Thailand off road motorcycle tour – Sangkhlaburi to Umphang – Myanmar border jungle trail motorcycle tour

This is a really unique Thailand off road motorcycle tour.

These two Karen locals on the banks of the Suriya River (Myanmar border) seem quite focused on some drama?

They’re watching to see if Bob’s KLX 250 will fall through the raft before it reaches the Thai-side of the river.

Looks like she enjoyed the entertainment?

0700am & a chilly morning to head off into the border jungle for sure

Despite the cold weather everyone pretty keen and ready

I wonder if they’re headed in the same direction?

A very cute child at the market

Filled up with food and fuel, off we go north into the jungle

Time to let the tires down to 15 psi

Mr Kelly lovin it

Up to the National Park Ranger’s guard checkpoint, we’re all praying there’s no hitch, there has been in the past

All good and into the fun park we go

We were the first group to go through this jungle trail this dry season, Jack had walked it a couple times before but not ridden, as you can see, a bit soft in places still.

Bigfella headed through a cut pass across a swampy river

Being so remote, the bamboo is still flourishing in the area, being so useful in populated areas its mostly disappeared.

The route is only do-able from middle of December through to May, there is numerous river and stream crossings, and the route follows the river bed in a few sections. Jack’s trekking tour takes 6 days to get north to Umpang.

This is why Jack waits until the end of December, this soft terrain slows the pace down so much that it makes it a push to make the sleeping destinations, luckily there are alternate choices if its real boggy

Pounce through that crossing with no trouble

If you look closely at the ground you can see its all still pretty wet and slippy

Our first bamboo bridge, still a little slippy

Most of us were having slips in the mud (i’m sure there’s a few coming of me on my side)

Into the first village to the north, everyone ok for fuel so no topping up

Back into the jungle

Then north to B. Chong Samakey, with it’s helipad in place for the Princesses visit a few weeks back

A spot of noodle soup in the village

Full bellies & time to start the river crossings, never a dull moment and always horrifying, you drop the bike & it’s often a big problem

This one everyone across safely

Slow is best

3 minutes later and another crossing awaits

Deep and rocky, good to have a spotter

Beautiful emerald colors

A real treat – a suspension bridge in decent condition that could be used for a particularly nasty crossing

Up to the next checkpoint and again praying that we don’t have a problem and get refused

All ok and north to another nasty, polished, slippery rock, river crossing, Nat from Bangkok making easy work of it.

The halfway point and the area where there’s a dis-used mine

A school run by Monks is also there

The classroom

Back into the bamboo jungle

The terrain starting to get a bit dryer

The “New Rice Festival” was happening the next day, with us on a schedule and having to move on, we missed it by one day, it would have been fantastic

One of the best bamboo shots of the trip near the festival

Into the village of B. Hin Tang & no-one at the house where we had planned to sleep, they had gone to help set up the New Rice Festival

No real drama’s, we asked the owner of the shop if we could set up camp there and they said no problem

Getting late in the day, time to get all the camping set up before dark and shower too

Pounce’s new hammock looking good

Mr Kelly’s very professional set up

I’m playing with a lightweight minimalist set up

An ultra-lightweight hammock from Grand Trunk, XS Thermarest inflatable sleeping pad, lightweight mosquito net that can be used for floor camping and lightweight attachment lines. Also a Thermarest sleeping bag that has elastics that wrap around the sleeping pad so you can’t fall off the pad.

Lots of people ask why you need the sleeping pad in the hammock. It adds an immense amount of thermal insulation and helps keep you warm, 2am – 6am the temperature really drops, the pad makes all the difference in the world.

The shop was pretty well stocked, at first we wondered if they were the wholesaler for the area

Great to see water catchment still being achieved with bamboo

Always fascinates me to see the intelligent setup of the locals vehicles that have to work in these horrendous conditions that are cut off for more than half a year

Maybe off to help setup the New Rice Festival

Straw for insulation

Bigfella managed to talk 2 of the family into a massage

With granddaughter watching

Dusk upon us headlights and blankets at the ready, Nat trying to keep warm

Jack preparing dinner

A feast consisting of omelette, fish soup, vegetables and rice

Ian, now a little chilly, trying to charge everything from the remaining battery power left in his laptop

7am the next morning, bloody freezing, the fire was a Godsend

Maybe a little too much “Lao Khow” the night before

Steam rising from all our boots and socks, very effective drying

Looks like he’s woken up a bit now, time for us to get rolling

Even on a cold morning, the 2-smoker with full choke always starts first kick, always amazed me

We’re ok for time, so we go take a look at the setting up for the New Rice Festival

Jack with the Phu Yai Ban’s wife at the festival

Setting up for the evening’s festivities

One more checkpoint

Then back into the ruts

This is the nastiest water crossing on the trail, the slipperiest rocks you’ll find anywhere

Waiting for Pounce

Spotters are a good idea here

Now to navigate the big, uneven hole

Bob gave the bike a good bath on this crossing and hydro-locked the engine, a nightmare crossing for people with short legs due to the uneven bottom.

Spark plug out, turn the engine over, spark plug back in and started pretty quickly (make sure you have the correct length spark plug tool)

I had plenty of slips myself, all these were slow speed stuff

A quick stop at Jack’s family house ( we slept there last time) to say hi to his parents and sisters

A few easy crossings before we make our way down to the Suriya River

It’s pot luck which side of the bamboo rafts are left at, we’re unlucky, the raft is on the Thai side of the Suriya River, Jack has to swim and go get it

Time to load 2 bikes at a time

This might be my favorite snap of the trip, got a real jungle feel about it

Bob’s front wheel parted the bamboo and the bike sank, we were hoping it wouldn’t get serious

No drama’s across OK – IMPORTANT, TAKE YOUR MX BOOTS OFF FOR THE RAFT CROSSING, IF YOU FALL IN YOU MAY SINK.

Took some effort to dislodge the front wheel on the wobbly bamboo raft

Pounce coming across

All across safely, time for the nasty rutted gradient, probably the hardest hill of the ride

Never shows steep!!!!!!

Thank God that’s over and finally into the Le Tong Khu village

Beetle nut harvest time

There is a certain ethnic tribe in the Le Tong Khu village where the males arn’t allowed to cut their hair

Yet another boggy, swampy crossing, jack get hung up on the far side

Ian lends a hand

Nat finally has a slip, hadn’t come off all day

Bob through without a hitch

Peter

Nat

A flat bit for a change

Into the 7-11 for a drink

We decide to sleep near the waterfall, there’s an ideal building for groups to sleep

Jack’s friend that runs the clinic for tribal people with no ID cards

Before dark still time for a shower in the waterfall, the hydro on the way down is interesting

Beautiful walk down to the waterfall’

& back up just in time to catch the last of the sun

Roof making at sunset

Nearly sleep time

Jack chilly, looks like he’ll sleep in his RideAsia.net riding shirt (he’ll have to clean it quick ready for next week)

Up early and the Karen locals are curious about what we ride

Freezing morning, a bit of choke and the 300 EXC 2 stroke starts 1st time with a puff of blue smoke

Bob’s dunking seems to have got into his electrics, one bump start and everything is warmed up and ok again

Bigfella’s bike won’t start either, Pounce gets it going with a kick

Back to the Le Tong Khu village for some noodles

Pounce

Le Tong Khu local dealing with the beetle nut harvest

The beautiful soup lady

Keep ’em coming Phil. I finally sorted out the photomerge of our bathtub at the second village. That’s it bottom left

Back south across the Suriya River, we re-trace some of the trails we did the day before to get south, there’s still lots of wet red clay around.

Making twine from bamboo, it has immense tensile strength

Back into the beautiful bamboo

30 minutes further along, we come across an abandoned Kawasaki D-Tracker

A bit of Shaky Hands detective stuff shows that they’d been there for a while waiting for some assistance to come pass, looks like they gave up and went to a village for help

Further south we ask if they’ve seen a rider walking, looking for assistance, they say they’ve seen no-ne.

Quite important to spot & use all the diversions off of the main trail around swamps, they are a problem if you get stuck, you sink trying to use force to dislodge the bike

A convoy of farm pickups returning from the New Rice Festival further north, I’m sure there’s numerous sore heads

We take a few suspension bridges on the way south to speed things up

Yet more party-goers returning from the festival

Here one of the pickups has broken down at the top of the slippy hill. They send an alarmist down to try keep everyone safe

Another unusual bridge

& more swampy ruts ahead

We’re now on the fast-track route back south to Sangkhlaburi, plenty of fun bamboo bridges

Nat had put a hole in his coolant expansion tank in a slip, it was near the top of the tank and not really an issue

10km to go and we’ll be back on the concrete

4.30 pm & we’re back in Sangkhalburi, a flowing quick ride, using the easy way it’s possible to get through in one day

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