Day 89 Born to be wild

01/06/13
I wanted an early start but I reset my alarm twice before I finally got up at 07.45. I hired a motorbike from my hostel, filled the tank and pulled back on the throttle, the next 75km were literally spent flat out, the road was so good, although it did get a bit tedious. From Chiang Khong I rode south to Thoeng where you can turn towards Chiang Rai or to Chiang Kham, I chose the later then I turned onto route 1093 (the road I wanted to drive along in the first place). It was an unbelievable road, there were so many turns, making me throw the bike into corners like a TT rider (at least it felt that way). At points the road surface was terrible and I was very surprised I didn't get a puncture, but the bike didn't get off totally scot-free. I was running out of petrol, with the tank nearly empty when I came slowly down a hill into a village and out of nowhere a chicken ran into the road, not wanting to hit it (as it would be worth a lot to a village resident) I touched my breaks and swerved round. It being wet my back wheel lost grip and slid round, hitting the ground first on the right then flipping onto the left, knocking the wing mirror off. I was fine apart from a couple of very minor scratches and the bike likewise. Whether in this incident or a result of the rough roads, or both, I noticed fuel leaking from the combustion chamber after I had filled up. After half an hour I had used a good 2/3 of a tank so I pulled up at a local mechanic to get it fixed. It took them nearly an hour as they had to take off panel etc. but it still only cost me £2.20. When I drove off there was no drips but again, as soon as I filled up there was leakage, no idea what was wrong. Tomorrow I go to Laos, the last stop before home in exactly a months time.