This weekend's (mis)adventure...

I guess I should always pause when I think, "what could go wrong" and a dozen things come to mind. This time around I thought, "yeah, but I think everything will go okay." On the positive, everyone returned safely, and we all had a good time.

The plan was this: Rent motor bikes (6) and ten of us ride out to Taksin Maharat National Park. Those not comfortable with operating the bikes would just ride on the back of someone's. Thus arranged, we headed out on our 30 mile ride. It is the rainy season, but we left early and had good weather. I actually got a decent sunburn. Just a few miles out of town I heard a cycling "psssss" sound from my rear wheel and slowed to find the back of the bike fishtailing a bit with an empty tire flapping around. Conveniently, we were within 100 yards of a mechanic, or at least the home of someone who could change the tube (who knew these bikes had tubes?).

From there things were fairly uneventful. The bikes were going well and making it up the hills pretty well, even with the double loads. Mine developed a popping sound when downshifting to go up-hill, which was concerning but avoidable with very careful shifting. About 8 miles from our destination another bike "found a soft tyre" as they would say in cycling parlance. This was a bit further from help. My passenger and I rode back about 1/4 mile to the last town to try to do something. We stopped at a small shop and tried to explain our situation. Meanwhile a helpful person loaded the bike into a truck, drove them in and dropped them of at a mechanic. Caroline and then got to spend a pleasant time with the shopkeeper and a Thai phrasebook. We all got back on the road and entered some wind and rain just few kilometers from our destination. We made it through and found ourselves in a very nice cabin that our friends had arrived at almost an hour earlier.

The park was great. It's about a thousand meters higher in elevation than Mae Sot. Our cabin was really on the precipice and had a nice deck looking out over the valley. The weather was impressive. It was as if we were in a storm the entire time. Strong winds blowing across the house, not really rain but a constant mist following quickly on the wind. As we arrived just after lunch, five of us decided to explore a bit.

The park's claim to fame is a very large Krabarak tree, the largest in the country. When we arrived the guard at the entrance gave us a map and said simply, "big tree." We walked down a road in the high winds but still with a fairly clear sky and some mist blowing through. We descended about a quarter mile of awkward, steep steps to find, yes, a very large tree. It is advertised to be 16m in circumference and I found no reason to doubt it. We then headed right to a waterfall that was quite pretty. I'll put some pictures in here, but seem to have little control of where they go. The waterfall was pretty tall, even though the picture I have makes it look like a close-up of small drop in a creek.

At the waterfall we noticed some creatures that seemed to be rather fond of us. Leeches. They kind of set the tone for the rest of the trip. I was in disbelief until I found one on my knee (and I hadn't really been in the water much), quite firmly attached. We quickly got out of the creek-bed and further up the valley, removed the handful that were attached and thought we were done with them. They ranged in size from tiny to almost two inches. They move like an inch-worm and are amazingly fast and sticky. Once pulled off, it was hard to dislodge them from your finger before they would dig in again there. Thankfully, it was physically painless, although we all suffered some degree of anguish over this.

We walked back to the big tree and then intended to continue through the valley and climb out below the visitor's center and our lodging, about 1.5 miles. To our dismay, we kept finding more and more leeches. It seemed they were all over the ground and would latch onto our shoes as we walked, then climb up. A quick internet search has proven to me that there are terrestrial leeches that lay dormant in the rainforest and then come out during the wet season. Some would hurt a little when they bit in, but that was a blessing -- at least we knew where they were. Others were more clandestine. Everyone handled it well. I'd always thought that the blood-sucking creature I would most dislike would be leaches, and I was correct. Mosquitos at least don't stay long. Ticks, while unpleasant, can be pulled off and tossed or squished. Leeches were very difficult to remove due to their speed and stickiness, and I never had any luck killing them. Salt is the rub, so to speak, but we were lacking.

When we exited the woods we did a quick check and removed all we could find, as we had been doing throughout the trip. I had maybe two dozen total. We did another decon outside the house and found just a couple more. Caroline gets the award. She had one (the largest we saw, about two inches) bite through her sock, which caused part of the blood to be wicked away. Most of her sock was soaked as was a fair part of her pant-leg. We all had some bleeders (thanks to the wondrous anticoagulants produced by leeches) but that bite dripped for well over an hour. To my surprise and delight, we found none had made it very far above the knees.

With that affair over, we spent a fun evening in the cabin amidst the gale. The next morning, not surprisingly brought us more mist and wet, mossy roads. We decided it would be safest for the passengers to find alternative transportation home, which was easy enough since we were traveling a very popular route with lots of buses and vans. That left the rest of us to creep home in the rain. Thankfully, once we lost some altitude the roads improved dramatically. Despite the periodic showers (which were enjoyable on the bike), the traffic kept the roads dry.

I thought we were in the clear, having had a nice ride back when I went to down-shift while climbing a hill. There was a crunch, a pop, and a spinning noise as my clutch seemingly shattered. My only gear was Neutral, and that wasn't very useful. However, given everything else and that I was a mere 10 miles from home, I wasn't too worried. Two people stayed back with me until I could flag someone down. People here are very friendly and everyone on that road is going to Mae Sot. It wasn't long before two guys in an empty pick-up stopped and we loaded the bike up. The Thai phrasebook wasn't very useful and the tattoos on one guy's forearm indicated that Burmese might have been better, but I'm hesitant to start speaking burmese away from the areas they are herded into.

The ride back was fun. My job was to keep the bike from tipping over in the back of the truck. In a way being back there was some of the exhilaration of being on a motorbike without having to worry about pot-holes and cross-winds. A short while later I was back in Mae Sot, stowing the bike at a friends house. From there I'll push it another block to the place I rented it. I just hope they don't try to stick me with the bill.

In the end, I'm exhausted and maybe everyone was a bit traumatized, but to my surprise we all had a good time. In the dry season and with better bikes, I think it would be a very pleasant trip. Even though many things went wrong, no one was hurt and we all made it back. Leeches, it turns out, don't spread any sort of disease. I'm glad that we tried. I feel like we are doing the best to see Thailand in the rainy season. I think that for the rest of my stay though I'm going to stick with vans and buses.