Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a travel hub for the northern part of the country so I spent a couple nights here before renting a more fun motorcycle and dashing back out to some mountain parks.  I found a rental shop that had some big BMW adventure bikes but the rental cost is insanely expensive.  Weeks later I started to realize why when I stepped into a Ducati dealership and saw a pricing sheet.  My own bike, without any of the cases, guards and accessory kits lists in Thailand for about 2.5x more than what I paid in Canada.  For a more relatable reference, a new Toyota Camry in Thailand lists for the equivalent of $61,661 to $76,767 CAD!

Out of curiosity, I looked at what it would cost to import my bike here and, thanks to a 77% import tax, it would easily cost me more than what I paid for the bike after all the shipping costs are factored in.  No wonder imported goods are so expensive. Even with a 77% import tax, it would still be significantly cheaper than buying my bike new in Thailand.  Cost of living may not be high in Thailand but salaries aren’t that high either so it’s hard to imagine how people afford the nice vehicles I keep seeing around.

So, instead of an expensive BMW adventure bike, I rented a cheap 125cc Honda MSX, otherwise known as a Honda Grom in North America.  It tops out at about 90 KM/h, it struggles a bit on steep inclines, and the back wheel likes to twitch in tight turns but it sure was a lot of fun to ride through the tight mountain roads in the next National Park I visited, Doi Inthanon National Park.

Known as "The Roof of Thailand", this park has several waterfalls and is home to the highest mountain in Thailand at 2,565 meters in elevation.  I could see it was raining near the summit when I entered the park so I visited all the waterfalls on the first day and decided to camp out in a secluded campground and then ride to the summit the next morning to catch the sunrise.

It was a nice calm evening at the campground and I had a nice time chatting with two Thai guys and a German girl staying there as well.  Overnight, there was a light rain.  I set my alarm for 4:30am and, when I woke up, my feet felt a bit cold.  I reached down and they were wet.  So was my sleeping bag and so was everything else at that end of the tent.  Fortunately my phone and camera were at the other end of the tent but my backpack was now sitting in a pool of water and it had been sitting there long enough for the water to be absorbed all the way up to the top of my backpack.

When I opened the top pouch, I found a wet passport and wet International Drivers Permit (IDP).  Most of the passport was ok but the colors had bled in the photo on the ID page of my passport so I knew it was ruined.

All the guylines on my tent were taught and the material is waterproof so I’m still not sure how so much water entered the tent.  My tent is single-walled but this was way too much water to be from condensation.  There wasn’t much I could do about it at this point so I soaked up and drained the water and then left on the motorcycle in the dark up to the summit about 15km away.

There aren’t really any views at the forested summit but I did get some decent shots from a few spots on the road up to it.  I sat at one viewpoint for a while pondering what I should do about my situation. My plan was to ride to two other national parks for a few days before returning to Chiang Mai but I had to leave the country in 16 days and I knew it would take a while to get a new passport so I abandoned my plans and went back to Chiang Mai to then catch a bus back to Bangkok to get my passport situation sorted out.

While camping in Doi Inthanon National Park, I realized I couldn’t find my camera lenses.  I just assumed I left them with the rest of my things back in Chiang Mai.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  Since I normally tuck my camera in a side pocket of my pants, the last time I remember seeing my two camera cases was back in Bangkok so I contacted each homestay and bus company since leaving Bangkok but I had no luck tracking the cases down.  It sucks to lose the camera lenses, spare batteries, and micro tripod I had in there but I also had all my spare Micro SD cards in there, including two 400GB Micro SD cards.  While I’m fairly certain I deleted my personal documents from those cards I can’t be certain.  I have backups of all my photos and videos so that’s not a big deal.

I had made sure each Micro SD card has a document at the root directory with my contact info for someone to track me down but, so far, nothing. Those cards are worth enough that I don’t expect to ever see them again.  Oh well, dealing with my passport was more important anyway.