Bonjour à tous.
Nous sommes bien arrivés, il y a environ une semaine, dans le nord de la Thaïlande, à Chiang Mai, deuxième plus grande ville du pays. Sa force historique dérive de son importante situation stratégique près d'une branche méridionale de l’ancienne Route de la Soie.
Après une première journée dédiée au montage et au réglage des vélos, nous avons visité les nombreux temples bouddhistes du centre ainsi que son marché nocturne.
Nous ne nous sommes cependant pas attardés, impatients de pouvoir utiliser nos bolides et pour le coté trop touristique et malsain de la ville (Les rues regorgent de jeunes Thaïlandaises accompagnées de jeunes sex-agenaires européens...)
Nous avons donc pris la direction du nord pour rejoindre dans un premier temps le parc national “Si Lanna”, où nous avons pu loger en tente, le long d’un lac. Ce qui est extraordinaire c'est de voir tous les gens sourirent ou rigoler lorsque nous passons à vélos. Ici, la moto et le pick-up sont les rois pour tous les déplacements... Même pour aller chercher un yaourt chez le marchand juste en face...
Finally we get around to write down our first experiences from our trip!
We arrived in Chiang Mai about a week ago and we were very relieved that our bicycles arrived in one piece. Tired from the journey we got into a chared taxi and avoided therefore assembling the bikes at the airport. It was propbably the right decision because as it turned out it took Olivier a whole afternoon to do so - he had taken a lot of things a part in order to protect them.
The hotel was obviously a big disappointement, nothing was like it looked like in the images on the internet, but in the end we even extended our stay there for one night as we couldn't be bothered to change with all our bags.
Chinag Mai itself isn't anything special, its one of these "tourist traps" where people constantly try to sell you tours, massages and other "favours" (its quite shocking how many tourist you see whith young Thai women!). We avoided all of that, slept a lot to recover from the journey and adapt to the time difference and went sight seeing (some nice temples) on our bikes.
From Chiang Mai we went northwards on our bikes on a very busy road to Mae Taeng. The traffic isn't pleasant but it doesn't bother us to much as there is always a shoulder for bicycles and motocycles. So we never felt unsave. From Mae Taeng we turned right onto a much smaller road which started climbing up pretty much straight away. Tired from the midday sun we took a nap in some hotel garden (we have made habit of it now - always take a good break at midday to avoid the hottest time of the day) so climbing didn't bother us that much afterwards. In the end the road turned out to be very pleasant, just like we had imagined.
The Si Lanna National Park was a nice palce for resting, there were only posh local tourists (it was weekend) and not very much to do as there were no maps or anything. So we spent most of our time by the lake reading, going for walks and eating very yummy fish! We even managed to use our tent and therfore managed to have free accomodation, always a bonus!
Leaving the park we had some very hard climbing to do in order to get up north - well hard for the ones without any training that is (we orignianlly planned to start cycling at Bangkok so we would have some training before we would get tot the mountains. Due to the current flooding in Thailand we had to change our plans). Althoug the landscape was very beautiful I was glad when we actually went downhill!
Finally we get around to write down our first experiences from our trip!
We arrived in Chiang Mai about a week ago and we were very relieved that our bicycles arrived in one piece. Tired from the journey we got into a chared taxi and avoided therefore assembling the bikes at the airport. It was propbably the right decision because as it turned out it took Olivier a whole afternoon to do so - he had taken a lot of things a part in order to protect them.
The hotel was obviously a big disappointement, nothing was like it looked like in the images on the internet, but in the end we even extended our stay there for one night as we couldn't be bothered to change with all our bags.
Chinag Mai itself isn't anything special, its one of these "tourist traps" where people constantly try to sell you tours, massages and other "favours" (its quite shocking how many tourist you see whith young Thai women!). We avoided all of that, slept a lot to recover from the journey and adapt to the time difference and went sight seeing (some nice temples) on our bikes.
From Chiang Mai we went northwards on our bikes on a very busy road to Mae Taeng. The traffic isn't pleasant but it doesn't bother us to much as there is always a shoulder for bicycles and motocycles. So we never felt unsave. From Mae Taeng we turned right onto a much smaller road which started climbing up pretty much straight away. Tired from the midday sun we took a nap in some hotel garden (we have made habit of it now - always take a good break at midday to avoid the hottest time of the day) so climbing didn't bother us that much afterwards. In the end the road turned out to be very pleasant, just like we had imagined.
The Si Lanna National Park was a nice palce for resting, there were only posh local tourists (it was weekend) and not very much to do as there were no maps or anything. So we spent most of our time by the lake reading, going for walks and eating very yummy fish! We even managed to use our tent and therfore managed to have free accomodation, always a bonus!
Leaving the park we had some very hard climbing to do in order to get up north - well hard for the ones without any training that is (we orignianlly planned to start cycling at Bangkok so we would have some training before we would get tot the mountains. Due to the current flooding in Thailand we had to change our plans). Althoug the landscape was very beautiful I was glad when we actually went downhill!
Who has got the bigger mouth??
Hey Ihr Beiden,
RépondreSupprimerschön zu sehen, dass es Euch gut. Bilder sind ja beeindruckend - NEID.
Habt sicherlich schon stramme Waden vom vielen Treten ;-)
Haltet die Ohren steif und meldet Euch bald wieder. Wir verfolgen Eure Neuigkeiten mit Spannung.
Hier ist soweit alles ruhig - der kleine Mann benimmt sich noch. Morgen ist mein letzte Arbeitstag und dann habe ich hoffentlich erst mal wieder ein wenig Ruhe.
Liebe Grüße aus der Heimat,
CARO
Grüezi!
RépondreSupprimerC'est avec grand plaisir que je lis vos aventures. C'est un peu comme ça que je l'imagine ce voyage et je vous envie pas mal. Et malgré des débuts difficiles pour vos petits corps, je suis sûr que vous vous en sortez très bien ;-).
It's also funny to read Friederike's stories which are not exactly the same as Olivier :).
Enjoy the trip. Make it yours. Keep your own path. Take your time and keep it real ;-).
Tschüss!!
Chiheb