November 24, 2025
In Praise of Paint
Dear little friends,
The cool museum we wanted to see was finally open this morning so after our papaya/muesli we packed up our bags to be ready to check out at noon, and then skipped off into the sunny morning. Our hotel is painted a very fresh sunny yellow, looking out the window at the other wing of it below a deep blue sky is like living in the Ukrainian flag. Slava Ukraini!
In the tropics, paint doesn’t last long against the ravages of mildew, so you notice the places where the gross gray-black-greenish mung isn’t crawling all over the walls. Our hotel’s walls are notably pristine.
What else that had pristine paint was the pink museum, a Victorian-era residence that had all sorts of amazing decorative woodwork, beautiful teak floors, tons of rooms and windows and a sala to die for, it was lots of fun. It’s not called the pink museum but I think it’s the perfect description. I FaceTimed my granddaughters and showed them the house and gardens. “Is that a castle?”, they asked. Well, it belonged to a very rich family in Phrae, who probably made their moola logging teak forests if some of the historical photos were any clue. But no, no royalty here.
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Unlike the hangers-on stalking us through that historical museum in Lampang, the only person around ignored us nearly completely. Everything was in Thai except for the sign for the toilets. We had the place to ourselves and could have stuffed artifacts and silver bowls and such into our backpack or handlebar bag if we had been so inclined, which we are not. It was lovely to be trusted. Long live the solitary museum experience with no busybodies at your elbow.
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Back at the hotel we checked out and then repaired to a little covered table area on the grounds with good wifi and full ashtrays. The smokers didn’t come by to bother us as Bruce worked on the journal and I lollygagged.
After a lunch stop we were on to the bus station to catch a bus to Nan, where I’ve never been and Bruce hasn’t since 2003. More busy highway, more mountains, nope. Gonna bus it. The bus people were concerned about our tall handlebar risers so we took them off, ziptied them to the frame, removed any extraneous items that could get knocked off in a bus cargo hold, and held our breaths.
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1 month ago
Lots of times buses are hard on our bikes, but not this time, the driver loaded them standing up, with our seven panniers to cushion them and keep them up, we hopped aboard and took our first bus ride of the trip. This bus was a little down at the heels but perfectly fine, and we zipped along in the late afternoon sunshine over the river and through the woods, landing in Nan right at dusk.
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Nan is not a big town and it was less than a mile to our hotel so we whipped the bikes back together, loaded up and in no time were in the mosquito-ey courtyard of the hotel we had chosen.
Interestingly, while Nan is an important historical site and has a ton of charm, we were a bit surprised that the hotel staff had zero English, which indicates that few foreigners stay here. But we can hold our own securing a room using a few Thai words and it looked like a nice place. Everything was spiffy clean, although the bed is pretty firm. I guess that’s how you know that foreigners don’t normally sleep here, hard beds get mentioned in reviews a lot.
Shortly after we got into our second-floor room a jet landed on the roof. Or maybe just the landing gear? Okay, no, that’s not what happened but the Nan Airport is just north of us and they are only at about 500 feet over us after takeoff. Fortunately Nan is kind of a podunk town so that only happens about eight times a day but that first one was mighty startling.
Just on our short evening ride, Nan was already enchanting and intimate. We’re very excited to be here and have a look around and make plans for the next steps of our trip. Stay tuned.
Today's ride: 5 miles (8 km)
Total: 220 miles (354 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 9 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
Nan had really bad flooding this year. Got a Singapoean friend living there in the outskirts. Said water was 3 to 4 feet deep in town but not as bad as Hatyai n the south now with water up to rooftops. Loved the museum in Phrae earlier in Jan this year.
Godspeed....
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