Day 98 – Mueang Uttaradit to Mueang Phrae
Just before 9:30am we arrived at the border and as usual the peak of the hills. The climb was easier than our last because the grade was constant and ongoing. It just kept going with no breaks or little flats or downs to give our legs a rest.
We now have 35km down and are headed towards Phrae.
The downhill was just as relaxed as the uphill, it was not that fast, not too curvy, and a good 15km long until we reached the flats on the Phrae valley. We passed the sign “Welcome to Lanna,” Lanna means land of a million riced fields, so far I have not seen many.
We rolled into town before noon and headed for the Tourism Authority of Thailand Phrae Office, we found it and had a good chat to the director of this branch. She was very friendly and helpful and we will be joining them for dinner tonight.
I need to get out the guide book and have a look at what there is to do in town, I’m not really sure, so far we’ve just made it to our room and relaxed. Have not really seen the town at all, the Nan river runs through it like in Uttaradit and Sukhothai, but that’s all I really know.
The hotel is simple, with Wi-Fi and only 380B per night. I guess in Australia it would be called a motel and it looks like a place the traveling salesman and families on budget would use. It’s very clean but not overly interesting. It is directly behind the TAT office, which is one of the reasons we chose it, making it easy for us to visit the office tomorrow to be interviewed. The town centre is only 2 kms away.
TAT Office and people are very lovely, they helped us, they fed us, they gave us a guided tour of the town. I must say these are some of the friendliest TAT staff that we’ve met on our trip. I am really looking forward to cycling around the town tomorrow and checking it out proper.
