Phrae to Phayao...More Climbing Sunday 1-20-08

We got away this morning from our hotel in Phrae. We were very nervous about this leg of the trip, as the maps we had showed the distance at about 170K, a grueling day in hot sun, climbing in the mountains and long stretches with no water available. So I got with a young man at the hotel this morning and told him that if we flagged down a truck, I would like him to translate into Thai for me a note we could give to a truck driver that said we were very tired, and could he please give us a lift to Phayao and we would gladly pay him. Lonely Planet said this is not unusual and is done a lot...so we figured as last resort.....

So we got underway, and maybe 20K outside of town, we see a big sign which says...120K to Phayao...I'm going, what the h...??? Turns out it was a total of 147 there, not 170K!!! But the problem was heat, humidity, intense sunshine, and long steep grades to climb in the mountains. We pushed on, stopping at the top of every climb to try and recover and re-hydrate. I'll tell you what..climbing up a mountain pass with 60 lbs of gear on a bike is like...HELL!!! There were so many times yesterday when I said...what the hell am I doing? I should be setting on a beach in Phuket enjoying life!!! But I'm more in the adventure of it all and this is really nothing more than what I've experienced in many of the different ultra runs I've done. It's a challenge, adventure, and experience all rolled into one. I have profound new respect for 1 friend of mine who is house sitting for me in Longmont who does this bike touring (by himself) stuff, and thinking nothing of loading 100 lbs of gear on his bike and taking off. My hats off to you Scott! YOU DA MAN!!!

The Long and Winding Road

Up Up and Away!!!

We finally reached Nghao, a sizeable city only 50K from Phayao and stopped and loaded up. I bought a chocolate milk (thanks Scott for the tip on this recovery drink!), a small energy drink, 2 bottles of water and a Coke and downed it all. Then bought more water, and left with three full water bottles and another liter in my bags; I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to run dry again!!!

We found reached the 50K to go mark and it was like Hallelujah!!! From there, we stopped every 10K. We had a pretty good stretch from there as the elevation at Phayao we knew to be only 1305 ft and we were already at 1400+ so I was pretty certain that we wouldn't have much more climbing...I was wrong again! We finally reached a top altitude of about 1565, some downhill and then straight shot into Phayao with a great tailwind. We rode the last 30K in excess of 30K an hour (big deal, eh?? Ha!) and it felt like we were flying. Rode triumphantly into Phayao and stopped to ask in my broken Thai...Do you know where we can find a hotel? Actually I knew one word from my book...for hotel...and I used it...and the girl says...we have a hotel, no guesthouse...in perfect English...go figure! Ended up finding this "hotel" that really wasn't all that bad...except...a squat toilet. God I hate squat toilets!!! I mean, hell my body just wasn't made to squat till my ass touches the ground...never was meant to be. Plus, I had knee surgery and the furthest I can squat is till my legs are parallel with the ground...which is why I love squats for weight training. But when you use the squat toilet, you have a small ceramic trough under you, and if you don't aim just right...well, you get the idea! Anyway, AC, squat toilet, but it had hot water (a luxury up north) and we got it for the price of 150 baht (or less than $5 for the night). We immediately signed on for 2 hr Thai massages, for 300 baht (about 30 baht to the dollar). We were totally spent. Downed all our water, jumped in the shower, and went to the night market for "dinner". I would prefer to use the term GRAZE, cause that's about what we did...everything in sight, we ate. But great day of riding. More to come.