When we spoke to a couple of locals in Tha Ton about the route we planned to take on our little scooters they fell about laughing - "It's monsoon! The road's not paved! Difficult in a 4x4!" But wouldn't life be boring if you followed every little bit of advice you were given! So off we went. Comfort-wise we weren't off to the best start anyway, what with our already-aching butts and with poor Nige sweltering in long-sleeves to protect his sun-burn from the day before! Initially the road was paved (albeit not in the best condition) and we cruised happily through lots of little villages, Cyrille and I in front, clearing the path of several suicidal chickens for Nige, who only had to contend with the clouds of feathers, rather than a squawking, flapping bird bouncing off the dash! Then, suddenly, the paved road stopped and was replaced by a dirt track. Not to be put off, we bumped our way slowly up into the hills, the red dirt road shaded by dense bamboo forests, with occasional gaps lending spectacular views over the fields of maize and lychee orchards below. About an hour in, and the road was gradually getting worse and worse - the heavy rain from the previous few weeks had turned it into mud in lots of places and since then quite a few of 4x4s had done a good job of churning all up, leaving a crosswork of deep ruts filled with muddy water! We kept on, with me mostly on foot at this stage while the boys slipped and skidded their way through - and despite all the groaning about it being very hard work, the huge grins plastered on their faces totally gave it away that they were in fact loving every minute of it!!! We probably would have been a lot more worried about the whole situation had there not been a couple of highly-amused locals who came skidding past us at full pelt - obviously considering this to be a still perfectly usable road! Finally, after a particularly arduous few hills of mud, during which Nige managed to unknowingly drop his helmet and then have to trudge back over the hills and find it again, we arrived at a tiny little Yao tribal village, right up on top of the mountain. We must have looked quite a sight, I imagine, drenched with sweat and covered from head-to-toe with mud as we clomped into the little wooden shop, woke the woman who was asleep on the floor in the back and tried to ask for drinks in very bad Thai. Our efforts were not aided by the fact that as this was a hill-tribe village they don't even speak Thai! Once we got our lovely cold drinks, we sat on a plank of wood on the little porch outside the shop and immediately attracted a couple of interested ladies, one with a baby dressed in a tiny tribal outfit, who came and sat with us. We attempted to communicate with them, and managed to strike up a basic sign-language conversation with the old lady with her amazingly lined face, who had one hand wrapped in cloth from under which some crushed leaves protruded. Cyrille, who is a doctor, asked if he could have a look at it and, after establishing that it probably wasn't broken, used a bandage out of our very basic little medical kit to bind her wrist. All the ladies were giggling madly through the whole operation and the old lady was inspecting the bandage very dubiously...it's not likely it stayed on for very long after we left! We continued on and before too long we entered a wealthy-looking little pocket, covered with tea plantations and the road became paved again...just as the torrential rain started! So lucky we weren't on a muddy hill! We pulled into the cute little village of Wawi, ate a delicious lunch of fried rice and vegetables and just as we finished eating, the rain stopped. Our good luck continues! The road changed back into a dirt track and took us through some more lovely little villages and spectacular scenery and finally we came out onto a road which was in the process of being built. We felt like celebrities waving back to the road-workers who piled out in droves to wave excitedly as we passed - not too many 'farlang' come through these parts it would seem, although that will probably all change once the new road is finished. We were absolutely exhausted when we finally arrived into the outskirts of Mae Suai, a small town on the main road which leads to Chiang Rai. We stopped at a little road-side restaurant and were amazed when the girl spoke word-perfect English! It turned out that she was visiting from Bangkok to help her sick uncle, so she asked around about accommodation in the area for us - and came back and told us there was no accommodation here. We thanked her, discussed it and decided that must be rubbish, and headed into town. She was right, nothing! Wearily, we turned the bikes around and started out on the 70km trip to Chiang Rai. Then, about 2 km down the road, we saw a sign for the Charin Garden Resort - it looked far out of our price range but we decided it doesn't hurt to ask and drove the mud-covered bikes along a long driveway of beautifully landscaped gardens up to a beautiful teak building the banks of a little river. Unbelievably, not only were their gorgeous little bungalows on the river affordable, they even let us stay there in our filthy state!!! We sat on the restaurant's lovely deck over the river and attempted to drink them out of Chiang beer. It was a gallant effort but in the end we had to concede defeat, mainly due to the fact they gave up on us ever going to bed and left us with a few bottles to get on with - telling us to turn off the lights when we went to bed! The next morning (well, nearly afternoon, if we're being honest) nursing our Chiang-heads we gently made our way along the pretty route back to Tha Ton, thankfully on paved roads all the way! We had a brief stop at a little waterfall and a Wat and got back in the late afternoon. After some noodle-soup, we used the last couple of hours of daylight to explore the hills and wats overlooking Tha Ton. The boys had given the bikes a good clean before we left, but were still a little worried when we returned them that the man may somehow figure out what a thrashing they'd had the day before. He gave them a good look-over but seemed happy. Phew! Off for a good night's sleep - long-tail boat trip down the river to Chiang Rai tomorrow!