It is all Marks his fault when he called Friday morning "Like to ride?" and the one who must be obeyed said something like "Mai pen rai". We made a pledge to meet in Loei at the GTR-recommende King Hotel. I took the scenic route via Lom Sak and Dan Sai. Been there, done that. But not route 2014 to Dan Sai from route 203. It a short but nice piece of road. Too bad that there are so much bush fires everywhere. The haze is not only coming from Laos and Burma but mainly also from Thailand itself (and that starts with the burning of rice-fields within the ring-road of Khon Kaen).
The next day we left before the coffee shop opened and we had our breakfast at the PTT-gasoline station in Phu Ruea. Thank Buddha for Amazon Coffee shop and 7/11 supermarket.
From route 203 just after Phu Ruea we took route 2294 to the Thai-Lao border direction to follow route 2195 along the the border. Nice, good and twisty roads. But again ... burning everywhere.
Near Muang Pheir we changed to route 1268 and had an refreshment stop at "Phu Soi Dai Nam Tok" (still a lot of water). The roads here are all nice, good and twisty and going thru a potential beautiful area. We followed route 1241, 1123 and finally 1243 in direction of Nan. As known this roads ends at a jungle track and we tried to ride it, but I did not want to take the risk while riding my Versys with my short legs. So we made a U-turn and did ride back. Not before we took a side trip to Bo Bia which is a Thai-Lao border sign. We ignored "stop" signs and ended up in a kind of Thai-Lao buffer zone that every sunday is used as market.
So we did ride back route 1123 and took route 1083 passing "Si Nan National Park" in direction of Na Noi. From there we did follow route 1026 to Wang Sa and took route 101 to Nan. All together about 400km with a max. altitude of 1128m.
I have KML/KMZ files of all the trips, contact me if you like to get them (or can I put them on GTR somewhere?).
I did put full report on my web-site at http://changnoi1.blogspot.com/2012/03/motorbike-trip-from-loei-to-lao-border.html
and http://changnoi1.blogspot.com/2012/03/motorbike-trips-from-khon-kaen-to-loei.html
Attached files
The next day we left before the coffee shop opened and we had our breakfast at the PTT-gasoline station in Phu Ruea. Thank Buddha for Amazon Coffee shop and 7/11 supermarket.
From route 203 just after Phu Ruea we took route 2294 to the Thai-Lao border direction to follow route 2195 along the the border. Nice, good and twisty roads. But again ... burning everywhere.
Near Muang Pheir we changed to route 1268 and had an refreshment stop at "Phu Soi Dai Nam Tok" (still a lot of water). The roads here are all nice, good and twisty and going thru a potential beautiful area. We followed route 1241, 1123 and finally 1243 in direction of Nan. As known this roads ends at a jungle track and we tried to ride it, but I did not want to take the risk while riding my Versys with my short legs. So we made a U-turn and did ride back. Not before we took a side trip to Bo Bia which is a Thai-Lao border sign. We ignored "stop" signs and ended up in a kind of Thai-Lao buffer zone that every sunday is used as market.
So we did ride back route 1123 and took route 1083 passing "Si Nan National Park" in direction of Na Noi. From there we did follow route 1026 to Wang Sa and took route 101 to Nan. All together about 400km with a max. altitude of 1128m.
I have KML/KMZ files of all the trips, contact me if you like to get them (or can I put them on GTR somewhere?).
I did put full report on my web-site at http://changnoi1.blogspot.com/2012/03/motorbike-trip-from-loei-to-lao-border.html
and http://changnoi1.blogspot.com/2012/03/motorbike-trips-from-khon-kaen-to-loei.html
Attached files