Mae Sot to Umphong and back.

The road to Umphong is a dead end, but it is known as the road with 1219 bends. It winds its way through the mountains, between the Myanmar border and the Klong Wang Chao National Park. At 190km the guide book says to allow 6 hours to reach Umphong. I would need a hotel but there is nothing shown on the booking sites. I’ll just go and hopefully find one.

I’ll spare you the little cartoon graphic of the road as it will crash the app and take forever to add all the waypoints.

Needless to say it was challenging and amazing all in one.

The scenery was pretty good along the way.

The journey wasn’t without issue. Red showed 250km of fuel left and mapping was set. I followed the mapping right up until, after 40km, the road got narrower and narrower, it went through the back streets of a village, soon turning to a dusty track and ended up in a makeshift car park. Mapping said to go across the bridge. The bridge was a foot bridge with steep concrete steps up to it. On checking closely I had made a wrong turn. Simple fix, ride back and take the correct turn. Soon enough the twisty road started to wind its way up and down through the wooded mountainside. A sign told me Umphong was 170km away, but Red now said 160km range. I was going to have to take it easy and eek out the fuel. However the constant climb and descent did nothing for economy, no matter how careful I was with the throttle. I checked mapping and sure enough the next indicated petrol station had been built 10km too far away. There’s nothing for it, just keep going. It was a nice pace anyway, with corners hiding the oncoming traffic and pot holes.

As I crested a hill and left hand turn there was a town in the valley below, its size suggested it would need a petrol station. As luck would have it, this road runs right through the town. One of the very first shops on the left had a mud car park and a tiny wooden hut on stilts with an open hatch. Inside, I saw the unmistakable sight of old hand pumps and petrol. The filling tube was handed to me by a young lad. It was just a length of clear plastic tube that ran up to the glass container on top of the pump and a simple hand valve to let the fuel run down. He opened the valve and the clear plastic tube filled with petrol . He turned it off and I checked. The tank was almost full, that was good enough for me. I paid up and handed the tube back to him.

Stopping just short of Umphong for a coffee and again to escape the heat, I checked Google maps for hotels, there were a few so I picked one in the middle of town and headed there.

There were plenty of hotels in Umphong. This one was mine for the night.

My room was on the upper floor and was really nice. At about £12 it was amazing value. Next I looked for somewhere to go and my navigation app said there was a bamboo bridge, tourist attraction, just 7km away.

There was about a kilometer of gravel track and a slope to the river. Red had no problem until the sand but full power and paddling with my feet got us there.

…which is a good thing, looking at the construction

Each step was greeted with creaking and swaying. There was a steel cable up high which was my hand hold, but I’m not sure the locals would be able to reach it. The actual hand rail was very low and didn’t appear to be very well attached. Sometimes the creaking would be accompanied by a snap, as the old bamboo split along its length.

I’d made it across now I just needed to come back, this time one handed as I videos it with my phone. Unfortunately the video stopped before I got across.