Segway Tour of Chiang Mai

Yesterday, Daeng rode over on the bus, I should say two buses, from our home in Mae Sai.  After three days it was great to see her as she is the light of my life.

This morning we got up early and had breakfast here at the hotel. It was a pretty good breakfast here at the Top North Hotel.  We had a mixed green salad, fried eggs, sausage, toast, fried noodle, orange juice and coffee.  We ate to much but it was good.

We then walked across the moat to the Segway Gibbon Tour office.  It was about 8:45 AM but they were not open.  We walked back over to the hotel and hung out for about 45 minutes.  I knew the first tour started at 10:00 AM.

Yea, they were open and said we could joint another fellow that was doing the three hour tour and they would just drop us back off after two hours. 

We signed the releases that said they weren't responsible for anything including injuries. We paid them and they taught us how to control the Segway Transporters. That's what I call them.

Making the Segway Transporters work correctly takes a little practice as when you lean forward, it goes forward. When you lean backwards you stop or if stopped you go backwards.

It you move the handle bars right you turn right and move left you turn left.  I had a little problem of what they called "dancing" because if you lean forward and then backwards, than forward, you just rock back and forth.  I got pretty good at dancing.  At least they laughed at me.

They then took us to a large open area by the Thapae Gate to let us practice a little before going into the inter-city.  That was fun and we all got a little confidence although Daeng was still very cautious.

The two guides, the other traveler, Peter along with Daeng and I traveled through the Chiang Mai inter-city.  We visited a few beautiful Buddhist Temples.

Daeng was getting used to the operation of the Segway and was moving right along.  They had set the top speed of about 12 kilometers an hour, that is about 8 miles per hour or twice as fast as a fast walk.

One of the guides let me use his machine and I went faster than I wanted to go so I slowed down and didn't experience the full speed.  They go faster than I want to go .

We stopped at a coffee shop and had some refreshments.  I was glad we stopped because on the machines we are standing up all the time and my legs were a little tired.  I'm glad we only took the two hour tour.  You can see the machines parked in the picture.

While we rested we learned that Peter buys wood and things from Thailand and sells them on the internet.  Here is his website: www.Trendy-Wood-Light.de.

After the refreshments we stopped at another Temple and then they dropped us off at the tour office.  When we turned on our helmets they gave us both t-shirts.  They did not have 2XL so I'll give mine to Daeng's brother.

It was a fun trip and Daeng likes to ride on all kinds of things.

We did talk with Tim McGuire, Segway Division Manager, discussing ownership of the Segway machines.  There cost is around $10,000 USD.