Hitching Back to Town after Our Third Blowout

We were about 5 miles out of Mae Salong when we blew our back tire. This is the third time it's happened, and we've had other mechanical problems as well. The bikes are poorly maintained and it's anybody's guess how long they'll last.

With the winding, steep roads around Mae Salong, we were a 20 minute drive and a couple of hours walk from Mae Salong.

We ended up hitching a ride on the back of a pick-up truck carrying ten full grown pigs. There were sections of bamboo holding in the pigs and we stood on the back bumper holding onto the bamboo slats as the pigs staged a miniature mutiny. They had motion sickness and they were throwing up on each other, and it was all we could do to avoid getting chewed on, thrown up on, or falling off the truck, especially when we were going up the steep hills. The pigs all got frightened and started wrestling with each other on a particularly steep slope, but somehow we made it back to town.

That must have been a funny sight to everybody by the side of the road. Two farangs wearing motorcycle helmets riding with ten pigs into town.