Back on the bike again (and lost in Thailand again)

9 August - The open mic nite at the local bar was actually very, very good. Lots of musos who took their music and personal talent way too seriously but lot's of fun anyway. A few really good singers and some pretty awful ones too but that's to be expected. Most of the songs were a bit too folksy for my tastes but that's what you get with acoustic instruments, I suppose. One lesson that might have been learned for any prospective open mic nite wannabee is 'play the song that everyone knows the words to and ye will be a god' ... Everyone singing along to 'wonder wall', there just aren't that many words in that song, was very nice.
Still a little sore from yesterday so hired a bike from the local man, they had one reasonably new mountain bike in my size, still wearing chafing pants, but much more comfortable than the last attempt.
Rode around a bit to get my bearings - past about two dozen elephants doing rides, a few babies as well. Have to admit i'm not that amazed by the rides but it's just amazing to see them walking across the roads, standing around, just like the thousands of dogs that litter all of the Thailand I've seen. Rode up to some hot springs (80 degrees) and tried to find a place where they mixed with the river for a swim but to no avail. Tried to find alterante springs but the maps are just too detachedfor the landscape to help. After that went down to Pai Canyon for lunch,very beautiful, very similar to the Australian landscape too. All very red, if you saw a photo (which i'll attach one of these days) you'd think it was the outback. After that tracked down another waterfall which was miles uphill - easier to ride than to run but really, really rough terrain and some very steep descents as well. Certainly the roughest off-rode riding i've ever done, almost went over the handlebars a few times and had to wheel it through very sticky mud at other times. Worth it when I came to the waterfall - huge pool about 2m deep being filled by a 25m fall - swam around for a bit and was joined by a few others after a while.
Now, after this rather nice if rather strenuous ride around Pai wasn't enough I decided to get a taaway coffee to drink at my leisure at the guesthouse. I may be an experienced cyclist of sorts but all my talent wasn't going to sttop me from falling to pieces on the arduous 50m ride between Abodaya Café and Kenter Guest House. I've got soeme awful gashes on my hand (which conmplement my feet scarss to a a very nice stigmatic cosztume) and my knee is a quite swollen and painful. Should be fine by morning, I hope. Somewhere along the way my umbilical jewel went missing, which will have to be replaced at some point.
Also went to the bamboo bar tonight and foiund a lot of the same people who were at lucky blaskos last night who happened to be, coincidentally, the same people from bebops the night before. A very pleasant night crowd, to be sure, but a bit repetitive.
ps- yesterday, I paid way too much for a jar of vegimeite but I broughjt it to my lucky rottee man and explained to him then benefits of merging vegemite and cheese and together we created a cheesymite rottee, hopefully our creation will catch on and usher in a brave new world of late night snacks but, more likely, it will be ignored and only ever seen on the occasions when an Australian is so sapped of vitamin B that he brings his own condiment to the rottee maker for creation into the life giving substance of cheesymite.