the untamed north: trip report, part iii

After our adventurous trek in the wilderness, we decided we needed a break from fun but unsophisticated modes of transportation such as walking and elephant riding. We opted for perhaps the most fun mode of transit other than hang-gliding, hot air ballooning, fan-boating, gyrocoptering, and beaming (for all you Trekkies)... the noble scooter.

Here’s a picture of my western attire for the ride—the bandanna serves as a pollution and bug-in-mouth cover, or as a wind noise reducer.

Yet again, it is very hard to capture the beauty of the landscape we traveled in. We ended up traveling almost 250 miles in two days, all by 115cc scooter. We started in Chiang Mai, and, getting out of the city, went to Pai, where Tyler and Laura stayed, while Vanessa and I continued to Suppong. The roads between Pai and Suppong were nothing short of miraculously curvy and steep. Filled with beautiful vistas, we often had to use first gear to make it up some of the extremely steep roads. There aren’t many pictures that could really capture the atmosphere, but here are my attempts:

In the second photo, you can see the road in the lower right-hand side of the photo.

People ask me if I’m afraid of driving in Thailand. To be honest, it’s a lot easier than driving in America. Instead of a bunch of rules you pretty much use your best judgment. I may have seen 10 or 12 speed limit signs in all my driving here (over 500 miles). If you’re afraid you’re going too fast, you probably are. Oh, and you should be on the left side of the road… that one is important. If there are curves… slow down. If you can weave in between traffic to get to the stoplight—go for it! Its fun! And terrifying! Sure there are things you need to worry about (read: dogs on the road, cows on the road, monkeys on the road, etc…), but all-in-all its not too bad.

Well, you remember how I said you can’t really capture a lot of that in a picture? I thought perhaps a video would be more appropriate. So, here’s what I did. I rigged up my camera on my tripod in the front of the scooter, fastened it appropriately, and used the newfound (and very useful) “time lapse” setting to create a video of three legs of our journey. I set the camera for one picture every second and made a video. I then selected appropriate music (read: DRAGONFORCE and THE SUICIDE MACHINES), and added cool transitions and effects.

The first leg is from the Cave Lodge (where we stayed) to Suppong. We had planned on caving, but the Cave Lodge was kind of a bust for us because we needed 4 people to do a proper caving adventure (with a guide). The road was small and rocky, and I had to steer out of the way of a lot of holes. Hence, the rocky and shaky camerawork. Note the car pulling over to let others pass (it was a small road). The music is by Dragonforce. Unfortunately, the compression of Google Video really destroyed this video, I will try to post it on my personal ISU web-space later. It looks good in full res, I promise!

The second video is actually of the third leg of the journey. The second leg was the mostly uphill section from Suppong to Pai, while this (the third leg) is the mostly downhill section from Suppong to Pai. You can really see the curves in this one, and how far I had to lean to make them. Its very fast and disorienting, and the second leg is actually better at showing the road, but I couldn’t find any suitable music for it. I’ll post the second leg later, as you can see how the steepness of the road regulated the speed of our scooter, and how we go very slow uphill, only to speed up suddenly downhill. Anyway, I’ll show it later. Again, this one is destroyed by uploading to Google Video, sorry. Music is by The Suicide Machines.

Well, more to come later on this lengthy trip. Hope you enjoy the videos, will try to get higher resolution ones available.