Wednesday, January 8, 2014
The road to Mae Sot was “exciting”. Steep-ish mountain roads, lots of sharp corners, pot-holes, uneven seal and all with large struggling trucks and the occasional crazy Thai suicidal driver over-taking on blind corners. Having said that, the view was also beautiful with dense jungle forest and perfect blue skies.
Mae Sot borders Myanmar and thus has a more varied population. Including many refugees and begging is more common on the streets. We headed to the Friendship Bridge and the border checkpoint to check things out. It was a busy little border crossing. Apparently we can get a day pass to enter Myanmar from here, but decided crossing to see another border town is probably not worth it. Myanmar is firmly on our list of places to see, but another day.
Spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Mae Sot, which are just jammed packed with shops selling everything you could possibly want and many other things as well. Sadly nothing grabbed our interest and we left empty handed. Well almost nothing. We did find a coffee shop that actually knew how to make a Latte, even better than Ayutthaya.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Today we travelled South to Um Phang, or very near it. The road to Um Phang is 160 kms (100 miles) and claims to have 1,219 bends in a 115 km section. The roads winds in and out and up and over scenic mountain roads that border Myanmar. The high number of road accidents makes this road the most dangerous road in Thailand and is sometimes called the “Death Highway”. I never knew this, but Thailand is the fourth most dangerous place to drive in the world, after Eritrea, Dominican Republic and Libya (according to wikipedia). But we survived. In fact and a little surprising, the drivers on this road were very polite, especially the truck drivers.
Along the way we met an ex-american (now living in Thailand with his girl-friend) and shared a coffee and obtained some valuable tourist advice and got a free lesson in the Thai language. Which by-the-way, is complex. With some luck we will experience Ed’s home-ground and brewed coffee (and get a photo of him and ฝน). We also chatted with Wit from the BMW Motorrad Club of Southern Thailand. We checked out their bikes and they checked out Sterlin. It was a day on meeting follow travellers.
That night we stayed close to the entrance to Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Reserve so we could get an early start.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Today we headed to Nam Tok Thilawsu, which is Thailand’s biggest and most beautiful waterfall. And claims to be the sixth (or maybe the 8th or 9th) largest waterfall in the world. It is accessed via a bumpy 26 km unsealed road through some pretty beautiful jungle scenery. It was a nice drive and it was good to be doing some 4-wheel driving again. On the way out and back to Mae Sot, we met 7 other Land Rover Discoveries and Bangkok owners travelling as a group. So, time to make friends again. Stephen was lucky enough to be given a pair of Land Rover jeans, which he will wear proudly. Made it back via the Death Highway into Mae Sot before the sunset. A very long but enjoyable days drive.
