Thailand: Mae Sot Loop: Day 4 Destination: Chaing Mai via route 1124/11
Our very own Monk guide, scary looking dude if you met him in a dark alley, a friendly fellow became a monk 10 years ago after a freak motorcycle accident and discovered his calling so his parents could go to heaven.
Sadly, like all good things they must come to an end. The Chapter of this road trip Book was coming to an end. All we had left was about a 4 hour run to Chaing Mai up route 1 or five or so hours if we took a detour off route 1 along route 11. Now having been along route 1 before I’ve learnt that it is a rather uninspiring ride filled with trucks and multilane highways. Sure you can spice it up a bit by opening up the throttle and pretending you’re Tom Cruise riding through the danger zone but in reality with scooters and CRFS, they weren’t really built for speed and well a twisty road seemed all that much better. So a brief run up the route 1 and then hang a left onto route 11 for some spice and we’d be home by mid afternoon.
Who doesn’t like a tree lined road with green farmlands leading up into the mountains on route 1124
Siesta time, I do love a good nanna nap and I’ve found temples on general have a good place to rest up and escape the elements. This one came up with the goods on a stinking hot day.
Learning from yesterday’s mistake we all plugged a random restaurant/coffee shop just outside of Lamphun and decided to go our own way at our own pace which translated to some muscle flexing with the boys and a little side bet of the last one there pays for Lunch. Now this probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say because it turned into Thailand’s own Isle of Man TT (motorcycle race that has killed many riders and is dubbed the most dangerous motorsport on earth). Well that’s a bit of a stretch but it wasn’t really the smartest move as we were tearing up the multilane highway constantly weaving in and out of hundreds of trucks doing anywhere from 60-90klm/hr along with all the rest of the traffic. It would have been a funny sight to see Angry Bird on his blue scooter ringing its neck to keep up with the CRFs cruising on 100klm/hr. But he wasn’t going down without a fight. On the flat he managed to keep pace but any idea of an incline and he’d drop back disappearing in the flurry of trucks. Only to reappear with glee as he zoomed past you on the downward slope of the hill laughing like a mad man.
Mythical creatures that guard the entrances to temples have always fascinated me. Here a dragon is eating a dragon, why is anyone’s guess.
After about 50 klm of this either the novelty wore off or something in our peanut sized brains made us realise that probably we weren’t really going to be able to sustain this riding with any degree of safety, so we backed off and nullified the bet. Which turned out to be a good thing anyway as good old Google got us lost again and split us up with different directions of travel. Eventually we arrived, to find a dingy little street restaurant with no coffee or much food for that matter and didn’t look like the café Google review was purporting. Still, it was the meet point so we sat, ordered some chow and waited for Snail to catch up. Which wasn’t that long - indicative of the tortoise and the hare scenario.
Before hitting the route again we found on the map what looked like a temple and decided this would be a good point to rendezvous and maybe get a sneaky nanna nap in to escape the heat of the day. Turned out to be the best decision of the day.
This part of the Temple was the teaching area for the monks. guarded by a moat and locked off our local guide opened it up and gave us an amazing local cultural tour and insight into the life of a Buddhist monk.
After finding the turn off for route 11 we were instantly glad we’d chosen this route. There was no traffic or annoying trucks belching diesel smoke and lush green fields adjoined the road, so we pushed on up into the mountains on tight twisty roads. The type of roads motorcyclists dream about and worthy of Motorcycle porn status.
The teaching area for the monks sort of a meditation room come class room, generally off limits to the public but our new found monk friend opened it up for our own cultural lesson.
Arriving at the top of a mountain we found what looked like an abandoned temple or at least one in a state of renovation we promptly parked up, slurped up some fluids and had a siesta. After a nanna nap of considerable time we set out to explore the temple and were greeted by a scary solitary monk who didn’t really look like a monk more a bad guy from a Bruce Willis Die Hard movie. Covered head to toe in Tats and some prominent scars the kind of dude I imagined he had a story to tell. But in true Buddhism fashion he was super friendly and opened up closed off areas to us and explained the history of the place.
Nong Tom, looking for divine intervention and seeing that he’s almost there with the Buddhist monk look.
We’d taken photos earlier of this mythical creature guarding a part of the temple. It was literally holding something in its hands and taking golden shits. It turns out the mythical creature was cold up in the mountains and asked the villagers for help. Seeing this and fearing for their lives some of the good Buddhist villagers offered him hot coals to warm up, others fled in terror. Taking the burning coal from the villagers with thanks the gargoyle like creature promptly ate it to warm up. You can imagine the surprise of the terrified villagers. Then he squatted down to do a steaming dump of pure gold and offered it to the villagers who had helped him. Now I’d like to embellish on the story further and say he ate the tight arsed judgemental villagers but that wasn’t relayed and clearly he wasn’t as ferocious as the Australian drop bear.
Everybody loves a 5 eyed fat coal munching, gold shitting guardian of the temple.
I guess the scary monk was a modern-day guardian of the temple and if you didn’t beat a hasty retreat on arrival after seeing him (like I confess I almost did) then you wouldn’t have got the welcoming tour and insight into the local Buddhist culture. A timely reminder that it just goes to show sometimes all is not what it seems and that if you treat those you encounter as equals then everyone has a story to tell, and it’ll open doors that were previously closed giving you an amazing meanderthal experience and end to a great road trip with family and friends.
