THOUSAND CORNER RIDE: CHIANG MAI->MAE HONG SON

My hubsbaby (haha) Mr Sam has been planning to do this thousand corner ride since years ago. Watching other riders youtube vlog fb are his obsession. And me, as a good wife tried to catch a really low price airfare from AA and finally i got it. RMM399 for 2 pax. YEAYY. Won't burn a hole in my pocket kekdahnya 😜

Monday- Day 1- 4/3/2019

Read one blog said March is not the best season coz' scorching hot weather and humid. Ahhh don't care. Getting the cheapest tickets was my priority. But yeah we got the heat and also ashes from burnt forest along the road. But it's still for our own good as no rain to stop us from finishing the 1864 corners.

We park our car at Park @ GoPark Online at Hotel Movenpick. 4-8Mar @ RM125. Just trying to get the best value of Ringgit :-P . Online order Nasi Lemak & Nasi Ayam with coffee. 12:45PM KUL ---> 14:35 CNX local time. Almost 3 hours flight. Seriously I love how AA pilot always manage to do a really smooth landing. BRAVO!!!☺ @airasia 

Yeayy safely landed in the Land of White Elephant.🐘 We chose tuktuk ride for 100THB to Night Bazaar Place Hotel. Haha this one better took a taxi for just 150THB. You tend to forget about money value when travelling coz' experience worth more than that. This hotel is good for Muslim traveller coz located beside Masjid Hidayatul Islam @ Halal Street Hilal Town. After checked in, we went for sightseeing around Chiang Mai (CM) town.CM is basically a small town with a canal lookalike and a few gates. One gate that I know is Tha Pae Gate (coz I took a photo in front of the gate). The rest, forgotten, amidst the cluttered memories in my mind. We walked slowly (really slowly) to our hotel and we passed by the CM night bazaar. Well, you can guess what are the things you could find in a night market. Souvenirs, cratfs, leather goods, crocs leather, T-shirts, sandals, begs etc etc.

Woww looks like Amsterdam canal right...that's Chiang Mai

We had our first dinner at Little Istanbul just next to the hotel. Seafood fried rice and bbq squid plus fruit juice at 300THB. So we thought maybe coz the restaurant is nicely designed and decorated that it costs us that much...Having eaten nice dinner, we slept early to recharge coz tomorrow morning we gonna start our journey to "Thousand Corner" from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son. 

The BBQ Squid

Tuesday- Day 2 -5/3/2019

So this is the day!! We packed and went straight to KK Luggage to keep our 24" luggage until 8/3. It costs us only 60THB. Then we took red taxi to Pop Rider to get our scooter. Mr Sam got to know this from Mr Google and assisted by bloggers comments and decided to book from Pop Rider. Well, Honda Forza rental fee is just 1200THB /day. V-Strom 1800THB/day. GS 800 - 3500THB/day and Honda Beat 200THB/day. Mr Sam chose Honda Forza coz it's automatic, powerful with 280cc, a good luggage storage and comfortable. Deposit with passport. No baht needed. Hoorayy saved your baht guys. So this is the link =>> Pop Car Rent .

9:30am we started our journey. Excited yet cautious. For we don't know how this journey gonna be. Reading blogs and watching youtube of others are different from experiencing it ourselves. Just pray for our safety and leave the rest to Allah The Almighty. The 1000 corners sounds intriguing and fascinating yet tiring and challenging. True to the core. My head and body just swinging left and right for 283km all the way to Mae Hong Son. The road is like a beaten snake (seperti ular kena palu). It is 2 lane road to and fro. The path was not smooth sometimes. Potholes at few corners with gravels and debris gave us chill. The road surface was a bit shiny. You can tell that it will be slippery slick and hazardous when wet or raining.  We passed by beautiful rivers (if only I can dip my head in the river), traditional houses about 1km 1 house kinda thing. We saw the after effect of burnt forest everywhere and even smoke from afar. Haaa I like it when they put signage of corner numbers. So when it's only 140th corner, I wonder when are we going to reach 1864th corner. 

We did stop at few places. First, after about 2 1/2 hours ride at 12.05pm, we took a break at Bo Kaeo Pine Tree Garden. Rows of towering pine trees like Nami Island, South Korea surely attracted me. What more if you are with the one you love right 💕. Then at 2.25pm we stopped at the edge of the road just to see what we can see below the cliff. Beautiful from afar.. ordinary shrubs and dried leaves on closer look. Anyway, appreciate whatever views presented before your eyes.... Then after 2 hours at 4.25pm, we stopped at the viewpoint about 20km to our destination Mae Hong Son. So, basically our body (not young) can endure/tahan for 2 hour ride. And one thing that really struck me was the cleanliness of the toilet in Thailand. They had a rest area or a pit stop like our R&R but it's actually just a toilet and a bench on earth floor.  But the toilet I tell you was sooo clean without urine smell and with bidet 😲. I ranked them #1 in the Toilet in Nowhere category. Australia #2 coz no bidet. Haha 

Me and Mr Sam 💖

Finally, at 4.45pm we arrived at The Mae Hong Son Chamber of Commerce to get our Certificate of  Conquest. Alhamdulillah and  Hoorayyy!!! 

 

It's not free hokay! Costs us 160THB for 2 certs and not forgetting our waist, sweat and butt hahaha

This is our first day journey. 

Red faced and all sweaty, we need to refresh ourselves. I chose The Point Villa coz mosque is around the corner. The hotel is quite nice although no halal food served. But there's a Muslim restaurant next to Mae Hong Son Mosque. We had Briyani Chicken and 2 sticks of dim sum for 80THB that night. Suit to our palate. Turned out that the restaurant has been the bikers hang out place esp Malaysian. After that we self tour (without helmet!!) Mae Hong Son town and saw a night market around Chong Kam Lake.  Felt that we need a good back massage, we ended up with a 40mins massage for 150THB/person in front of the Klang Wat. Done by a skillful Karen Village lady and I got a really good deep sleep that night. 

That's all for Day 1 & 2. Will continue in the next chapter. Till then. Bye XOXO