Jan 4, 2015
This ATV venture was kind of an accident. Adi sorta got me to sign up with her. And I’m super glad I did.
Originally we were supposed to team up. She was supposed to drive while I was supposed to ride on the back and if I felt adventurous enough, then I would drive for a bit. There were 6 of us total, what are the odds that I would be the only non-Israeli of the group. It was pretty cool though. The 2 guys had some really great and interesting stories. They are both soldiers and one of them is a weapons specialist and he had some interesting stories.
The drive to the place was about an hour outside of Chiang Mai, way in the country area around the Buffalo Reservation Center. The company we were doing this with is called Mon Mae Kha Nin Adventure.
When we got there, another group was just riding
back and they were FILTHY! Turns out we were going to be riding in whatever
clothes we had on and with no gloves. Our instructor gave us the instructions
on how to drive the ATVs. Turns out these ATVs are all MANUAL! Thinking that I wasn’t
going to be driving, I felt like I was safe from having to handle these monster
trucks. Nope. I ended up driving my own vehicle.
We stopped by a Hmong village for a bit but none of us had any money with us…
I was the ONLY girl (out of 4) to go up the steep difficult uphill/downhill. Before attempting this feat, the instructors told us that it was the most difficult part of the trail. They asked each of us if we wanted to drive our ATV or ride on their ATV. Both boys wanted to drive. So mathematically, 1 of the girls would have to drive. I was feeling pretty badass having survived this long so why not push myself a bit more. I didn’t realize that the other girls would decide to ride though… But still it felt pretty good being the only girl. That uphill was flipping bumpy and difficult! Picture a mountain that had a road and then there was an earthquake and the road broke into pieces and all that’s left on the mountain is a broken road with rocks everywhere. My ATV stalled because one of the boys’ stalled and I still hadn’t figured out how to keep my engine running while not moving. Spoiler: I never learned how. Haha Soooo to keep any of us from falling backwards, there was an instructor inbetween us. Thank goodness because I probably would’ve fallen backwards. Despite the rocky uphill, it wasn’t too too bad. Once we got past that, the road smoothed out and we found ourselves in a corn field. Later down the road we (Adhi, the 2 boys and I) walked past the corn field and came upon the edge of the mountain and saw the 360 view.
The downhill of the rocky mountainside was DEADLY! This time instead of having the instructors inbetween us, they stayed on our right side to keep us from falling off the cliff. Driving downhill and keeping my engine running was extremely difficult for me. I tried not to completely stop but it was hard because everyone ahead of me was going very slow. I stalled twice going downhill and then I was fine. I found that using my back brakes was a lot better than using my front brakes while going downhill.
Once we got back we all looked at each other and saw how filthy we all were.
The entire 3 hours, my thumbs kept hitting the sides of the handles and basically rubbed off my skin. I didn't realize that I was bleeding until the 2nd hour. Oh well.. here's to battle wounds.
