Saturday, May 8, 2010

Riding again.




Chiang Mai is hot. There is no other way to put it. Oppressively hot. I spent the last month in Canada and the weather was wonderful. I could not have asked for better weather being Canada and prone to be very cold and snowy in April.

However, I'm back in Thailand and it is HOT here.

As always the only places that are reasonable in terms of heat, are the mountains and the malls. Me not being very much for the mall does not leave me with very much in the way of options.

I have been riding the roads south of Chaing Mai a disproportionately large amount before I left and when presented with the opportunity to do some riding near Chaing Dao, I jumped at the chance. Once past the oppressive traffic around Mae Rim the riding is quite nice. Even the highway up to Chiang Dao is relatively relaxed, with wide sweeping bands of pavement and surprisingly little traffic. Just before reaching Chiang Dao, we turned off the highway with the intention of going to Pakhia and making a loop back towards Chiang Mai. Of course even the best laid plans sometimes go astray and instead of making a loop like we had originally planned, we ended up losing our way and riding the same roads back and forth before eventually getting kicked out on the same road we entered on.

There is something I very much like about getting lost. It has never been something I have been afraid of and indeed, I have come to relish the possibilities that present themselves when you are lost. Being lost is really the only time in our modern lives when we are really feel like we are exploring. It gives one a feeling of being beyond the confines of a map. Every juncture in the road requires critical thinking and an advanced sense of where you are trying to go, even if you only know in direction. You start to build landmarks when you are lost, committing details to memory that would normally pass you by. The shape of a mountain in the distance. A tree next to a fork in the road. Little things that you might need later. Being lost also forces me to leave behind any sense of urgency, if you have no idea where you are going, you can't be in a hurry to get there. It reminds me of a quote from Lewis Carroll

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

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