Gino's Travels: A guid new year tae ane and awe

Wednesday, 31 December 2025

A guid new year tae ane and awe

Sitting writing this on Hogmanay in a very hot Mae Hon Son so to recap over the last week, here goes:

We got up which was a good start to a Saturday morning and loaded our Honda 125s then went for breakfast, the traffic in Chiang Mai is a bit manic and we were both bit worried. I started off by leaving the sidestand down, newbie mistake!

Eventually we made our way out of the massive upban sprawl , several near misses and a lot of swearing later we entered the Doi Inthanon national park which cost us 640 baht which is around £15. We met a fellow biker who spoke to us, being on lowly 125s we were surprised, he spoke good English and had a local tan but transpired he was from Afghanistan and lived in Norway for 30 years since he left his homeland as a child, super nice guy, offered us somewhere to stay in Norway the next time we are there, does track days on a sv650 in Norway.

The warden at the entrance shouted something about be careful of brakes. Then we began the climb up the mountain, the brakes are a joke and there is no power, i was down to first gear for the final climb!
Of course the local tour vans and tourist 4×4 transports had to get by us no matter what, finally we reached the summit which was over 2000 metres . We stopped to take a photo but it was mobbed so we didn't hang around. The downhill journey was equally stressful, no brakes and the engine over revving I was happy to eventually roll into Mae Chen to stop for the night. Over 130 kms and a sore arse that was enough!

We were having cutting out issues with our bikes so went for a wee run Sunday to see if they were better when they had cooled down, they were actually worse, it was like the tickover was to low and the gearbox seemed rough. We got in touch with the renter had a bit of a back and forth on whatsapp and then nothing. We spent an afternoon thinking about what to do and then out of the blue 2 guys from the shop arrived with two replacements ! Excellent, the latest ones have done over 70k kms but seemed smoother and more importantly they tick over !

We left Mae Chaen and the replacement bikes were so much better, just as well as we went up and down mountains, at some point i actually had to paddle the bike in first gear uphill. Fiona with her lighter weight kept passing me uphill, the constant bends meant you couldn't really build up speed. A stop at a very busy viewpoint for a cup of tea and then in a small village for lunch , around 100km today which I think is my limit driving the small bikes especially on these roads.

Heading back from our excellent pizza that night, served outdoor, dirt floor, sitting on 5 gallon drums with cushions to make it comfortable ( pizza was excellent btw) we spotted 6 young lads on their 125s loaded up with camping gear obviously away on a camping trip for new year. That could have been us years ago what happened to the youth, too rich? Lazy? Or just tied to their phones or TV? Mind you our weather doesn't help, who knows .

And then a 80Km run into Mae Hong Son, enjoyed the ride, we seem to be getting the hang of it, still not buying one! We have been here before, nice town and the are having a new year party tonight so we think we will stay here for a few days and maybe just have the odd loop around here.