Monday, January 24th, 2022
6:17 a.m. Room Phannu Hotel
Mae Sot, Thailand
Just writing the date above made my heart beat faster. And that’s because I am back in Mae Sot, and today is the day for my visit to immigration for, hopefully, one more 60-day extension of stay. Ironically, the last four days have been spent riding my scooter through the mountains of Thailand. And yesterday, I rode 230 kilometers. And on each of those nights, I had no trouble sleeping at all. I woke up every morning at four or five a.m. and simply started the day full of energy after a good sleep. But now that I am back in a town that has become my home and in a very comfortable hotel room with no great adventures ahead of me, instead of sleeping well, I couldn’t sleep at all. You’d think that I’d collapse into this comfortable bed and sleep like a baby, but I hardly got any sleep at all.
I haven’t written a word about my 4-day journey from Chiang Dao back to Mae Sot. And there is a very simple reason for that: I wrenched my back. And I have been unable to sit in any comfort and type. It happened when I arrived in Pai after the ride from Chiang Dao. The scooter ride had been quite enjoyable, but it didn’t turn out the way that I intended. Instead of a triumphant and relaxing ride in glorious, warm sunshine, it was a physical challenge. Clouds had settled over the mountains, and as the scooter climbed up in altitude, the temperature dropped dramatically, and it began to rain. I found myself doing my best imitation of Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining: frozen and stiff as a board. And I guess the many days of intense cold on my scooter had tensed up and cramped all the muscle and ligaments and tendons of my body. And when I was unloading my backpack from my scooter and carrying it into my bungalow at the FarmStay in Pai, something popped on my right side towards the back. I don’t know exactly what happened or what language to use to describe it. But I wrenched my back, pulled a muscle, tore a tendon, ripped a ligament, or something. Whatever happened, I suddenly found myself unable to sit comfortably, unable to bend, unable to twist or turn, and unable to use my back muscles in any way. I couldn’t do anything without a lot of pain. I couldn’t get in or out of bed. I couldn’t put on or take off my clothes or my sandals. I certainly couldn’t sit on the bed, as I normally do, with my back resting against some pillows and the laptop on my lap. The plan was to really enjoy the center part of each day on this trip. I was going to wake up later, really dive into my morning coffee and have a leisurely breakfast, and then get on the road after ten or eleven when the sun has come out and the world is warm and bright. But I was in so much pain that first morning in Pai that there was no point trying to do any of that. I couldn’t relax in comfort anywhere doing anything. I figured that since I was going to be in so much pain anyway, I might as well be in pain as I’m riding the scooter. And as soon as I woke up, I started packing and then left as soon as I was done. And then I did the same thing the next morning in Mae Hong Son. I simply woke up and packed and left. And I did it again when I left from Mae Sariang. That was yesterday, and I was happy to leave early because I had to cover the relatively long distance all the way to Mae Sot.
The days of riding themselves were also affected by my pulled muscle. Particularly at the beginning of the 4-day trip, I was in so much pain that it was difficult to even sit on the scooter and control it through the turns, braking, and accelerating. And stopping the scooter was nearly impossible. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t support the weight of the scooter with my right foot and right side. If I tried to lean the scooter in that direction when I came to a stop, my right side would collapse, and I risked the scooter falling over. I quickly had to endure the pain of pushing hard with my right leg so that I could get the scooter over to the left. Getting off and on the scooter was equally painful, and it became clear quite quickly that I would not be doing any exploring on this trip back to Mae Sot. It took so much effort to get on the scooter and then start it and start moving that once I was on the road and riding, I simply tried not to stop. I just kept riding as long as possible. A funny thing is that sniffing or coughing or sneezing or blowing my nose caused lightning bolts of pain to rip through my body. And with the intense cold of the mornings, I found myself sniffing and blowing my nose quite a bit. It was quite the comedy.
Despite this problem, the ride back to Mae Sot was one of the best experiences of my life. It really was. I kept complimenting myself for making such an uncharacteristically wise decision to revisit the entire Loop and do it all a second time. Riding to Pai and then from Pai to Mae Hong Son and Mae Sariang and Mae Sot deepened and enriched my time on the Mae Hong Son Loop tremendously. I got to see everything a second time from a new perspective. I saw it all with new eyes, and I was reminded of just how interesting and beautiful it was. It seems crazy now but by the time I got to Chiang Dao and technically the end of my journey, I had already forgotten much of what I had seen. It feels like I didn’t truly appreciate the road, particularly the section from Pai to Mae Hong Son. I was more impressed and found it more enjoyable and appreciated it more this second time than I did the first time. And the ride from Mae Sariang back to Mae Sot was very much the same. I was blown away by how much fun it was to ride the scooter on that road. And the scenery was much more dramatic than I remembered. Riding the Loop the second time drove home how special the experience was, and I’m very glad I did it. I’d say extremely glad.
Now that I’m back in Mae Sot, however, I do have to say that I have misgivings. I can see now a lot of the mistakes that I made. And they are the typical mistakes that I always make. Basically, I turned the trip into a much more difficult and complicated and involved experience than I needed to. That’s connected with two features of the trip: leaving the Green Guest House and shooting video for YouTube. By combining the Loop trip with leaving the Green Guest House, I ended up over-preparing for the trip. In effect, I ended up packing as if I was going to be living on the road for years. With the nice hotels that I stayed in, I didn’t really need to bring anything with me. I could have gone around the Loop with nothing more than a jacket and a toothbrush. The hotels supplied everything I might have needed. And I also over-did it when it came to shooting. As I approached the trip, I tried very hard to switch to a new mode of making short and snappy videos. But without even realizing it, I fell right back into my usual mode of shooting daily journals. And that ended up dominating the trip in terms of time and energy and focus. It took nearly all my time to just copy the video files at the end of the day. And then I tried very hard to edit videos at the same time. But there was no time. I have a memory of setting aside lots of days to work on editing and posting videos, but I didn’t really finish any. I don’t know how that is possible, but that is how things worked out. I did a rough count last night after I arrived in Mae Sot, and I have the raw material right now for twenty-five full one-hour videos of this trip. And that’s insane. Completely insane.
The end result of all this misplaced effort is that I invested five times more time and energy into the trip than I needed to. If I assembled only the actual travel experiences of the trip, I could probably have done it all easily in two weeks. Yet, I managed to stretch the trip out into 47 days. And if you add in all the preparation and planning time involved with leaving the Green Guest House, it would be a full two months. And now I could easily spend a month just editing the videos. I managed to take what could have been a super-enjoyable two-week trip-of-a-lifetime and turn it into three months of intense work.
I could be wrong about this. Perhaps it wouldn’t really have worked out this way. Maybe there were benefits to approaching the trip as I did. However, right now it feels like I could have had the same wonderful experience in a much easier fashion. I could have kept the room at the Green Guest House, for example. I could have packed a very light bag and left everything else behind. And I could have gone around the loop in three quick weeks and done a lot more. I could have concentrated on just activity for those three weeks and kept the video editing for after the trip was over.
In fact, now that I’m sitting here thinking about this, I’m having insane thoughts about actually doing that right now. If things go well this morning, I will be able to submit my extension of stay application, and then I will have to return in fourteen days. And rather than sit here in Mae Sot editing video for fourteen days, I could go around the loop a third time. I could be back in Pai in two days if I wanted to ride hard. Spend a week in Pai and then ride back to Mae Sot. To be honest, the only reason I wouldn’t do that is that I can’t really afford it.
I don’t think I have the time and energy right now to tell the entire story of my four-day ride from Chiang Dao to Mae Sot. I’ll just do a quick summary of the places I stayed and the most important features. In Pai, I booked one night at the FarmStay. Staying only one night, you don’t really give a place a fair chance, but I did not enjoy myself at all. Booking a bungalow there feels like a mistake. I thought it would be interesting to be in a bungalow outside of Pai and experience that side of the city. But it just felt uninteresting. The bungalow was quite small, and it had other bungalows on both sides of it quite close. And the walls were so thin that you could hear every single noise from all the bungalows around you and all the people outside and all the vehicles. The farm side of the place consisted of a manicured path around a pond with a few sheep and a hundred or so cages with rabbits inside. I was expecting more of a petting zoo with a variety of animals. But all I saw were three sheep and a hundred sad-looking rabbits. I did enjoy petting one of the sheep. But that is about it. And the floor of the bungalow was typically thin and unsteady. Simply walking around inside my bungalow was weird as I had to work hard to keep my balance. It was just an uncomfortable space. And I think it was while I was navigating this tight and unsteady environment that I tweaked my back.
Before I arrived in Pai, I thought that perhaps I would go to Two Huts or back to Cheese Madness or go to the Walking Street. But with my hurt back, I couldn’t go anywhere, and I just stayed in my bungalow all night.
There isn’t much to say about the ride from Pai to Mae Hong Son except that it was glorious. From start to finish, aside from all the pain I was experiencing, I was in heaven. I had so much fun. The scenery was fantastic and riding the twisting and turning road was invigorating. I was so glad that I rode along that road a second time. I don’t think I fully appreciated it the first time. Maybe I was too focused on shooting video. Plus, I came to appreciate the area around Bang Mapha more. I never stayed there in either direction, but it looked to be a great place.
In Mae Hong Son, I stayed at the ShangSin Hotel. My room there was wonderful. It was spacious and had two large twin beds with firm mattresses, which I really needed for my back. The people that ran the place didn’t exactly go out of their way to make their guests feel welcome. They didn’t see that as part of their job description at all. And the lobby and the rest of the hotel was simply cold and sterile and empty. But the room was great, and the firm mattress went a long way toward healing my back.
I left before dawn, and my idea was to simply race down the highway. However, at the last second, I decided to ride up to the temple on a hill, and that turned out to be another uncharacteristically wise decision on my part. I got to see the sunrise over the city and the hills from up there, and I had a good cup of coffee, and I had a great chat with a Thai man and a man from the UK. This man was also riding around the Loop on a rented scooter, and we had lots to talk about. I was extremely happy that morning. I couldn’t tell you why, but I could feel how oddly happy I was. I was in a fantastic mood. I absorbed every ounce of pleasure out of that sunrise as I could. I even paid for a gold leaf and wrote a message on it and hung it on the special display. And then I walked to the back of the temple to look for the Rider’s Memorial that Paddy Doyle showed in his video. And I took video of all of this. I felt remarkably upbeat.
I was on the road and riding much later than I had planned because of my trip to the temple, but since I had woken up so early, it was still early. I think I was heading south down 108 out of Mae Hong Son at about 8:30 or 9:00. That was late in terms of my plans, but that would still be considered early for most other people. In Mae Sariang, I booked an unusual room at the Mitaree Hotel 1. On my first visit to Mae Sariang, I stopped to check out the Mitaree 2. I remember thinking their rooms were fine, but kind of sad and depressing with no light and not worth the 450 baht they were asking. I think there was also a newer Mitaree 3. My hotel was the first Mitaree, and at some point, they added rooms in some quite unusual all-steel construction buildings out back. My room was a very interesting double room up on the second floor. I wouldn’t call it a great room, but it had a ton of interesting design features.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the trip was the section from Mae Sariang to Mae Sot. Those 230 kilometers went by in a near daze of pleasure. The scenery was far more dramatic and beautiful than I remembered. Throughout this whole trip, as far as the GoPro was concerned, I came up with the theme of “Tell, don’t show.” My wrenched back meant it was difficult to stop anywhere. So I decided to just lean into that and not even try to take video of the sights along the way. I was simply going to record something in the hotel when I leave and at the hotel when I arrive and then simply talk about what I’d done and seen all day. I wouldn’t take any video of it. And this ride from Mae Sariang to Mae Sot fit into that mood perfectly, and I rode fast and rarely stopped. And I got back to Mae Sot in record time. I was disappointed to learn that the Phannu didn’t have any single rooms available. So I took a more expensive double room for two nights. I still don’t know what I’m going to do once I submit my application for my latest extension of stay.
Speaking of the extension of stay, I have to shut down this computer and start getting ready to go to immigration. I’m very nervous about what will happen. If they say that I can’t get an extension, I will be in serious trouble. I have no idea what I would do in that case. What could I possibly do? I don’t even know what country I could fly to or how. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that.