Chiang Mai is located amusingly close to the Golden Triangle and, I suppose not so surprisingly, does not share the widespread poverty of most cities outside of Bangkok. This is Thailand with a difference. Bangkok, having reached a climax of tourist popularity, is no place for a wise lad to hang out these days, so my winter sojourn was spent up country where the scenery is strange but strangely familiar. This I can’t explain, but what the hell.
Chiang Mai is supposed to be cooler than Bangkok but day time temperatures seem no less immoderate and can only be described as ace biking weather. A taxation policy that cruelly taxes large and powerful bikes means most of the populace rides around on sub 125cc bikes, with the odd drug dealer cutting a dash on an GSXR1100. The most popular bike is the Honda scooterette and, get this kids, at least half of these devices are ridden by girls! What a sight for sore eyes.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that most of the dubious bars have all but been closed down (they’re still open but...) by the influx of AIDS infected Yank tourists (go on, report me to the Race Relations Board) and most of the discos that look vaguely safe to enter are mostly populated by huge Thai ladyboys whom you have to repel very gently as they usually keep going on a mixture of too much alcohol and too much speed and tend to slap a broken glass into the face of farangs who show a lack of respect - as happened to a hapless (and somewhat faceless afterwards) Australian tourist.
Which reminds me of the story of the Oz tourist who in a Chiang Mai brothel couldn’t persuade a gurl to depart with him (obviously a woman of some taste) and in frustration tore a five hundred baht note in half (around ten quid) - the police were called (despite the fact that prostitution and brothels are illegal), he was arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment - because when he tore the note in half he also tore the head of their king in half. Playing God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols is not recommended...
OK, I know this is a motorcycle magazine but you can get to Thailand for less than 350 notes return and it costs next to nothing to live there and it’s a hell of a lot more fun to spend some of the winter in the sun (remember that, sunshine every day) and actually scoot around without a helmet, wind in yer hair, a pair of shades and nary a care in the world.
The in thing in Chiang Mai is to go trail riding up in the mountains. I viewed this with a deal of suspicion, but then that’s the way I view most things. As long as you can keep it under some kind of reasonable amount of control, paranoia is a useful bedfellow.
For reasons that totally escape my comprehension, I have a great deal of trouble getting through customs without a major interrogation and I figured that. Fowler riding around the Golden Triangle would immediately attract the Thai police, the CIA and anyone else looking for an easy arrest. But that was a minor problem compared with the fact that Thai bandits actually shoot tourists (and a jolly good thing too, far too many Yanks and Krauts around here) at worst or merely rob them, strip them naked and send ’em back.
I was told by one veteran that most of the routes were well marked and it was actually quite hard to get lost. Having taken a trip in a jeep to some remote village (so remote that they imported artifacts from Bangkok to sell to the gullible) where I was immediately assailed by people trying to sell me opium and young kids demanding one baht each.
I found the route had managed to include sheer drops, slippery mud and fallen trees; it had felt distinctly unsafe in a four wheel drive jeep; on the standard issue Honda 125 trailster (no, not the XL but some distinctly peaky water-cooled two stroke mean machine) it would have been near suicidal - but then my idea of trail riding is a temporary excursion off the tarmac onto the grass verge to avoid some moron in an auto who’s done something extremely stupid; and that taste of the dirt was usually so frightening that I’d had little inclination to indulge in the real thing.
Actually going out of my way to get covered in mud, soaked and break a few bones wasn’t exactly my idea of passing time in an amusing manner. But Thai beer is weird stuff. You can drink six glasses of the brew and feel no effect, then suddenly the room’s whirling around and it gets kind of awkward to walk. Before I could make it to the toilet to spew up the brew, it seems I’d agreed to go trail riding the next day.
The first I knew of this was when I heard a hammering on the door of my apartment at six the next morning. That kind of thing after too much beer leads to maximum paranoia and it was only when considering dropping a few storeys to escape what I assumed was someone out for my blood that I saw the yellow Honda and realised what had happened. Or sort of. Any vaguely civilised person would have gone away after a few gentle knocks on the door, this chap appeared to be trying to buckle the door out of its frame. Before the whole building was awoken, I figured I’d better open the damn thing.
Fucking Americans, I thought, but didn’t utter as he was twice my weight. He was about forty but had the open face of a baby. He was actually a doctor but unsatisfied with gaining skills that would have exhausted most sane people he insisted on racing motorcycles and going trail riding in dangerous mountains. Before I could talk my way out of it, almost before I was fully dressed even, I was on the back of his bike rushing through the early morning Chiang Mai traffic, And that was bad enough.
The stroker engine made an incredibly nasty noise that was close to splitting my head in half and I hate riding pillion; had not the Thais tended to execute murderers and had not strangulation of the pilot resulted in loss of my own blood when the bike crashed, I might well have sent the Yank onto a better life in the next world.
"Make a good story for your magazine,” he said when we arrived at his residence, a quite large teak house littered with expensive and exotic motorcycles. At least that was what I guessed he said, as my head was still ringing from the open exhaust. I cursed the universality of motorcycling that had led me into all this - you know, mention that you're into bikes to a fellow enthusiast wherever they come from and a whole evening has disappeared in tall and unlikely stories before you realised what’s happened.
I didn’t get where I was today by giving into childish Americans and it took only a few moments reflection to realise I had to knobble one of the Honda trail bikes. This proved suspiciously easy as a non-standard coil on one of the Hondas had been slung under the petrol tank. Whilst the American was inside the house sorting out some provisions, I swapped over the low tension leads to the coil and lounged around with an ill concealed grin. This soon disappeared when the damn thing started up first kick. I began to wish I’d taken out some health insurance - would you be willing to pay £1.50 for the UMG to pay off the hospital bills? No, I thought not.
Falling back on Plan Two, I revved the balls off the spare bike, secure in the knowledge, gained from a youth misspent thrashing an NSU Quickly, that these highly tuned two strokes wouldn’t last the distance once given a bit of stick (cue for sixty thousand miler RD400 owners to write in/tear up the mag in disgust). Then it dawned on me, that given the totally unpredictable nature of such motors, it could just as easily fail at an inappropriate moment half way up a mountain.
Full of visions of the Fowler frame doing cartwheels down a Thai mountainside, I gently rushed the Honda through the box with the merest hint of throttle. Plan Three was the easy way out. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before. As soon as the Yank got far enough ahead, I’d turn off and rush away in the opposite direction. What could be simpler? Fortunately, Plan One came into play before I had to risk retribution for my apparent attempt at stealing a Honda.
The bike spluttered to a halt like it had run out of fuel. The American came rushing back up the road, did the kind of back wheel skid that had the local cockroaches running for cover. He gave me a funny look and spent the next half hour trying to kick it into life. No luck. I tried to hide the smile but it went away all of its own accord when he suggested leaving the dead bike there and taking me on the pillion.
Bill Fowler