Laos to Thailand

I'm on the train. The 6.20pm from nong khai to Bangkok.  its a sleeper night train.

The last few days have been good. I got to savenakhet and stayed at a hotel the Australian guy recommended. Bit of a gamble because he was a bit annoying but I gave it a go.  Surprise surprise he was there.  We went for a drink and had a look at a local guesthouse. There was a teenager plying badminton in the yard so I asked if I could join in, we had a bit of a knock around, he was a pretty good player.

The next day I rode to tha kaek, it was 125km and a bit of a slog.  the longest day so far on the bike.  I got up early, set off when the sun was rising and finished when it was setting.  The bike is slow going, only having one gear is a bit restrictive. It is OK on the uphills but on the flat and down hill it is geared too low.  It limits my speed about 10-12 mph. 

I had a few mothers offer me there daughters.  I turned them down.  I ended up having a fair few drinks along the way, thats what kept me going I think.  Each stop was a water and a beer :-)

I got to tha kaek, and stayed in  posh hotel.  I was planning my next few days before Helen gets out and I found a muay Thai cub in hua hin.  the nectar day I cycled to the bus station, and got a bus to Vientiane.  It was a bus journey from hell. I literally sat sweating my Boll#@ks off for 7 hours with no legroom.  Then found a hotel with a room that stank of piss and a toilet full of mozzys. 

I cycled from Vientiane to the Laos/Thai friendship bridge funded by the Australians. It joins Laos and Thai over the Mekong river.  I had  a good result at the border, I was expecting only a 15 day visa which would of meant I would of had to pay for an extension but they stamped 30 days into my passport!!  I rode to the train station in nong khai and booked my ticket to Bangkok, then spent the rest of the afternoon in a bar beside the Mekong river.

Now I'm on the train to Bangkok, I hope the restaurant car turns into a party wagon like the Chiang mai train!

Phalan tai

The road from dong ha to khe Sanh was a bitch, up hill for 40km, but the scenery was nice, the road followed a river before it rose up to khe Sanh.  Khe Sanh has a lot of history, it was an important strategic position as it is on the ho chi Minh trail.  The Americans had a base there with 6000 marines.  One of the biggest battles occurred there. At one point the base was surrounded by 20,000 Viet cong soldiers, attacking with mortars and rocket propelled grenades.  In return the US dropped 100,000 tonnes of bombs on the surrounding area, 5 tonnes for each Viet cong soldier!

I crossed the Laos border without any hassles. One of the guards was more interested in English football than checking my passport. Laos is very different to Vietnam and Thailand. Much poorer by the looks of things.  The majority of homes are wooden, and there's much less infrastructure.  My first stop was a place called xepon.  I sat in a bar and had a couple of beers then an Australian guy comes walking past and comes in for a chat. I ended up having a meal with him and a few more beers.  He was a bit of a bellend but it was someone to have a conversation with.

Next stop was phalan tai. My uncle Mike has a friend there so I tried to meet up with him.  After a few hours of trying to track him down I found some people who said he has passed away.  I sat with them for a few hours drinking and eating weird and wonderful food. I tried beetles on skewers and buffalo intestine! There job was to defuse mines left over from the war.  They gave me the name of his cousin who is a doctor at the local hospital.  I went to find his cousin who confirmed the news.

I went to see the dinosaurs footprints in the dried river bed.

The road across Laos is having some major resurfacing.  It was dusty and very hot so I got a bus (back of a small truck with bench seats and canopy) the last 30km to savennakht.

I'm going to head North to Tha Khaek tomorrow, again it will be the morning cycling then bus the rest.

DMZ and tunnels

After biking the Ho Chi Minh trail I went out for food and beers.  I ended up in a club with an English guy Jim and a Scottish girl Paula, had a really good night, got to bed at 5am.

I woke up hanging, but had to force myself to get on the bike and ride to Dong Ha, my next stop up the coast. The ride was shite, it started raining, the road was covered in watery mud, it was slightly uphill, there was a headwind, my bottom bracket on my bike was getting worse and there were loads of busses and lorries coming past.  I got to Dong Ha pretty fed up and was starting to doubt my decision to cycle.

I got up in the morning, checked out of hotel and headed to a cafe for breaky.  As I was leaving a local guy started talking to me, I told him my plan to cycle to the Laos border and showed him the play in my bottom bracket.  He didn't know anywhere but his mate suggested a guy on the other side of the road. He had a street stall for bike maintenance. He replaced the spindle, bearings and cups for about £3!

Whilst my bike was bing repaired I was chatting to the first guy.  He was telling me about the demilitarized zone and tunnels just north of Dong Ha.  I knew they were there but didnt want to add two days of cycling in the wrong direction to see them.  The guy offered to take me on a tour on the back of his moped to see them for £12, I said yes.

By this time it was almost lunch time, he took me to have lunch with his family.  I sat down with them in their home and had some grub.  He then disappeared to go and do something (not sure what) so I was left sitting in this Vietnamese house with a family I had just met, we struggled to communicate in English but got by.

So after I was sitting on the back of a scooter heading up to see the demilitarized (DMZ) zone.  After Vietnam gained independence from France the North wanted to be communist but the south wanted to be capitalist.  The two respective leaders could not agree on a way forward so decided to have two counties divided in the middle by the Ben Hai river.  5km either ride of the river was declared a DMZ and UN peacekeepers were stationed at the border. It was like this from about 1954 to 1960, then it all got a bit messy. The North were fighting for a unified communist state and the south were fighting for capitalism. The south were supported by the US who were trying to stop the spread of communism and the North were supported by the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and Czechoslovakia.

Then we headed to the tunnels. A network of underground tunnels that housed thousands of North Vietnamese during the American bombing. Whole villages were living underground for four years. Pretty awesome to walk through them.

We stopped at some memorials.  The had big signs saying 'we hate the US aggressors' on all their monuments.

It was a good day, it turned out much different then expected! Tomorrow I will set of on the bike with a new bottom bracket and head towards the Laos border. 69 km up into the mountains, sounds like fun! Who knows what stories tomorrow will bring?

Ho Chi Minh Trail on Motorbike

After saying farewell to Rafael I went and got a beer then checked into a hotel because the backpackers digs was full.

I went to a local bar for food and beers, the bar was a typical backpacker bar ran by an English guy.  He was organising a killer pool game, so I got involved. I met a couple of English guys, Tim and Matt.  They were riding motorbikes from south to north Vietnam.  They told me about their day and said it was probably the best day of their lives.  They had rode from Hue (where we were staying) to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  They convinced me to do the same trip. 

We carried on playing pool and drinking, we met a Swede so we played doubles pool.  We ended up going to a little club and got home at 5am ish.  So the biking was a rite off yesterday.  Still thinking about how buzzing Tim and Matt were about their day I decided to stay another night in Hue so I could get up early and do a whole day on the motorbike.

So today I got up at 6.30am, had breakfast and set off for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bike was a 110cc Honda wave.  It was pretty nippy, obviously not compared to a bigger bike but I was very impressed.

Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of northern Vietnam during the Vietnam civil war with the US.  The trail was built by northern Vietnam as the main supply route to the troops on the front line fighting the US in the south. It is one of the heaviest bombed areas in the world. The trail is regarded as 'one of the greatest achievements in military engineering of the 20th century'.

The first hour was a nightmare, what should of been a simple route out of town we not so simple. I got lost, bought a map, spent another hour asking people to show me where I am on the map.  I struggled, I know some of it would of been a language barrier problem, but a few people were holding the map upsidedown! One guy gave me confidence he knew where to go, he said for me to follow him so I thought great. He led me back to Hue, I showed him the map again, he looked at it for 5 mins then said he didn't know!  So I resorted to paying a taxi driver so I could follow him out of town, even that wasn't straight forward, some other westerners flagged him down so he stopped to pick them up, then just pointed me on my way.  I eventually found the road I needed so I cracked on.

I needed fuel, so I stopped at a roadside cafe, out they come with a 2 litre coke bottle of petrol!

Anyway, I got to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was bloody awesome! A winding road through the mountains.  The mountains were covered in thick jungle with rivers and waterfalls.  It was properly in the middle of nowhere, jungle covered mountains as far as you can see.  The road surface was concrete and in perfect condition. You could take the racing line through the corners, it was like a computer racing game. Almost no traffic, I saw one other car and a handful of bikes in the two hours I was on the trail. Switchback after switchback. To get an idea, go on Google maps, search for Hue, head West on QL49, then south on Ho Chi Minh Trail!

About 10 hours of riding in the end but bloody worth it.  A thoroughly good day. Even though I had high expectations, it lived up to it. Thanks Tim and Matt!

Lang Co to Hue

Well Sunday was pretty eventful.  I set off from the motel, all good and well.  Not far out of Lang Co was a road closure, and a policeman directing traffic.  But he beckoned me down the road that was closed.  So I plodded on. 

The road began to climb which was what looked to be another mountain pass.  I was having trouble with my chain coming off, my rear axle had moved forward in the drop outs do the chain was slack.

I carried on just putting my chain on every now and then.  I came across the obstruction in the road, two lorries had collided, one was blocking the road road, the other had crashed through the concrete barrier and went down the embankment! There was no getting past so I made my way back. My chain got worse and jammed between the sprocket and frame. A local stopped and asked if I wanted some help, I showed him the problem and he invited me to his home at the bottom of the hill.  I sat with his family, must of been at least three generations, they brought their tools out and tensioned my chain properly.  I had  a beer with them then carried on around the diversion.

A bit later on another 'foreign' cyclist comes up next to me, we got chatting then sat down together for some food.  He was a Slovenian called Rafael, spending one month cycling in Vietnam and then onto Cambodia.  We were heading for the same place, Hue.  We ended up sharing a hotel room and going out for food and beers.

The next day we rode around the Citadel in Hue, had lunch then he left on a bus up north.  He was a sound guy, had done a lot of cycle touring before and it was nice to have some company.

One of my spokes snapped on my bike, I stopped at a roadside cycle repair place and he put a new spoke in and new pedals (my pedals were about to fail) for a whopping $3! Bikes as good as new and rides like a dream, well something like that.

Tomorrow I'm cycling along the coast to Dong Ha. After that I will cycle west towards the Laos border.

Brake failure on Hai Van Pass

Ive completed my first day of cycling, from Hoi An to Lang Co.

It started off well, I loved being back on a bike. I cycled along the coast for a fair while, awesome beaches all the way.  I was heading for Danang where I would assess the time and decide whether to crack on to Lang Co.  Time went well so I decided to head over the Hai Van pass. Before I got to the pass a local over took me on a moped, then signalled for me to go in front, he then stuck his foot out and pushed me down the road, probably for about 5 km.  Then signalled that he was turning off, said bye then off he went!

I got to the pass, it was hot and the up hill went on and on, but the views were awesome.  The road wound itself up into the mountains, covered in jungle, white sandy beaches down below.  Lots of locals saying hello to me.

The downhill was a different story, it was foggy on the North of the mountains so no views, and my drum brakes kept on overheating and fading, it was a foot on the floor job to stop me the first time, and I was wearing flip flops! I had to walk to let them cool down every minute or so of riding, was slow going.  I don't thing the bike was designed to have a 100kg lump with backpack going down hills like that!

The pass was on the top gear episode when they road mopeds in Vietnam.

I arrived in Lang Co with about an hour of daylight left and found a motel.  I'm the only one here, bit different to the backpackers dorm in Hoi An.

Tomorrow I'm off to Hue, 70 km away. Hopefully theres a bit more going on there!

Hoi An, I have a bike!

I set off thismorning to go and find a bike.  At the first bike shop they didn't speak any English, and all their bikes were new and too expensive.  I went to the next one which was in the market hoping to find a better deal. But it was a similar story, all new and expensive, when I say expensive I mean they were £60.  I asked the shop owner if she had any second hand bikes, she said yes and led me down  few alleyways to her house where she had some in her front garden. But she wanted too much and they were knackered.

At this point I was a bit stumped, I walked off to gather my thoughts and a street seller asked me what I was looking for, (like they do to everyone) do I said a cheap bike.  After a bit of chatting amongst the locals they showed me a bike, pretty decent nick, so after a bit of haggling I got it for about £30.

I was happy with that, all I needed now was a way of carrying my bag.  I went back to the hardware shop I bought the rope from to see if they had anything, I spotted a piece of bamboo wood, ideal.  They cut it in half and attached it to my planner rack with wire. Now I have a perfect way of transporting my backpack.

I'm going to spend another evening in Hoi An, collect my washing at 11am then hit the road! First stop danang.

Hanoi and Halong Bay

We flew to Hanoi from Bangkok, flight and obtaining visas went well. We got a nice hotel for pretty cheap.  Our first task was to sort out our trip to Halong bay.  There are thousands of tour agencies offering 1,2,3 or more days cruising around the bay.  We used the trusty lonely planet book and went straight to the operator.  We opted for the two days with one night on the boat option.  This gave us another day in Hanoi to explore.

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel then headed for the lake.  The most interesting thing was the museum for hoa lo prison.  The French built it when Vietnam was a French colony in the 1800's.  Then it was occupied by the northern Vietnam army during the war with the US. The whole aim of the museum was to show how bad the French and US were and how good the Vietnamese were.  They showed US POW's decorating a Christmas tree, having hospital treatment and playing basketball and volleyball.  Senator John McCain was shot down and taken to the prison, he was treated for his wounds which was displayed but they didn't mention his wounds were from bring been and bayoneted by Vietnamese soldiers.  Also senator McCain's recollection was not of playing basketball or decorating Christmas trees but of torture.  It was interesting to see the spin Vietnamese put on it...

We had a couple of good nights out, good food and a lock in at our local bar.  There is a strict 12am curfew in Hanoi, we had to draw the curtain and knock on the door for it to be opened. Once outside it was dead, no-one to be seen.  A big contrast to the normal busyness.

The roads in Hanoi are mental. Just absolute chaos.  Crossing the road, dodging the mopeds and taxis was a bit terrifying the first few times!

Our trip to Halong bay was the highlight of our few days.  There were 8 people on the boat, 3 couples and me and Tom.  The boat is called a junk,  typical Vietnamese boat.  We had some awesome food then headed for a cave.  The cave was epic, the size of a warehouse with awesome rock formations.  Then we went back to the boat and did about a hour and half of canoeing which was brill, we went through stone archways etc.  The night on the boat was good fun, we had an awesome tea then had a fair few drinks with the others on the boat.  The captain showed us some card tricks and puzzles that were good fun. All in all halong bay was really good, really pleased we did it.

Now I'm in hoi an, a traditional Vietnamese fishing port, very picturesque.  Tom has left me to fly back to the UK.  I'm going to start my three week cycle from here, I have rope to tie my backpack to the pannier rack, I have a map of Vietnam, all I need now is a bike! Ive found out where two bike shops are so I will check them out in the morning...

Cambodia - Angkor Temples

The border crossing from Thailand to Cambodia at Poipet was pretty painless, despite all the reports of scammers.

We met an Italian couple who we shared a taxi with from Poipet to Siem Reap. 

Firstly I would like to summarise the Cambodian transport system.

Roads - mostly tarmac, some sections of dirt, massive potholes, uneven surface, predominantly drive on the right, but the odd person driving on the left!
Cars - not many have cars, most have 125 cc mopeds.
People carriers - pick up trucks with as my people you can fit in the back.
Van - they don't use vans, instead the majority of goods are transported by moped and massive trailers, a trailer so overloaded a car wouldn't be permitted to tow it in the UK.
Taxi - a moped towing a trailer for four people. Called a remorque.
Bus - never seen anything like it, a minibus full of people, and I mean full, then they have a platform attached to the back with more seating area, or to carry mopeds etc, some had people on the roof too.
Bikes - bikes are also use'd for transporting goods, loaded up to 10 foot tall in some cases.

The main purpose for going to Cambodia was to visit Angkor temples.  We hired bikes the night before from the hotel owners brother.  We got up at 4.30am and got to Angkor Wat for sunrise, pretty epic.  The biggest religious site on earth, a wonder of the world.
We cycled around the site, visiting lots of awesome temples where you can walk around pretty unrestricted. One temple was used in the Indiana Jones and tomb raider films.  We cycled about 20 ish miles in total.

The food in Cambodia was awesome, coconut milk based currys were ace.

We traveled back to Bangkok and met my uni mate Mark for a night out.  We went to 'the largest adult playground on earth' the centre of Thailand's sex tourism industry.  I would like to add we were obviously just going to see what was going on there and not takeing part in any of it!! But it was an eye opening experience, the number of middle aged western blokes with Thai girls was pretty disturbing. And the bar dedicated to ladyboys was interesting, genuinely couldn't tell them apart!

We are in Hanoi, Vietnam now, will update on our Halong bay experience soon.

Best day yet...

Had an awesome day Wednesday.  We had to move hotel because ours was booked, Tom found one just down the road for 350 baht (about £3.50 each) with aircon, best price of the trip so far. 

We organised visa for Vietnam and a flight back to Bangkok.

We caught a tuk tuk to Chiang Mai zoo then changed to a taxi up into the mountains, they are called taxi's but are actually just old pick up trucks with two bench seats down either side. The road up the mountain was awesome, steep with lots of switchbacks.  The views over Chiang Mai were awesome albeit a bit hazy.  Up the top was a big temple, with 300 odd steps leading up to it.

On the way back from the temple we had to stop st the zoo, so we went in for s look around, was pretty good apart from seeing the elephants being rode by tourists, the 'driver' had what was basically an axe to controlling th direction of the elephant.

We then returned to the hotel and went out for a meal. The restaurant had what were basically cut off oil drums converted into BBQ's out the front, he was cooking fish on them and they were awesome with a bit of stir fried veg. 

When we left the meal we bumped into Jo, Claire and Archie who we met previously at our hotel.  They were going to the muay Thai fight swell.  The muay Thai fight was really good, the talent was unreal, the last fight was a Dutch girl vs a Thai girl, the Dutch girl finished it in 20 secs, with a kick to the head!

We finished our beers then headed to a bar with live music which was nice, we met a pair of French guys who we went onto another drinking spot with outside of town, the four of us travelled in a tuk tuk which is designed to carry 2.  It sat in the front on a battery.

The drinking spot was basically a load of sheds with bars and clubs set up in them, we had a few more beers and a bit of a dance.  By this stage we were pretty merry so we decided to walk back to our hotel, I was convinced I could remember the way.  I was wrong, we ended up walking through the back streets of Chiang mai.  We were walking for a fair while then come across a propper Thai market, this was about 4.30 am, thousands of Thais buying and selling food, cutting veg, slicing meat, pretty amazing sight and it was huge, took over a good few streets.

So by this point we had no idea where we were. I asked a couple of people who were cutting veg, the guy said jump in the back of his pick up and he would take us to the hotel. So me and Tom jumped into he back of the pick up and he took us back to our hotel, I was standing up in the back holding onto the cab, pretty fun!

Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday morning after a very fun train journey from Bangkok.  It was a night sleeper train, duration 15 hours. After hanging around in Bangkok station for most of Monday it was nice getting into the air conditioned wagon. 

It was a bit of an eye opener as we left bangkok, the railway was lined with shanty town like buildings, their homes were built inches from the train, a very poor area. 

We were tired from only having a few hours sleep the night before and Tom said in passing that he hopes there's not noisey people next to us so we could get some good sleep.  It turned out the noiseyist group of Americans were sat opposite having a party.  We ended up having a few drinks with them in the end.

There was a restaurant car which turned into a lively bar at night. We met loads of other travellers and had a good crack.  Lots of people all packed into one carriage all drinking and dancing. Slightly different than the first great Western train to Paddington!

We woke up and saw the sunrise over the Thai countryside which was nice.

We are staying in  nice hotel inside the walled city.  Today we went to a Buddhist temple where we sat amongst monks singing prayers.

This evening we are about to head out to a night bazaar.

Chiang Mai is a lot quieter and relaxed then Bangkok where locals stop for a chat and aren't just trying to sell us something. There's a nice vibe here.

We've had some awesome food so far, the Thai green curry was amazing and pad Thai today was awesome, a big feed of stir fried noodles, chicken and nuts for 60 baht which is about £1.10.

Tomorrow we are going to do some sort of activity, maybe go to an elephant sanctuary, or trek in the jungle.  Also tomorrow night we are going to a muay Thai stadium to watch a Thai kickboxing fight, muay Thai is Thailand's national sport.

Bye for now.

We have arrived in Bangkok!

Well we're here safely. Flights went well with no hick ups, me and Tom bought a little bottle of whiskey for the plane which helped us sleep. Also we found some seats empty next to the door so we had them which had loads of legroom.

The taxi ride from the airport was interesting, I think the driver thought he was in a film being chased by police! Weaving in and out of traffic like a mad man!

We arrived at khao San road which was nuts, the most hustling and bustling place I have ever been too, street lined with bars, restaurants, street food vendors. We found a hotel on khao San road for £5 each a night, with aircon, WiFi and cold shower. The people are mainly backpackers from all over the world.  We met two lesbian sisters from Brighton, we ended up having a few drinks with them.  We ate a deep fried and salted scorpion! What was going to be a quiet few drinks in the bar opposite ended up being a pretty heavy night, got back to hotel at 4ish.

Today we went to the grand palace where the emerald Buddha lives.  It was a shoes off job to walk through the monastery.  Interesting to see a completely different building to a church back home, it was colourful with mosaic tiles and gold leaf coatings. On the way to the palace the tuk tuk driver took us past the demonstration sites.  It was like a scene from a film, behind the barbed wire and sandbags were overturned cars, vans and coaches! All with smashed Windows etc. We wont be heading down there at night!!!!!

Temperature is over 30 degrees in the day and very humid!

Tonight we are going to head into town, get some food and maybe go and find one of the open air markets Bangkok is famous for.

Bye for now.