Friday, December 31, 2021
7:00 a.m. Room 1, Like View Guest House
Mae Hong Son, Thailand
The snorer has left. Luckily, he spent only one night here at the guest house. I never did see the snorer, so I have no idea who it was. And I haven’t seen the new people or person that moved into that room, but the new person is perfectly quiet. I didn’t hear a sound out of them all last night, and they’ve been awake for the last hour and half packing up and getting ready to leave, but they were quiet as they did so. I’m so happy that the snorer was a one-night event.
Yesterday was largely a lost day as far as being a tourist on the road was concerned. I didn’t go out exploring or do anything interesting. Other than an hour or two at coffee shops, I spent the day here in my room at the Like View working on videos and other computer projects. I was also preoccupied with my need for a hotel. I originally booked three nights here at the Like View, and that took me up to the last day of the year, December 31st. I was unable to book a room here for tonight, New Year’s Eve, and nearly all the hotels in the town were also booked. When I first got here, I assumed, therefore, that I would be on the road and riding to Pai on December 31st. Pai has a greater number of hotels, particularly foreigner-friendly low budget guest houses. However, when I talked to the owner of the Like View, I discovered that the hotel wasn’t actually fully booked. In fact, she had unlisted the hotel online for those days. She wanted to treat the day as a holiday. And she said that since I was already here, I could just stay in the same room. So I paid her for another three nights. The room costs 300 baht per night. That will take me up until January 3rd, and on that day, I will be riding to Pai. I haven’t booked a room in Pai yet, but I don’t think that will be as challenging. The holiday crush should be dying down by then. I don’t have specific plans, but I imagine I will spend around a week based in Pai. And then I might ride to Chiang Mai. Or I might ride north to the area around Chiang Dao. I’m actually more interested in Chiang Dao than I am in Chiang Mai. So I might go there first. Then I could stop off in Chiang Mai on my way back to Mae Sot.
I started the day yesterday with a short walk to Coffee Morning. I was hoping to have a very productive day, and I wanted to hang out there with my computer and other gear and do some stuff. It didn’t work out quite like that, but in a pleasant way. For one thing, a local temple was putting on some kind of event on a small lot right beside the coffee shop, and that included a lot of very loud traditional music. It was all live, which was interesting. This loud music meant that, once again, I was unable to record any video. And while I was sitting there beside and just below the sidewalk, a local dog befriended me and became a constant companion. She was extremely friendly, and simply entertaining her and fending off the worst of her licks and attempts to jump onto my table and my lap took up most of my attention. As I was playing with her, another foreigner at the next table over engaged me in conversation about the dog, and he ended up joining me at my table. We chatted for perhaps an hour or so. I didn’t learn a great deal about him except that he was married and he lived and worked in Bangkok for a large, international tech company. He had a couple of days off work, and he took advantage of that by setting off on his 800cc motorbike for a ride around the loop. He was a nice guy, and we had a good chat about a variety of things.