A Monk on my Back

They say that when you do good things, good things will come back to you. Maybe I did something good in a past life and was rewarded yesterday?

I went for a off-road ride with some friends and we were desperately trying to find a secret trail down off the mountain into the town of Samoeng. The first person we asked said "not here, you have to go back 5 km". We decided that it was best to average our data and ask a few more people. Thai people will almost never say "I don't know" when you ask them for directions or ask them if they can make something special for you or ask them if they have a certain thing you want in stock. Instead, they just say "no". That way they don't risk losing face - it's Thai culture - you learn to live with it or find ways to get around it.

A Thai lady told us that the trail we wanted to follow was right where we were (in the end she was correct). Pikey checked it out and said "no mate, this is someone's garden". A third person told us to go back 10 km. Someone suggested asking a monk at the temple. we went to the monk's dorm and asked and were told "no way!" by an English speaking monk. This monk's roommate came out and some conversation took place between them (which I couldn't understand because they were speaking Thai too fast for me to understand) and in the end the little monk volunteered to guide us to the trail.

He jumped on and took us about 4 km into the woods where he told me to stop. He explained to us that the trail ahead was very steep and dangerous - it was. He told us not to turn and to always go straight - we did. We found our way to Samoeng and in the process I got to ride some excellent single track trail that reminded me of the riding back where I grew up in Michigan. The monk didn't want a ride back to the dorm but did accept a bottle of water and a few special stickers we were carrying with us. Thank you Mr. Monk.

First time I've ridden two up with a monk...