Pai, off the bike
No luggage, no schedule, no 200 km to cover. Your wrists will thank you tomorrow when we do the hardest road of the trip. Bikes get looked at this morning. Chains, pressures, anything that rattled yesterday. Bring it to me at breakfast.
Breakfast and bike check
Guesthouse, out front. If something felt wrong yesterday, now is when we deal with it. Not tomorrow at Doi Kiew Lom. Chains get a look and a lube. Takes twenty minutes for the lot of you.
Yun Lai viewpoint, optional and early
Above Santichon, the Yunnanese village west of town. Sunrise over the sea of mist in the valley, which in November is close to guaranteed. You need to be up at five and it's a 20 minute ride in the dark and the cold. Some of you will think that's a fair trade. Most of you won't. No judgement either way, but decide tonight, not at 05:30.
Santichon Yunnanese Village
Open 07:00 to 18:00. Four km west of Pai. Kuomintang descendants, same story as Ban Rak Thai on Wednesday but closer to a tourist town and it shows. Go for the tea and the pork leg with mantou. Skip the swings and the costume photos unless that's your thing.
Tha Pai Hot Springs
Open 07:00 to 18:00. Eight km southeast. Inside Huai Nam Dang National Park so there's a fee, 300 baht for foreigners. Yes, that's more than Thais pay. That's how the parks work here and there's no point arguing at the gate. Hotter than Sai Ngam. You can boil an egg in the top pool and people do.
Pai Memorial Bridge
Open Open access. Japanese army built the original in the war, on the supply route into Burma. This one's a replacement but the story is real and it's the reason there's a road here at all. Ten minutes. It's on the way to the hot springs.
What I'd actually do today
Nothing much. That's the point of a rest day and people always fill it up and then regret it on the 1095 tomorrow. If you do one thing: bamboo bridge at Kho Ku So in the morning, coffee, back for a swim in the afternoon. If you do two, add the memorial bridge because it's on the way. Tomorrow is 110 km, the hardest road of the trip, and we leave at nine sharp.
Kho Ku So Bamboo Bridge
Open 06:00 to 18:00. Bamboo walkway across the rice paddies to a small hillside temple. Built by the monks and the villagers so the monks could do the alms round without wading. Donation box at the entrance. Put something in it. Best early, before the heat and the day-trippers out of town.
Kho Ku So at about seven. Green in the wet season, gold in November. This is a November photo.
Tomorrow, read this tonight
Nine o'clock, fuelled, packed, ready. Not nine o'clock and then twenty minutes of finding your gloves. The road to Mae Hong Son is narrower than what we rode on Monday, with fewer places to overtake and more blind corners. It's also emptier and better. We stop at Tham Lod and that stop is not optional to skip, it's the best thing on this loop. Fuel in Pai before we go. Next reliable pump is Pang Mapha, halfway.