1st February 2011

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Molly and Ryan met us for breakfast at CM Blue House. Then we rode our scooters up the mountain to Doi Suthep Temple, parked bike and walked up 300 steps to the temple. I bought a couple of postcards in the shop and Mark knocked a clock off the table, the woman was not impressed! So back down the 300 steps and onto the Khmong hilltribe village for lunch and bought a pair of fishermans trousers for two pounds. Then rode the Samoeng Loop (90km), we stopped at a bungy jump centre and watched two jumps, this never made any of us want to try it. On this road we saw some elephants, beautiful flowers, large bamboos and pampas grass and lots of dogs in the way.

All in all we were on the bikes for eight and a half hours - numb bum and jelly legs. It was worth it as the views from the top are splendiferous. Although, as we found out you do need to make sure that you have a full tank of petrol to start with - there are no fuel stations on the loop. Luckily we had enough to divert to a small town and get some.

We went to Haem Phen for dinner, it was full so we rode around Chian Mai looking and ended up in a Thai place round the corner from The Corner restaurant, it also has a car rental and tattoo parlour on the premises. There were lots of tourist in there and the smelliest toilet ever according to Molly and on her advice I never visited it. Dishes turned up one at a time so it was difficult to eat together. We were not impressed, was worse than the local Chinese takeaway!

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