After hours of mountain driving, we arrived in Mae Sariang, a cute little riverside city with an incredible little night market. Sadly, the market was already mostly closed by 7pm - around the time we had finally found our guesthouse! Better luck next time I suppose. Lucky for us, a little cart selling Pad Thai was the last thing open in the market, and he raked in cash from the majority of us. Getting back to the guesthouse with our food and beer, we had long and bonding banter as we caught up and/or got to know the other members of our bike gang (4 bikes and 7 people) that we earlier decided to call 'The Dirty Beavers.' Seemed like a perfectly funny name for 6 dirt-baggin' Canadians and a German who was just stoked to be one of the crew. We were lucky enough to be staying just across the street from the supposed 'only free pool table in town,' so we crossed that road, and played our first 'Thai-rules' game of pool since arriving in Thailand. I sure need improvement! 

Spent a pleasant morning wandering around Mae Sariang, doing odd-ball errands around the rustic wooden houses and shanty hole-in-the-wall shops, and of course, stopping at the local shiny 7-Eleven, where I asked the manager in broken Thai if he knew the location of a water refill station. He ended up filling our 2.5L of bottles for free with drinkable water; Though he only saved me 1Baht (~¢4), I thanked him generously for his favor, and was on my way out of 7Eleven with my chocolate custard filled bun. At noon when we were leaving the peaceful town to set out for Mae Hong Son, I couldn't help feeling that I was leaving a place that deserved much more than our short 18 hour stay. I'm happy that yesterday's original plan to go straight to Mae Hong Son was dashed by us leaving late from Chiang Mai, because Mae Sariang was a perfect addition to the loop, and it broke up the driving nicely, which is kind of a big deal when you are riding 2 men on a 125cc Honda Zoomer with 40lbs of gear!