I did mountain biking on the last day of my Chiang Mai tour. Chiang mai is very famous for mountain biking. I booked the mountain biking tour through info@mountainbikingchiangmai.com. They have beginner, intermediate and advance level. Since I did cycling for more than 10 years during my schooling I was pretty confident and took the intermediate level. People without any experience should completely avoid mountain biking. It was very dangerous because of the muddy terrain. We had 3 accidents in our group and 1 accident was serious a girl had to be taken by ambulance. Please avoid this if you are not confident. The guides were superb in this tour. Our guide was a national champion and he gave lot of tips during the beginning of the trail
The entire tour takes about 5 hours. Initially they will drive you up the mountain and then you have to follow a downhill path in order to reach the base of the mountain. It was close to 20 km ride.It was not completely downhill there were lot of places where you have to ride uphill.For the first 1 hour we were riding our bikes on normal road. Then the roads became narrower and muddy. We had two accidents here where one person fell from bike and another person couldn’t control the bike and ended up in a ditch. Thank God the fall was not that bad. After we passed the muddy trail we encountered a uphill section and it was too tough to cycle the entire section so we had to come down and push our bike up. Eventually at the middle part of the trail we saw some flat terrain having grass on both sides and we eventually reached a small tea garden. We had some drinks and snacks at the cafe. After the tea break the trail became tougher at one point the downhill was too steep and one person fell from her bike. Two guides stayed at the place of the accident and they immediately called for medical help. One guide led us for the remaining part of the trail. After passing the steep downhill section we finally reached flat muddy roads. Road condition kept on improving and we finally passed through a village. The last section was pretty easy and eventually we hit the main road. We ended our trip at a lake and we had our lunch at the lake. The food tasted really well because all of us were really hungry.
Post mountain biking I took a night trip to Doi Suthep temple. The temple is situated far from the town center on the famous Doi Suthep mountain. I booked a night tour from my hotel to the temple. The entire duration of the trip was 3 hours. You can get great views of the city from the top of the temple. Most part of the temple is made of gold. The golden color looks beautiful during the night time when light reflects from it.
I had a perfect holiday at Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai has lot to offer for people of all age groups. Minimum 3 days is necessary in order to explore this beautiful region.
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