of the most scenic regions in the country.

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The first cool thing about Chiang Mai is that everyone seems pretty ok with you being there.  Not including the night bazaar, there were next to no touts trying to sell you treks, suits or prostitutes. In fact the whole lack of visible sex tourism was a welcome difference from some of the other well-known tourist haunts. People wanted to talk to us with no hidden agendas, and that’s a refreshing change to Bangkok and some of the places down south. Another cool thing about Chiang Mai is the food.  It’s spicy. You’d be right in guessing that the author of SanchezJalapeño is partial to a bit of chili, so the food was a bit of a highlight. It’s frustrating when you say you want something spicy but perhaps because you’re a farang you’re dished up a mild green curry, which has happened many a time. Not so in Chiang Mai.

The first stop for us a stroll through a few Wat’s, then dinner at the walking street market, which happens on Sunday nights.  Walking street however seemed to be a bit of an understatement as the fucking thing continues for miles. Blocks were sectioned off to house all the market stalls – everything from I heart Chiang Mai shirts, giant funky oil paintings, and dried fried insects.

Video © havepack.com

We planned an early night these things rarely go to plan and I spent a majority of the night drinking cheap scotch on the roof with an ever-rotating group of backpackers and my Australian friend Steve, who was along for the ride.

6am came and we groggily woke, showered and mounted our beasts – 3 automatic 100cc scooters which were to be our chariots for the trip to Pai.

The outskirts of Chiang Mai is an amazing place to be early in the morning. We passed songthaew’s crammed full of school kids waiving at us and Monks holding out their alms bowls collecting rice from the people on their way to work.  It’s probably an hour on the main road out of town before you reach the turn off to Pai.  Immediately the scenery changed, and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. We stopped for breakfast at a small little café situated at the first of the 762 turns to come. After a breakfast of champions (or plain omelette and coffee, depends what your perspective is on such matters) we rode for a while before coming across a dirt path with a sign for waterfalls. We followed it 6km down an eroded dirt track, climbing little hills (no small feat considering we were on automatic scooters) finally arriving at a less than spectacular waterfall. But hey, the trip was good and I got the opportunity to place with a mangy dog I called bush puppy and take a photo of a scarecrow/laundry day.

Back on the main road we drove for a few hours before stopping for lunch.

I ordered the Tom Yum, then realized just how far we were from the ocean – my prawns were hardly going to be the catch of the day. Oh well, it still tasted pretty good and my chili quota for the day was met. We found another side road that led to a geyser so we followed it, almost crashing into a family of elephants being walked up the road.

Video © havepack.com

It was this encounter that reaffirmed my love for travelling (not that it had ever really waivered) – To see these awesome animals being walked up a road at least 20 kilometers from civilization, their owners waiving at us and smiling for photos. The bush puppy that earlier had come bolting up to me, almost making me fall over the top of my bike. I was getting sad that the purpose of my trip here to Thailand was halfway through, the realization that I’d soon be back in my cubical set in. But still, can’t go around forever with that frame of mind so I snapped out of it and  we continued riding, Pai being only a few hours away.

The trip takes a lot longer than you think it will. Any traveller who says they can do it in less than 2 hours is a dirty liar. A local guy we met later that night said he did the same trip, does it every week and it takes him 3 hours. But no matter how long people say it takes them, all agree that the hardest and most complicated part of the ride is the last hour; basically a freefall decent down hairpin turns on the side of a giant cliff – made all the more difficult due to my lake of fuel, but luckily I could turn the bike off and coast most of the way down the mountain.

Before I knew it (well, in fairness 8 and a half hours after we left Chiang Mai) we were cruising into Pai – A small hippy town with a surprisingly large Muslim population set on the bank of the Mekong Pai river, near the Myanmar border. The town is a good base for exploring through some of the Hill Tribes, hot springs and elephant camps, but mainly survives on tourism, with Farang’s counting for most of the visitors until the release of two Thai romantic movies set in Pai (they do love their sappy romance movies) which has resulting in a huge swing in domestic tourist numbers.

Riverside Bungalow in Pai

We spent a few days in Pai, writing notes and checking out the town before we started to think about how to get back to Chiang Mai. We thoroughly enjoyed our epic trip here, but the prospect of doing it all over again wasn’t exactly high on our agenda. So we flew. Nok Mini flies a 12 seater plane daily from Pai to Chiang Mai for about $60 –which was was worth it just for the amazing views over Mae Hong Son, an added bonus being that the flight took 25 minutes.

If you are considering doing the same trip, here’s a few tips:

• Aya are the only company I could find that offer one way motorcycle rentals between Chaing Mai and Pai. At 120 baht they are incredibly cheap but the bikes were well looked after and services.

• Consider getting a GT rider map of the Mae Hong Son loop. It features detailed topography, dirt roads and suggested itineraries.

• Get travel insurance. The last thing you want is a hospital bill that  is $10,000+ just because of a motorbike accident.

• If you can, leave enough time to see some of the hill tribes, and continue onwards past Pai on the Mae Hong Son loop, I hear amazing things about Cave Lodge and can’t wait to explore there in early 2011.

Follow Shane on Twitter, read his posts at Havepack, or catch up on his travels here.

Learn Chinese Mandarin on your iPod

An abundance of borsch, cranky provanistas and desolate, snow capped pine forests that stretch forever. Riding the Trans Siberian rail is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I often recommend it to travellers I meet along the way, but Soviet bureaucracy (amongst other reasons) stands in the way of a lot of people thinking they can do this on a backpackers budget. There is a ton of paperwork you need to fill out, and even more companies willing do complete this for you in exchange for your life´s savings. The thing is, with a bit of forward planning you can do it yourself for a fraction of the cost that a lot of people pay to ride the worlds longest railway.

When I was planning my trip I looked into getting a company to handle all the details for me. The cheapest I could find was through Vodka Train – a subsidiary of Sunlanders travel. They would take care of everything for me, and if I paid them, they would courier my passport around to all the embassy’s required and organise my ‘invitation’ to enter Russia (A requirement of all foreigners). Basically all I would have to do is sign the paperwork, submit a few photos for visas and fork over the cash. I paid them a deposit and they gave me a dossier explaining my itinerary, the places I would be staying and a cost breakdown.

I took a close look at the dossier. The journey I wanted to take departed from Beijing, visited Ulaanbaatar, Irkutsk & Lake Baikal, Moscow and St Petersburg. The trip was for 21 days (which included arrival and departure days, so really 19 full days), would be in 4 berth 2^nd class carriages on the train and dorm accommodation when we stopped along the way. The group size would be somewhere between 8 and 15 and there would be guides at stops enroute in the form of ‘Honchos’ – local students employed by the company to take us around the sites.

All up to do this trip with Vodka Train, it would cost me $3,990AUD (including a mandatory local payment of $150USD, payable to the Honcho in Beijing). As a backpacker this was an incredible amount to fork out, considering it didn’t cover any visa fees or meals, but as I was pretty naïve and hadn’t been particularly fastidious in researching, I didn’t really know if this was a good deal or not. I noticed in the price breakdown the hostel dorm I would be staying at in St Petersburg was listed as costing $70 dollars. I knew Russia was expensive but thought this was crazy, I checked it out online and the cost through the hostels website was $35!

I decided to purchase the Trail Blazers Trans Siberian handbook, and the Lonely Planet Trans Siberian guidebook. These books gave detailed information on how to purchase the tickets at each leg, the chaepest way to travel – but you run the risk of not being able to get a train for days if not weeks on the busier lines, a risk I couldn’t really run due to time constraints. Both books gave excellent recommendations for independent tour companies in many countries that can organise train tickets and one company they both mentioned was Real Russia– Based in Moscow with an office in London.

I requested a quote and was it was prepared for me in a few hours. 1^st class tickets (in a comparatively luxurious two berth compartment, including meals on the train) and the Russian visa invitation letter came to $3000AUD. For a 2^nd class 4 berth compartment the cost would be about half this. I opted for first class – the equivalent of 7 days travel on the trains without stinky cabin mates appealed at the time, but in hindsight I do regret that I missed out on this opportunity to share food, beers and interesting conversations with other travellers.

I had to organise the visas myself, but all this involved was filling out a few forms and sending my passport off to the embassy’s. My accommodation for the trip came to about $400 dollars (all in private rooms, twin share) so in the end I saved over $400AUD, travelled in style and got to stay in some really cool guesthouses, in some of the most amazing cities I’ve ever visited, for duration that I chose, not one decided for me. If I chose the 2^nd class cabins, I would have saved $2000AUD, more if I stayed in dorm accommodation along the way.

I’m not saying these sort of package tours are bad. Obviously these companies need to make a profit otherwise they’d be bankrupt. If you are short on time and don’t want to do all the research yourself then go for it. But if you’re a budget traveller with a desire to step into the unknown and figure it out yourself, then forget the tour, do the research and plan yourself one of the best trips you’ll ever take.

Hints and Tips

• The Trailblazers and Lonely Planet guides compliment each other. Fork out the dough and get both. The maps are better in Lonely Planet and the format is familiar, with good recommendations for accommodation and the history of the route, but the Trailblazers guide is full of interesting sights to see and practical information (like if you are a UK resident, bring along your triangle gas meter key, it fits exactly to the toilet lock so if you find yourself busting to go during the 8 hour border crossings you can sneakily let yourself in. Just be warned that it all goes onto the train tracks below…) the Seat61 website is a great source of information for all things rail.

• Bribe the Provanistas– they’re the cranky carriage attendants that make sure the water in the samovar is always full and piping hot. Bring them with a gift from your country and they get a lot nicer, I was even allowed to use the toilet while we were at the Russian border as long as I promised it was only a number 1, and they gave me some great Russian chocolates (which are amazing, so don’t bother bribing with chocolates -even the crappy no name stuff in Russia is better than most in Australia)

• Sure bring a book, but don’t bother with War and Peace, there’s too much to see, you probably wont get through half of it. Though make sure you are stocked up on 2 minute noodles – you can pick them up from the Babushka’s on the station platforms along the way – they sell everything including icy cold Russian beer, home made soups and pastries. Awesome.

You can read about my travels on the Trans Siberian here

Learn Russian on your iPod

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