Week 10
Flat tires, Chiang Rai and Thai visa office!
Welcome to Week 10 of our cycle touring weekly catch ups.
Visa Office
The week started with us in Chiang Rai, with a decision to make - do we rush back to Chiang Mai for Maddy to extend her visa? Or, do we extend it in Chiang Rai, and maybe loose a day or two?… We decided rushing was a bad idea, so Maddy headed over to Chiang Rai’s Immigration Office. After 1 hr and a super simple process, the visa was extended for another 34 days!
Chiang Rai
While in Chiang Rai, Reggie broke his 8th spoke of the trip… luckily there are many bike shops to check out in the city - all with different equipment, brands and suggestions. We were also looking specifically for a bicycle pump with a pressure gage, cheap blinky lights and break pads for Reggie.
After looking around we found shop that replaced his spoke and re-balanced his wheel - Story Wheel Bike Shop and Club. We found the pump and lights for a decent price in a different shop, but it seems Reggie’s break pads are ‘too European’ for the Thai bicycle market!
Cycling
The middle of the week saw us cycling back from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai, taking the main road this time - instead of the mountain roads. On day 1 we started out late and covered 40km, day 2 we rode 70km, and day 3 we rode 80km and arrived in Chiang Mai around 8pm. These were long days of cycling, but the road wasn’t too difficult, so we averaged 15-17km per hour.
Each night we found great camping spots - one night we even BBQ’d some meat.
During the three day journey, Maddy got her first flat tire… followed by another two! The first flat was on day one, and the inner tube was changed while dinner was cooking, the other two were on day 3. The road on day 3 was fast paced with heavy traffic in places, this meant a lot of cycling down the hard shoulder, trying to doge broken glass wherever possible - apparently not very successfully! So, by the time we arrived in Chiang Mai we had three inner tubes to patch up.
After patching up tires in the morning, we met up with a friend who had asked us to record a podcast with her. She was interested in our relationship, and how we travel by bicycle ‘without killing each other’. Some interesting questions were asked, and we learnt more about each other, which was a cool experience!
Accommodation
The accommodation in Chiang Mai we were lucky to find through Warm Showers (a free hospitality and social networking platform for finding mostly local people to stay with). Our host Gregory provided us with a really nice place to stay, with our own space to come and go as we pleased, and he also took us for a bike ride through the smaller back-roads of Chiang Mai. Having moved to Chiang Mai 5 years ago, Gregory was very knowledgeable about the city and Thai culture, and his background in real estate gave as new information about long-term expat life in Thailand - such as a foreigner can own a house but not the land the house in on.
Food
We ate a lot of noodle soup this week! From simple beef noodle soup with meat balls, to crispy belly pork and red BBQ pork noodle soup. These dishes can be found throughout northern Thailand, at every road-side restaurant we stopped at, and are a great combination of soups, meats, veggies and noodles!
Videos Of This Week
Right: A compilation of snippets of one day, with the aim to test the possibility to take you on the road in this kind of format.
Left: Some of our day, including Reggies reaction to Maddy's first flat tire!
More Pictures!
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Thank you for reading,
Maddy & Reggie @ VagabonShoe
