NE rural Thailand

How one dresses to enter a temple...

My New Year's resolution, our current Government being the exception

Am finishing this post on the bus back to Chiang Mai after our ~12- day-excursion north and east of there. The countryside is lush and green, and the forest looks like a rainforest. Tree covered rolling hills, and mountains.  No way I would want to be here in another few weeks when apparently the farmers burn brush everywhere - we have smelled this several times, and am afraid of the fumes, as I also saw someone burn garbage.
Have climbed 8-12%  grades a few times per road signs, but also steeper grades per Craig. The small towns now look somewhat familiar, with lots of temples, the school buildings prominently marked, often with the name also in English; homes of varying sizes, mostly with wide, open doors; lots of villages and small farms outside the towns; lots of chickens and dogs everywhere, but only one dog bothered us; everyone has been very friendly, but communication has been a challenge; we are eagerly looking forward to the food in Chiang Mai, and will probably not want to see another 7-11, or (chocolate) wafers for a long time. Have not dared eat the interesting looking dried fruit we see manually packaged locally...But had delicious packaged baked banana strips yesterday - similar to what we had on Maui.
Only today found out dengue fever is not present in Pua, so am happy as I got bitten yesterday. We have been super careful to avoid mosquitoes both due to this fear, and fear of malaria. But have not needed the Mosinet I again brought along. Craig did see a Government poster with warnings of mosquitoes.

Link to rural NE Thailand


Chiang Kham: we liked the city better than Thoeng - but are happy we stayed a few miles outside it. Found a great restaurant, established in 2017,  by a nice young woman, who had moved back here after several years in Bangkok. She spoke great English, and I was able to make my usual changes to the menu... they do not offer many vegetarian options in the smaller towns. We had dinner there every night. This included our Xmas meals - nice Thai stir fries!
We did one very scenic ride into the mountains, and a couple of other nice rides through the country side.
We again had a nice host - we were his first guests at the Airbnb he just established. One of his friends is a Thai English teacher - so anything important was communicated with her help. The translation program on Craig's Google phone works maybe 50% of the time.. people just look confused sometimes when we show them the Thai translation.
Xmas day my stomach felt a bit weird, so we didn't ride more than in to Chiang Kham for a couple of errands, and to see a Burmese style temple our hosts recommended. I liked it better than many another temple, because it had more wood, and less glitter & gold.
We arrived safely at our next Airbnb, also recently established, in Pua. The bus ride through the mountains was scary at times, even for Craig (he worried about the brakes etc). The bus was more than full, and young guys were standing on the steps into the bus, by the open doors. I was happy to accept the last seat, when offered by one young man. Steep descents on narrow, winding roads, sometimes at breakneck speed.. Craig had struggled to get our bikes into the luggage compartments, and I was amazed at how relaxed the driver, and the other passengers were, but then the bus was already over 1.5 hrs delayed when it arrived where we got on.
Our current host is a young retired MD, now growing flowers as his hobby, but also for export. His English is great. One son is in Dallas to learn English, another son works in Japan. This is the first time we don't have wifi, and we're told all Thais here have wifi on their phones.
This is also the first time it rains since we came to Thailand. We read all day, and I could only do a little planning, by Craig connecting the iPad to his phone's wifi. He wants to make sure I mention, that he thought me totally crazy, when I wanted to walk a little in the light rain, to dinner. We have Gortex jackets, wide brimmed high tech type hats, rain pants, reflective ankle straps, and a removable bike headlight as strong as a car's. So I do not quite understand what his problem is, except I agree the road we had to walk was boring, as a parallel smaller road had no shoulder. Our gear is hopefully drying in the shower, and I hope we don't cause plumbing problems from the sand..
The 2nd day: we were hopeful riding off by late morning, but only got a brief glimpse of how beautiful this area is. The rain returned, and there was no point in going up into the cloud-covered hills as planned. We took a few pictures, got wet and dirty, and hope tomorrow is nicer.
The 3rd day: no rain, no sun, but warm enough also for me to bike up in to the hills. We reached a ridge, which would have been nice and rolling per Craig's GPS, but we had next to no views due to the cloud cover, and turned around as it was getting more damp. We rode along small roads in the valley instead, and enjoyed the day.
We have seen a few touring cyclists pass our guest house - a first in Thailand. We were not close enough to speak to them, and today could not communicate with a Thai man who was climbing the hills with us, panniers and all.
I think Pua was our favorite area. There are many more roads that would be fun to explore here, and one could presumably also hike in a National Park we came close to in the mountains.
But we would not volunteer to help with the collecting of rubber, as this needs to get done at night, and King Cobras have been known to bite workers in the chest!
We have a few days of 'chores' now, before we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos on January 3.