Motorbike to the Mekong

Somehow I always end up having long nights before long tours. Early in the evening, I’m standing outside my room door and want to go to sleep. Then I hear Thais playing reggae in the bar 20 metres away. Good, a beer. The band looks like the Gorillaz crossed with Japanese anime characters. Weird, very weird. A Tyrolean woman on permanent holiday comes to my table, then four Americans. Whoosh. Two o’clock.

The skull from last night’s house-fuelled rum is still gigantic at nine o’clock. Six o’clock was the plan. After an emergency breakfast, I go to the bike hire shop round the corner. He changes the oil, for which I am grateful. Then it’s off on the motorbike to the Mekong. Chiang Mai only knows one riding style: kamikaze. No problem with the hangover.

At kilometre 50, a bird successfully commits suicide on my neck at a speed of 90 kilometres. It almost throws me. At kilometre 150, I spot an ostrich farm. Face to face with some big hens, I eat their rooster. It tastes nasty. Not because of the looks. I think it’s the music. The owner thinks that playing Thai country and Bavarian yodelling incessantly will improve the quality of his poultry’s meat. To err is human and man is cruel.

Onwards to the north-east. The signs are now all in Thai. If I lose the way, I ask with my hands and feet. Nobody speaks English. But the Thais sometimes need 10 minutes to realise that where I’m pointing on the map is “here”. I drive on haphazardly but somehow always make progress.

There is a funny custom in the Golden Triangle. Children splash passing cars with water. At the third roadblock, I also get a full load. A bucket of water at 80km/h really throws you off balance. I catch the bike, ride on, am happy about the cooling and that I had the camera on the other side. Don’t look up for a moment. The next bucket of water is in my face.

The landscape is barren. No mountains as I had hoped. Rice fields and a few isolated hills. No hill tribes today for sure. It’s hazy all day. It’s not until the afternoon that I realise: it’s all smoke. The Thais burn everything here: grass, forest, rubbish. A fire every hundred metres. It rains ash all day long. Visibility is a maximum of 15 kilometres. Worse than in Bangkok.

There’s no solitude up here either. Until just before the Mekong, one village merges almost seamlessly into the next, even on the smallest side roads. I take just three pictures in 200 kilometres. That’s enough. Dreary. The border with Laos in Chiang Kong. You can hardly see anything of the Mekong because of all the smoke.

Then finally, after a 6-hour journey over gravel tracks, roadworks and roads with more potholes than tar: the Mekong, in the evening light. Golden. The riverside promenade in Chiang Saen is lined with stalls, Thai massage parlours and small restaurants. I see a single white man, the rest is golden. A quick dinner. The sun sets blood-red behind ancient temples. I fall into bed early, dead tired.