Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Huning For Wats In Thailand

I'm waiting for the SE Monsoon to break (usually ends the Rainy Season in October), so travelling won't be a wet encounter (sweat and rain)...
According to what I've read, the Monsoon Winds switche to NE...the rain stops for several months...and it becomes cooler and a little less humid...

So, right now, when I see that there's going to be a predictable (fairly long) break in the rain, I look at the map and set a route that will take me to some of the Off The Beaten Path / Non-Touristy Temples and Monasteries...

I laughed this morning when Google Maps told me it was going to be 4-5 hours for 60km to 4 Wats up in the Highlands...

It took me 2+ hours to get to 2 of them...about 48km on my GPS...probably would have been way more than 60 as I was lost for part of the ride...
(Can't blame Google...these were Remote...dirt road access only...Farmers may cut the brush away on some of these "roads"...or maybe not...)

I was a joyous Mudfest...and I dropped the bike twice...and looked like I had been mud wrestling...and I was beat...the one good thing...my left leg never complained...

Here are a few photos:


The bike with 0km at the shop.



Me, with Ronnie (not today) in Khon Kaen.



The still relatively clean bike at Wat #1...Wat Pa Phu Keng (I believe).



Back at home with a mud-caked bike and a mud-caked me.
And some more of the Wild Asian Power Lines...



And, I really do have Relatives over here...this is my Grandson-In-Law and a slice of my S-I-L...

A few days of less rain and the terrain was so much easier to deal with...
I made it to the 2 I missed last ride and added one more...
Turns out the last is fairly well know (and crowded), so I need to go back in more respectful attire (I backed off as soon as I saw the crowds.), so I can explore more...

BTW, there are about 300 Temples that have a Royal Designation and 40,000+/- that don't...that would keep anyone busy for Years if your intention was to visit them all...

Here are a few more photos:


Wat Tham Sai Thong.



Another.



Wat Dan Chang.



The entrance to Wat Tham Mai Rang. (There's supposed to be a Cave near this Temple.)


The 1st was the most beautiful...The 2nd the most fun to ride to...The 3rd providing the most potential for interesting exploration...

A Landmark I've seen hundreds of times...finally decided to track down the route to it...so much moss growth on the Steep road that I stopped early and walked up...many stray dogs living there...one actually bit me...only got pants...


What I call the White Buddha...Wat Phutthawong Kiri Khet...the white dot at the center of the photo.



I was hoping there was a staircase up to the platform...unfortunately not.

Since the leg is feeling fine...
And, I got a fairly cheap round-trip ticket...
The Nepal portion of the extended trip out of the US is back on...
I've got a Birthday Party to attend next week...
But, I'll be heading for Bangkok for a flight to Kathmandu after that...
The trip is going to be 3 weeks...
It's already dang cold at altitude, so it may be mostly Terai riding...
I've never visited Chitwan, or Bardia, National Parks, so that should keep me busy...
Also have the option of Riding East towards India...views of Kanchenjunga...which I haven't seen, except out a plane window...

The Mekong River Loop Ride to the North of Thailand is delayed until I get back...
Already had the coversation with me wife about Not Returning until after Buriram (MotoGP) in late-February...
I'll need to do a Visa Border Run, which will probably be a trip to Vietnam...Mekong Delta is on the agenda...
(Babbling on...During the Vietnam War, my Father was a member of an Engineering Team that developed an (Enemy) Fire Finder Radar...a couple of year's ago, I saw a YouTube video where US Soldiers were using the radar along the Mekong Delta...)
(Oh, I was along with my Dad (In Fontana - couldn't do it now) when they were doing Field Testing of the radar...)

BTW, I've found a really cool double-track that turns into single-track for quite a ways about 20 minutes away from home...it's still a little muddy up top (and Steep) to complete the trail right now....

I ride through hundreds of kilometers of fields like this...



...and pass lots of statues of Elephants...


Kawi went in for its 1000k check this morning...they had to straighten a few things that I've tweaked out-of-alignment in the 5 falls I've taken so far...

Why not just commit to ride all the way back to Ridgecrest...?

Cool to see all the updates now that I'm back to reality. (My only equivalent was being on a 3/4 hp camel somewhere in the North of a neighboring continent...)

I've ridden on the back of an Elephant and did have the opportunity to ride a Camel in Ladakh...I wonder what they do with them during the harsh Winters?

Riding all the way home would be cool...I could trade the motorcycle for a JetSki at the Mekong Delta...refueling and rest might be an issue...

Thaland Farmland October 2025

I used Microsoft AI to create a short video of a Drone Flight on a ride yesterday...
Man, am I Rusty with the controls...and I think Thailand must have a restriction on the Signal Strength (Controller must be reading GPS) because I started losing the connection at a few hundred meters away...in the US, although Illegal, you can fly at least a few miles away...

I found more Single Track that was amazing...Hard Enduro type terrain for a short seciion that had me huffing-and-puffing for quite a while when I finally cleared that gully (think Hike-A-Bike, but with a 300 pound motorcycle)...

I've also (finally) gotten around to off-loading video from my SD Cards to an external HD...links to some videos should show up in the Ladakh thread...

2/3 days until my flight to Bangkok / Kathmandu...excited and apprehensive...Excited because It Will Be Cool to go there again...Apprehensive because I Could Use The Condioning and Acclimatization from Ladakh...

Anorher couple of days of exploring Thai Dirt...



I had so much fun racing around this lake that I did it twice and then stopped to photograph the Lilly Pads.



Too much Mud and I didn't want to disappear into it, so I turned around...another trip to the Pressure Washers required...



I love riding the Single Track, but you really need to close the Face Shield on the helmet...Otherwise, you get whipped in the face...Ouch!


Hey Paul, I'll make it back home ot try for a Complete JMT next summer...

What a pleasant surprise…not sweating once outside the aircon airport…

I rode back to the Jungle Single Track I found a couple of months ago...quite the difference with the mud dried up...in fact, I'm surprised at the amount of Brown in the landscape between Pre-Nepal and Post-Nepal...I'm also worried we're about to go into the Scorched Earth phase of Farming where the Farmers burn off last year's no-value growth...I've heard the Government is trying to end this, but it doesn't look like their efforts are going to work...small fires all over the place already...

I rode off my maps...quite the Jungle Experience...Hike-A-Bike in a few places where "downed trees" blocked progress...tuck-and-duck...another one of those "jeeze, why am I doing this?" But, as usual, once I extracted myself, I had a smile on my face...another of those "suffering is sometimes fun..." and the amount of Sweat right now is significantly reduced...although it is hitting 90+...humidity is only about 30 points higher than Ridgecrest right now...

Here's a 7 1/2 minutes drone "follow me" video of the lower section (2-track that hasn't closed out yet)...I used the I360, but my laptop can't edit the footage...no power (cpu-wise)...just like me at times...

KLX230 Jungle Ride With Jingle Music.


BTW, keen eyes will notice the Luggage Rack...and the missing license plate...Crash Count is up to 10 and on one of the recent ones, I knocked the license plate off...so now I'm waiting on a replacement before I head out on any long rides away from here...

AI Auto Edits...cool...apparently, between the camera and the app on my phone, it creates a short video for me...

Jungle Ride


Now that I know I can do this, I'll get back to the Ladakh 360 video files...didn't even pull the camera out of the case...didn't do the drone in Nepal either...

Hey I like the video, amazing how clear it is and steady as you ride.

Doug had a problem with his Beta , Cayden picked him up and got the bike home , simple fix the in tank fuel filter cracked looks like a common problem as the low fuel alarm is another light that comes on because the float is high in the tank.

Another issue with Betas is: there's a plastic piece that restricts outflow in tipovers...it's known to pop out and clog the tank...it also causes vapor lock sometimes...some dealers recommend removing it as soon as you get the bike and just not leave the bike on the ground if you fall...

Image stabilization is pretty amazing these days...and the odd look of 360 videos seems to have been resolved...I hated watching the early ones...

Thanks.

DJI's LIghtcut AI edit of a Follow Me:

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-7tThTKr/A

This isn't what the colors were really like...weird...


And, a few more I360 AI videos of Thai Farmland and Jungle Riding:
(In some, you can see the Thai Version of Fall Colors (Dry Season Browning))

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-kc7q7SP/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-fJGqKBg/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-9XnJs59/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-VJgTZBP/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-VjpRhmJ/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-tkKmsd3/A

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-QzHpj6g/A


AI must get bored too...really odd edits that I'd never do...music-wise and effects-wise...

Phukhao Suan Kwang Forest Park

I've been trying to link-up the trails that run the length of this park and finally did it today...it's 23+ km As The Crow Flies, but probably closer to 50 km on the trail...nobody on it today, or the other days I've been in the area...it's going to be fun after getting the lay of the land burned in...lots of really fast sections, with just enough technical stuff to keep it really interesting...

A few photos and a couple AI versions of some drone Follow Me footage:


DJI AI Version...39 seconds.


Microsoft's AI Version...2:13...(over-saturated colors...)




Thai version of a Natural Bridge...too much moss for me to trust my balance for a walk-over...








Khao Hin Sa Hai Cliff...too bad the light was so bad...interesting looking thing...

Well, so much for doing a Mekong River trip...Cambodia and Thailand are at it again...
Unless, I want to visit another War Zone...

-1 Peace Deal for the big guy...

I've finished off the survey and linkage of the trails to ride the complete (only 1 side) Perimeter of Phukhao Suan Kwang Forest Parkk...Last bit of difficulty was finding a NE Entry, rather than coming in from the South...
(Very little of this is on any map...I use GaiaGPS and my tracks are Public, so it should eventually make it onto their map...)

37km...I still need to put up some strings in the trees at the critical junctions...the navigation is dang complicated...bought a pruning tool to clean up some of the route...

BTW, it dumps out to the Khon Kaen Zoo and some other major attractions...I was hoping they might have a Tiger...doesn't look like they do, but I'll stop there one of these rides...

I YoYo'd the route yesterday...quite tired after 75k of dirt...

Here are some i360 video shorts of the rides:
(All AI created...I just pick the file and tell it I want it 2-3 minutes.)


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-Szwg9Rb/A


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-NM5kgtN/A


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-FM2mBGH/A


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-B5H5Z2s/A


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-kpQLg52/A
The end of this video is where I transition off of dirt to pavement near the Zoo.


BTW: The fighting is quite a bit South of where the Mekong turns into Laos...and the Travel Warning only extends 50km out from the fighting...apparently, Cambodia's weapons are almost exclusively short-range...Stupid...the retaliation is F-16s...So my trip will go if I ever get the replacement license plate...

I did some more very easy Farmland Riding and Flying today...

I like this MS AI creation:

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-bnWHDk2/A


And, because of the beautiful sky, I decided I'd add music to the original drone footage:
(Excuse the fact that my little drone almost hit a Thai Farmer in the head...he transitioned over to my side of the road after I passed him and the drone was set to Flat/Far...only about 5-6 feet off the ground...)

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-SqQzdqP/A

Another day of riding...I called this one "The Other Side Of The Highlands...100+ miles...13th crash...footpeg got me, while I was down, in the same spot that was injured in Ladakh...Ouch!!!

Bike passed 2500 km today...Kawasaki finally delivered the real luggage rack...I'm hoping the replacement plate and Green Book (essentially the Thai version of Registration/Pink Slip) is in the box when I open it tomorrow morning...I've been doing way too much illegal riding with no documentation...glad the Police and Rangers don't patrol where I ride...

Made a couple more Train Reservations for the trip back to India...decided I'll do NJP - Darjeeling by train, instead of Taxi...and the Toy Train...UNESCO World Heritage Site...100+ year old Steam Train that heads up into the mountains (they call them Foothills)...loads of Tourist fail to ride this attraction (although it's still used for Locals Transportation) because they don't book in advance...blew a whopping $35 on the two tickets...Was hoping the Dalai Lama would be in town while I'm there, but found out he Winters 2000km away from Darjeeling...even at his advanced age, he still does Blessing Lines on occasion...one of the Woman Sherpas (do they still use Sherpani?) I met had a big smile on her face when I started a conversation with her about her Enlargment of her and her Mother getting a blessing from the Dalai Lama...


Here's a link to another MS AI Video of today's ride:
(Less than 3 minutes...I like this edition too...)

https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Thailand-2025/i-QnphKG4/A

Drone crashed 2 times (1 more than me)...once into a Farmer's Truck..."Everything OK' when I went back to pick up the drone...(me: "Sorry") and got blown out of the sky at the end on the video...lucky it didn't get run over by a Sidecar that passed before I got back to it...wind also caused it to lose track of me a bunch of times...