My Tour of Lanna - Micaela's Diary 2

“Paris – Charles de Gaulle, Bahrain, Bangkok and Chiang Rai airports, all in under 24 hours. Reeling from jet –lag, culture shock and unsuppressed excitement, we were met at arrivals with friendly smiles, warm welcomes and the elegant, respectful Wai greeting (prayer gesture) from the Thais.”
Back home in Paris, we had left behind us a misty October morning and less than 24hrs later found ourselves immersed in the warmth of a tropical evening; the kind of evening, with its unique scent and exotic sounds that so depicts the ambiance of the South-East Asian environment. We had arrived in the North of Thailand for a 10 day cycling tour and expectations were running high!

We started our journey with a day of acclimatization in Chiang Rai, a busy town in the northern most province in Thailand. My first exposure to the lavish architecture of the temples, or “Wat”, in Thai, left me speechless. The golden statues, magnificent ornate carvings and red and green tiled roofs, were particularly impressive when silhouetted against the vivid blue of the sky! We spent an afternoon making final checks and adjustments to our bikes, (checking, rechecking, fiddling, cleaning, pumping tyres, adjusting brakes, comparing, admiring, coveting wheels, discussing gear ratios) – “just how much discussion does it take? The guys make me laugh!” I might add at this point, that I found myself to be the only woman cyclist on the tour. This was not only a tad daunting to begin with, but also immensely challenging - and I certainly rose to the challenge!
Later that evening we took the opportunity to dive into the local culture and we wandered around the night market, sampling the wonderful regional delicacies and soaking up the atmosphere. During the group’s first evening together, we shared the excitement and expectation of what lay ahead.