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Cycling in northern Thailand and Lao PDR
Greetings from northern Thailand
Agelasto2004-05-18 20:27:51
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The year end finds me on the road again. I was in this neck of the woods 10 months ago but now have returned with the bicycle. In between these visits to Thailand, I've been to France twice - first to purchase a flat in summer and then to furnish it in November. The flat - a site blocked in China; to view it you must 'ping' around the block - is ready to welcome visitors. My schedule for 2003: I'll reside in the flat June and Sept/Oct. The rest of the summer I will cycle in Europe. I'm planning Frankfurt - Sanary and St. Petersburg - Vienna.
"Thailand? What, aren't you afraid of the terrorists? Chiang Mai, the next Bali?" Actually, the likelihood that any of the who-knows-how-many folk now at war against American foreign policy will choose tourist-infested Thailand as their next statement (at this stage WW III is less a conflagration than a series of bush fires) is about that of an earthquake taking out a Pacific Rim metropolis. Uncertainty, certainly, seems to be about the only thing certain in this new millennium. Most life goes on as before. So do I.
For the first outing here on the bike, I've just completed a 700 km loop of hills - routes 108 and 1095 - specifically from/to Chiang Mai, overnighting via Hot, Mae Sariang, Khan Yuam, Mae Hong Son, Soppong, Pai and Mae Malai. I took a detour to Mae Aw, a settlement founded by Kuomingtang refugees from the Chinese civil war 50 years ago. It is touted in tourist literature as a more- Chinese-than-Thai village, with generations living in the past, with photos of Chiang Kai-shek and with Taiwan flags and anti-Communist slogans. What I saw, instead, was rural poverty and isolation (one nationalist flag, no Chaing memorabilia), a people living outside reality, outside their culture. Opium trade no longer provides for their wealth. It all seems rather sad.
The hills of Thailand make for as difficult cycling as I've ever encountered.
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See photographs from:
Thailand Gallery
