Scooters, Switchbacks, and Serendipity: Chiang Mai to Pai

Two motorcyclists rose somewhat blearily in an unfamiliar hotel room and blinked at each other. Where had they been last night? Oh, that’s right—a bar in Chiang Mai with Mr Simmons. One cocktail had turned into multiple. And it got fuzzy after that. The less sleepy one stood up. So far, so good. The floor didn’t spin around him. The more sleepy one regarded him expectantly. He sighed, put on whatever clothes were nearby, and went to get coffee. It was his role in the relationship, after all.

We’d actually stayed a little longer in Chiang Mai than we’d intended. Dalma hadn’t slept a wink in the first hotel we’d stayed in and was so tired that by morning she was weeping. So two days stretched into three. Then, there was a problem with the rear brake on my bike with the lever not retracting unless force was applied. This happened on a Sunday, which is the Thai weekend, and there was no chance of getting it repaired until Monday. Three days stretched into four. We didn’t mind. We could, we decided, have easily spent a month here. Mr Simmons took us to an enormous Sunday night market. We rode up the local mountain to see a temple named Suthep Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. We ate well.

But by Monday afternoon, the bikes were fixed, and Dalma was rested.

We planned to start the fabled Mae Hong Son route. This is a motorcycling extravaganza, a 600-kilometer, curve-laden journey through the Mae Hong Son province, with more twists and turns than a daytime soap opera. (Over 1,800.) The views along this loop were said to be spellbinding, with vistas that could make poets out of accountants.

By the time we stood over the motorcycles it was close to 11am. It had been a slow morning. We did our usual routine: recorded a departure video to be edited down later, packed the bags, looked at each other and laughed. We rode to Mr Simmons’s coworking space for second coffee. He’d been very kind to us while we were here and we were grateful.

The road to Pai led us north on unremarkable Thai highways. They were less busy than the roads out of Bangkok, but still with some trucks. Then we turned off and were led down an initially straight road that gradually got twistier and twistier.

Imagine, if you will, a road so twisty it looks like a plate of upended spaghetti, the result of a clumsy chef. It’s a maze of corners and switchbacks, where your GPS just gives up and says, “Good luck!” This road zigzags so much, you’d think it was designed by a hyperactive snake playing hopscotch. It’s a rollercoaster minus the safety harness, a dance floor for motorcycles and trucks and cars where every step is a sharp turn. Where impatient drivers tailgate and overtake on double lines, and trucks slow down so much that they look like they’re wanting to lead a parade. This is the kind of road where you check your tires for dizziness and your handlebars for a sense of humour!

The kilometres went slow here. You couldn’t go fast with all the corners. But the views you snatched from the side—you couldn’t stop—were sensational. Distant mountains with haze. Valleys and cliffs that plunged down so deep you half expected them to be filled with orcs. Dalma did once get tailgated for a while, which unnerved her. It was understandable. She had to watch ahead of her, for the twisties, and behind her, for some asshole a metre away in a shiny car. We eventually found a place to stop, something of a feat in a landscape of roads and cliffs. Twisties both excite Dalma and make her anxious, and she didn’t need the added pressure of being tailgated. However, after a break, she got back on the road. She is a determined girl.

We eventually puttered into Pai. We found our hotel, noted it had a pool, put a toe into the water, noped out of that, and strolled into town. The local walking street was just setting up and we sat and watched a woman carefully set up her stock of colourful fabric purses on a tarp at the side of the road. The walking street was fabulous. We watched an aged hippy, obviously a Pai establishment, singing American folk songs. We wandered through the cannabis shops, a bookstore, lots of different street foods, had dinner, and strolled home.