The Royal Project (Mae Ya Noi) -> Chiang Mai Guess what? There was MORE steep climbing today. 🙃 Today was our longest day and we still had a lot of elevation. The dirt was still pretty peanut buttery in places but it was very pretty and we only had to hike-a-bike a few sections. Once we got down from the dirt, we then had an equally long climb over another peak. The best thing I can say about it was the road was mostly quiet. Perfect because once again, I was using the whole road to paperboy a lot. Partially because my legs were just tired. Partially because of my stem caddies, I can't really climb out of the saddle. But mostly because a lot of the steep sections were sustain 14% grades. I was so happy once we got over the last big peak. I don't think I could've continued climbing for much longer. We descended down to Pa Pae to get lunch. We found a tasty noodle place. We also found it was much hotter than it was up in the mountains. A highlight today was coming across a random litter of piglets that got spooked and then ran across the road in front of us. A lowlight were the random dogs that decided to chase. Luckily that only happened a couple of times and they weren't very committed to it. The road back wasn't that pleasant. It was main road with quite a bit of traffic and often sections with no shoulder. Emily even put away her camera at one point - no views. Once we finally rejoined the route we took to leave Chiang Mai, the anticipation that it was almost over made that last leg feel like it was taking longer than it should. We stopped on the way for the thousandth mango smoothie before heading into town to find even more snacks. Heading to a different part of town than the old city where we're staying, Chiang Mai felt more like a city. We rode in rush hour traffic which was way more chaotic than in China since they have no bike lanes. Even their sidewalks are really bad. I guess the good thing is traffic in Asia is far more fluid than North America and it feels safer to move through it as drivers will yield for you unlike back home. The Lanna Kingdom route overall - As always, any adventure with Emily Bei Cheng is a fun one and I'm glad we did it. People have been friendly. The food has been pretty good and you can't beat how cheap it is. The riding itself - parts of it were scenic but overall, not really wowed by the scenery the way I was in China or Iceland. I took WAY less photos than either trip. Part of that too was because of the conditions. Really steep, and sometimes muddy, trails meant both hands on the bars. That also meant stopping to take a photo wasn't ideal as you couldn't start again. I probably also would've enjoyed it more if I wasn't a) suffering so much on the climbs and b) having to nurse the cracked rear wheel and not being able to send it on the descents. It made it all the way without getting any worse at least. Pretty thankful for that. We also did get pretty lucky with the weather. The only way we could've gotten any luckier is if it hadn't rained at all and the trails weren't so muddy.