Day 7: Si Satchanalai National Park to Lampang

Distance biked: 101.61 kms / 63.14 miles
Time on the road: 5:46
Total Distance biked: 690.63 kms / 429.14 miles
Total time on the road: 33:56

I awoke with the sunrise after a hot, restless night's sleep in my hammock and got on the road at 7AM. The big hill I saw the night before didn't seem nearly as menacing the next day and I climbed it with relative ease. After riding for two hours I was finally out of the forest and stopped at the first store I saw. It was a small place and they didn't have a wide selection of food so I bought what I could for breakfast - a can of Sprite, some cookies and these Thai doughnut-like sweets. Not a particularly nutritious breakfast but after only having a Power Bar for dinner I wasn't going to be picky.

After a short rest I got back on the road and headed up highway 11 towards Lampang. I stopped again at one point for a Coke and to get out of the sun. I asked if they had any water because my supply was running low again. The old woman running the stand indicated that there was some behind the shop that I could help myself to. I walked around the side of the building and couldn't find any water tap or cooler - just chickens and some rubbish bins. She came around the corner and pointed towards two large round terra cotta vessels and I looked into the murky water with skepticism. I asked her "Ok to drink?" and did a drinking-like motion with my hands to my mouth. She nodded. Doubtful, I took only a few scoops of the grey water (one of which contained a dead bug) and probably wouldn't have taken any except she was standing there watching me and I (foolishly) didn't want to insult her by refusing it.

I got back on the road and biked for a few more hours knowing that somewhere ahead lie the "three challenging hills" Mr. Pumpy wrote about in his description of the route. I hit the first of the three "hills" at high noon (which oddly seems to be the time of day when I encounter the most difficult part of any ride). The road wrapped itself around the hill in an upwardly spiraling manner like a corkscrew. The road was so steep that the cargo trucks climbing next to me were in their lowest gear, spewing out plumes of thick black smoke. The idea that "one man's hill is another man's mountain" popped into my head. Maybe this was just a hill for Mr. Pumpy but it felt like a mountain to me and my legs.

I turned a corner and could see one or two kilometers of road ahead. It kept going up and up and up and went out of sight around a corner. Did this thing ever end?! I finally had to stop and rest and took a seat on the concrete wall on the side of the road. It was 1:30 and my energy was flagging. My "breakfast of champions" of Sprite, cookies and doughnuts hadn't provided me with enough power to do this kind of physical work. I sat longingly watching the traffic drive by. People were in their air-conditioned cars smiling, listening to music and some of them were drinking and eating. Occasionally they'd honk and give me a thumbs-up. "Easy for you to say..." I thought to myself.

As I sat there I fanaticized about waving down one of the many pickup trucks going by to see if I could put my bike in their empty truck bed and catch a ride over the hill. While this sounded nice I ultimately decided that I'd get over the hill by my own power even if I had to do it little by little. Thankfully I had an orange and some bananas in my bag which I purchased earlier in the day and I ate them hoping it would give me the boost I'd need to complete the hill.

I got back on my bike and started moving upward slowly. I tried to find something to focus on like a signpost and would say to myself with the cadence of my pedaling "signpost, signpost, signpost." Once I reached the signpost I'd rest a bit and look ahead to find something else to focus on as my goal, like a red flag and would say "red flag, red flag, red flag." Like this I climbed the hill.

I'm still not sure if it's better to know how long an incline will go on for or if it's better not to know. If I had known how big the first hill was I might have felt that I could never make it. But I did make it and was happy that the first of the three hills had been conquered. As I was cruising down the other side I thought to myself "Now, that wasn't so bad was it?".

I pulled into the first stand I saw and sat down dripping with sweat and feeling shaky with hunger. I ordered a bowl of Thai noodle soup which is standard fare at many of these roadside establishments. According to Mr. Pumpy there were two more hills ahead but I wanted to know where exactly they were. I asked the shop owner what the road between there and Lampang was like. He indicated that it went down at a decent grade. I asked him about any hills. He said there weren't any hills. I was doubtful and, looking up the word for hill in my dictionary, I asked him in Thai. He again said it was all downhill to Lampang. I was elated! Maybe Mr. Pumpy was mistaken or maybe that one really big hill was actually made up of three separate hills and I failed to notice.

It's much better to have low expectations and be pleasantly surprised than it is to have high expectations and be let down. Mr. Pumpy wasn't mistaken about the number of hills ahead and soon after leaving the restaurant I encountered the second big hill. I was really looking forward to a good night's sleep at a guesthouse in Lampang but I felt that I didn't have the energy to take on this long, slow hill so I rode my bike down a dirt path to look for a place to camp. I came to a clearing and tried to find a spot to set up my hammock. There really wasn't a place suitable and a voice in my head encouraged me to at least try to make it over the hill. I pulled myself together and followed the path back to the road and started to climb. The climb actually wasn't that bad and I made it over without too much struggle.

At 5:00 I saw a sign saying that Lampang was 12 kilometers away. I would be there soon! Then I saw the third and final hill. The first part of it looked to me to be so steep that I wondered how any vehicle could make it up it. My legs were fatigued, my moral was low and I was tired and dirty. It was unfortunate to be so close to a nice, comfortable bed, a shower and good food but not be able to reach it. I wasn't going to ask anyone for a ride - I wanted to get there on my own even if that meant I'd have to do it in the morning. I saw a dirt road leading down through an orchard and it looked like a nice place to camp so I steered my bike down the path and started searching again for a place to spend the night. I thought it would be only farmland but there were a few residential houses nearby. I decided that if I were going to camp in the area I'd better ask for permission first.

I approached the first house and greeted the young men who were sitting on the front porch. They became silent as I approached but nodded at me. I explained that I wanted to camp nearby for the night and wanted to know if it was ok with them. One of the guys spoke English pretty well and said that they were only workers and I'd have to ask the owner. He took me behind the house and called out to someone. An old man, maybe 70 years old, came out and the worker and he discussed the situation. Turning to me, the worker said "Lampang is only 10 kilometers away. Why don't you ride there?". I told them that I knew it was close but that I'd already ridden 90 kilometers that day over many, many hills and didn't have the energy to do this last one. I told him I'd be able to do it in the morning after a good night's rest. He seemed to empathize but there was a tangible tension in the air.

Clearly the owner of the house wasn't comfortable with me staying on his property and I didn't want to inconvenience them any further so I wheeled my bike away saying "It's ok. No problem. Thank you." and resigned myself to struggling up the last 12 kilometers. It was rush hour and the hill was full of traffic and I wasn't fond of the idea of people staring at me on my bicycle panting, sweating, cursing and crawling my way up the hill. With no other option, I put my bike in lowest gear and started up. At that moment the worker rode up behind me on his motorbike, grabbed the back of my bike rack and started pushing me up the hill! We took off at a good 30 KMH! Yes, I felt a little ridiculous and I'm sure the people in the cars next to us didn't quite know what to make of a foreigner on a bike being pushed up a hill by a moped but I really didn't care anymore - I was going to be in Lampang! Showers and comfortable beds here I come!

I pulled into the guesthouse around 6PM, checked in and immediately hopped into the shower to wash off two days worth of sweat, road grime and suntan lotion. Afteward I felt like a new man. As I was eating a delicious dinner of veggie pizza and fresh salad I felt it hard to believe that only an hour earlier I was looking for a place to set up my tent with no hope of having any dinner or a restful night's sleep. I went back to the guesthouse with a content stomach and got into bed, amazed at how a single day can seem to hold a week's worth of experiences and emotions.