Week 8

Week 8: Tough cycle towards Chiang Rai, ending in the hospital, Chiang Mai and the Digital Nomads.

Chiang Mai met us with the comfort of home thanks to our friend Soléne, where we’ve been really happy to chill and cook our own food. Although, street food in Chiang Mai is pretty diverse, from traditional Thai food - such as Pad Thai noodles - to Western style pulled-pork burgers (pictured below)

We desperately needed to wash the bikes, and thanks to this kind dude we got to use a pressure washer for the job! Local shops wanted to charge 300B each to clean the chain and cassette.

And Reggie welcomed a new style, with a big beard and a shaved head!

Chiang Mai digital nomad community is amazing!

We met Sarah and Chris - a couple who have set themselves up as digital nomads here in Chiang Mai, and who taught us a lot over a delicious lunch! For example, suggestions to get ourselves involved in the weekly Youtube meet-up, which was really informative. At the meetup we learned a lot from other creative people - experts to beginners.

What was surprising was that all this information was for free… And people are so kind to share it!

After a great few days in Chiang Mai, we started to cycle towards Chiang Rai. Skipping the main road, and heading off into the mountains.

Riding some super fun off-road tracks, sleeping by a beautiful waterfall, as well as conquering a 1.3km high mountains.

Challenges, like always, were finding the camping spots… But also steep inclines where we needed to help each other push the bicycles up the hills, for 4 hours in a day!

One of our favorite parts? Finding a river for swimming after a hot ride… Nothing is better than diving into that cold water after sweating your way up some steep hills!

The week ended with a quick trip to the hospital because Maddy had an allergic reaction to some bug bites from the mountains… The ladies were very kind and helpful, and Maddy has been given antibiotics to help.

Luckily we found a great place to crash and can take it easy for a couple of days!