I ride the mountain ridge to Thailand's temples in the sky - Episode 7

In this episode I explore more of the mountains. I climb a lot of stairs to check out a temple in the sky and end up in a hotel with a lot of old bikes. Morning. It's quite cool in the mountains. Back with jackets on. Sun's about to come over the ridge and fill up the stunning valley below. It's got fog in the bottom. So I've just packed everything up about to get on the bike and seeing I got to most northern part I'm heading back south. I was actually thinking about going east as there was no plan. I wasn't sure what I was doing but with the amount of time I've got left if I go east I'll be pushing it to make it down sort of Thailand dogleg. A little thin section. Tuola beaches and national parks are down there. So decisions are made. We're heading basically back towards Bangkok. Not going in there but then down to the dogleg. So let's see what today brings. The fog in the valley was starting to lift and it was a lot easier to see the road I'd be traveling along. The roller that was leaking fuel last night was still there. I'm guessing it's empty by now. As I was riding along you could see the early morning sunlight streaming over the top of the mountain. Thailand definitely has some beautiful mountain ranges. There was a turn off to a lookout along here. I thought it was this one but it was the next one and it took me up through a village which was rather steep. I rode into a forest with switchbacks all the way up. I pulled up to the lookout with these interesting characters who looked like they were in traditional clothing. I made it to this viewpoint. There's a little bit of fog coming through. Sun's trying to come over the one cloud. Steep coming up. I mean fine for that bike but wouldn't want to be in a car we can't see over the bonnet that way. I found another lookout which was actually a helicopter landing pad. I turned off the mountain ridgeline and started making my way down to the flatlands. There were a couple of kids taking their bull out for a stroll. These looked like rubber trees. Yep they had their little collection buckets on them. I got to the flatlands where there were a lot of farms. As I was heading south I'd seen something interesting on the map which was on top of a mountain so of course I had to check it out. I did turn off to a small little town as I needed to fill up with fuel again. Then it was back out onto the main roads. Thailand does seem to have a good road system which were in great condition. I passed through a couple more towns. More straight roads. Then finally I got back into more dense jungle. I passed a group of monks on one of their long walks they take. I could see the mountain I was heading to. I was here to check out what they call the Sky Pagoda or Floating Temple. I jumped into the back of a truck to make my way up part of the mountain with some others. I can see why they don't let people drive up here as it was only one narrow lane. You could imagine the carnage if they did. The others in the truck seem to be enjoying the thrill of the bumpy road. So gonna hike up to the top of this mountain. Apparently there's some temples and statues up there or something. Apparently there's a lot of stairs. We'll see how we go. The climb up the stairs is roughly about 800 meters to reach the main temple area. I wonder how many stairs there are. There was a lookout which I took advantage of to catch my breath. The stairs kept going up and up. Well that was hot. I'd finally made it to the main part where there were a lot of different sized gongs. With one very large gong. I walked through the building to a lookout where you could see far into the distance over the flatlands I'd come in on. There were even more stairs going higher and more gongs. Who needs a drone when you're this high? This mountain range was long and narrow as if there were forces from just the two sides pushing it up. In the other direction was another viewing point a bit higher up. So I went to check out that one too. And up we go hopefully only for one more time. Oh don't do two things at once Joe. You'll trip. Between 815 to a thousand meters above sea level it is known for its white and gold pagodas that seem to float in the sky. The temple was constructed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of King Mongkut. They began building in 2004. The construction was a monumental task with materials carried up by hand by the monks and villagers over several years. It is made up of numerous small white and gold pagodas scattered along the steep rocky peaks. I looked back to the previous lookout I was just at. There was also a shrine I guess you'd call it up here. I am going to enjoy the downhill. It's pretty wild up here. I don't know how they build this stuff. What an incredible place. Just in literally in the mountaintop. Just on the peak. Insane. I made my way back down the mountain and onto my bike. It was getting towards the end of the day so I decided to stop into the next town, village or city. I entered another walled city. The city of Lampang. I did a quick search to find somewhere to stay. This was the room for the night which was pretty awesome and had the one thing I was keen for. A shower. Got into the room and straight into that shower after hiking up that mountain. It was just like a lather of sweat doing that so cleaned up. This was literally the first thing I found on bookings.com and there's a surprising thing downstairs when I came in. A whole bunch of really cool bikes. I think the little gorilla's pretty epic. Might take a while to get around. How are some of these old school Hondas? So yeah just a random surprise to have a look at some older kind of bikes and also in the lift coming up they had a meal. It was prawns and veggies and things and it looked really good so I might just stay here. Tomorrow I'm gonna try and get away a little bit earlier than normal. Hopefully just after dawn. There's a place that's sort of we'll call it historical landmarks. They look like a bit like ruins but I don't actually know how old they are. They may just not have been looked after. No I'm sure they are and from there we're just gonna keep heading south but now I'm gonna try and see if I can find those prawns and veggies. In the next episode it gets very foggy. I ride across bridges. I find ancient ruins. I see stunning sunsets and I ride through the night to find food.