Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

Not long after we started our day's run heading back towards Chiang Mai (Thailand), we spotted a small roadside machine shop so stopped to see if we could do a fix on our broken luggage rack.

Using the language gap as an excuse to show the man at the shop what was needed, Jordan jumped right into it, virtually doing the work himself with the man's help, cutting, grinding, drilling, and welding small parts that made a latch better than the original plastic one.

After about an hour, job done, the man glad to have helped and probably slightly amused, adamantly refused to take any payment!! After thanking him profusely and a smile and a wave, we were on our way.

In Chiang Mai, we had a little shop install new brake pads because we knew that in the next few weeks the brakes were going to get a hell of a work out. After a quick lunch, we headed north.

After a couple of hours, we were due a rest and found a cafe on the highway in a rural area. There, they not only served coffee, but had plantations and processed it. This reminded us of reading how the government, in an effort to combat the decades old agriculture of illegal drug plants, had implemented a program that gave growers an alternate and legal type of agriculture. The results have been successful so now you can see, for example, acres and acres of fruit orchards and hillsides of tea and coffee plantations.

Direct sales of oranges galore

As the day wore down, we found a delightful new bungalow motel just south of Chiang Rai to rest our weary bones.

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