Do We Have a Plan?

December 1, 2025

Phaya Mengrai to Chiang Khong

Dear little friends,

We have stayed in far worse places than this one in Phaya Mengrai. But it’s been awhile, and while I am super grateful for the kind friendliness of the hosts, it was just a tad too humble for me these days. There was no window so once the door closed it was as dark as a tomb in there. Only one of the five ceiling lights had a bulb in it. The sink drained onto the floor into a snake-friendly hole, into which somebody had thoughtfully placed a ⅓- full bottle of Coca-Cola as a plug. You get the picture.

Phaya Mengrai is a loudspeaker town. We see (and hear) those once in awhile. They play some kind of pretty music at the darkest before dawn hour, then somebody comes on the loudspeaker and goes yakity yak yak for a while. We don’t know if they are discussing arcane theology or the price of pork bellies or what about kids these days. By then it’s light and all hell is breaking loose, roosters crowing, babies crying, somebody revving an engine, the breakfast cooking fires smoking. Somebody is always sweeping or chopping or watering.

We emerged from the cement block, blinking in the light, and started loading the bikes. While Bruce was finishing up the loudspeaker started playing the national anthem and he comically stood stiffly upright. I was filming this and panned around to see the bow-backed matriarch of the family starchily mopping the front floor of their dwelling, with a giant thwap of the mop at the end of the anthem. Make of that what you will.

During the night I had had some terrible dreams of chaos and people being awful. I woke in the dark and thought of yesterday’s zombie. He’d never find us here, our bikes are inside and they have the big metal gate I told myself. Stupid zombie, messing with my mind.

Still, as we walked our bikey bikes up the steep street to the highway I definitely looked right and left to make sure he was not creaking into Phaya Mengrai on his rusty bicycle after riding all night to find us. All clear, we could proceed.

We were holding out for coffee at a guesthouse we stayed at three years ago. It was a nice place with some really aspirational features like restaurants and a twee coffee shop and I think they’ve added a pool and maybe a waterslide? There were some hills at first, just rollers but so rude, first thing in the morning.

Little stands like this one is where we usually find the best papayas for sale.

We love these little rest structures. This area is full of them.

This is the one Bruce wants for his backyard.

A rubber collection station. Raw rubber really stinks badly.

Eventually it stopped rolling and we cruised along. It was a pretty pleasant road with little traffic, most had diverted onto a larger highway. Finally we got to the twee coffee shop and enthusiastically pulled in but it was actually the guesthouse part. Just like last time, there was no sign of life in all this niceness. Finally somebody emerged from somewhere and told us we had to go back onto the highway to get to the coffee shop. Okay. We enthusiastically pulled in 30 meters away and pulled up to the twee coffee shop. The door was open. The sign said “Welcome!” “Open”. The smell of coffee wafted out with the twee coffee shop music.

We stepped inside. No one there.

The place had an upstairs. I walked up the stairs and it was gorgeous up there. Lots of twee sorts of instagram worthy seating and an incredible view of the rice fields. But nobody there either. Downstairs the music played on.

Just want to point out that those mountains you see are where we rode on The Hell Day three years ago.

Somebody, one of the landscapers maybe, said something loudly to an unseen person.

You see where this is going, right?

From my perch upstairs I saw a young lady approaching carrying a bag of soup and something else, she had zero expression, in no hurry whatsoever.

After she woodenly made us our coffees we took them upstairs again and admired the view of the rice fields and the funky seating. The music tinkled up to us. Not a sound from the barista.

“Hey, Bruce,” I said, “if I look down the road and see the zombie on his bicycle do we have a plan?” For some reason that made us laugh and laugh. We get in these situations that should just be ordinary but they’re not and that if we were by ourselves would not be funny at all but when we’re up there together scanning the horizon for zombies it’s hilarious.

We came down the stairs again. The barista was huddled on a tiny stool with just the top of her head showing behind the counter. I ordered another one for the road.

A brand new wall where on our trip entitled To Begin Again, we heard a crash at our guest house and in the morning we saw that a pick up truck had demolished a wall that was here. We never knew what happened to the driver.

The things we see by the side of the road!

We see these signs as we enter or leave small towns. We have no idea what they mean. [Edit: Andrea knew what they mean, they mean the end of the speed zone]

An overgrown crematory. We guessed that no one in that area had died recently .

The things you come upon by the side of the road.

It got busier and busier as we approached Chiang Khong. We only stopped to buy khao lam for Bruce and oranges for us both. There is a big train line being built to Chiang Khong and a ton of dirt and stone passed us with a lot of noise and thunder.

The cool wind from the north that had been in our faces kept us just grinding on until we got to a really nice little guesthouse near the bridge that goes over to Laos that we will cross tomorrow. We were starving and the best pad siew of the trip was served just across the highway. Large construction vehicles pounded by, but we had a window, a sink that drained into a pipe instead of onto our feet, and when we closed the door, we didn’t hear a damn thing.

Today's ride: 37 miles (60 km)
Total: 375 miles (604 km)

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