1st November 2009

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1st November 2009

I'm laying on a hammock out on the roof top of julies guesthouse back in chiang mai. A beer in one hand and a badly rolled bannana leaf cigar thing in the other. There is a beautiful sky tonight due to the Thai festival currently bein held. All the locals buy or make huge hot air ballon style lanterns and set them off flying into the sky with the breeze. There's fireworks going off sporadically too and it's amazing to watch.

I decided not to venture out to see the millions of floating lanterns down at the river as I'm very tired and can bealy walk after our ride back today. Ped had given me the choice to follow the usual route back taking in a couple of waterfalls on route or due to my proficiency, to continue off road on a trail he knew from a few years back. He did tell me it was very rough going but I had loved the off roading far too much to pass up the challenge.

I started off well by catching my ankle on the frame whilst kicking the bike off. It didn't hurt too much but swelled up massively and bled quite abit, deciding to let it sort itself out we set off thro the town and then started the 8 hour trail back to chiang mai. Again, it was really good fun, even Ped had to laugh every time he fell off, usually it was on the very slippy downhill sections of the tracks when gravity overcomes the friction between your wheel and the mud/gravel, you've no choice but the try to steer your way out of the slide but it's very very dificult.

My first crash happened purely because I was going too fast trying to get air from the ramp like troughs cut into the trail by rainwater flow. It didn't hurt much but I'd ripped a deep gash across my knee cap, I was more concerned about the fact that I'd ruined one of three pairs of trousers I have to my name! The blood stains showing thro made it look like I had a much more serious injury than was true. It wasn't until after we arrived back home that my knee started to stiffen up and now I can barely bend it at all without it giving way due to the pain.

It was well worth the fun tho and now I'm more than ready to take on Vietnam by motorbike next month. I'm gonna try to follow the same route as they did on top gear as it looked about as breathtaking as the scenery I passed by during the last few days. I've got Laos and Cambodia to get through before that tho and I'm wondering what other adventures lay ahead.
Tis a good life :o)

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