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Over two months and 2'500 kilometer of cycling since my last diary from Georgetown. I promise to write more often again! Seriously, I will.
Currently, we are in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, awaiting the arrival of my family (sans brother who'll visit us next year in India). We will have a little holiday of ten days with them here. Then we will be heading towards Laos. So, what happened since my last diary
Well, first we cycled to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia to meet up with my friend Zarim. He generously invited us to his wedding reception - an honor we couldn't pass up. On the way to KL, we met our first cyclists since Sulawesi: Peter and Shalah form Canada. They have been on the road for six years - so call us crazy and adventurous.
The stay in KL was pretty cool - especially thanks to Zarim and his wife Anida. We also got to see Zarim aka MicWrecka perform live at The Bombshelter @ Cloth & Clef in Bukit Bintang. Go check him and the Rogue Squadron out the next time you are in KL.
Then we took the bus back up where we had left off and started riding towards Thailand. I was sort of dreading this. The past few months have been largely 'off the beaten track' and from my first experience, I found Thailand to be overrun with feel-good adventurers: people who pretend to 'explore Asia' but always seem to take the direct VIP bus to do so. But to say it in advance, I am positively surprised by Thailand. With the bicycle we obviously didn't take those buses and were forced to stay in small, nondescript towns. And for most of the time, we hardly saw a white face. Wow. Didn't see that one coming!
First we headed towards the island paradise of Ko Samui, where my friend Chris works as a Operational Manager in a classy hotel. We stayed with his family (yes, many of my friends have kids by now - sheesh, we're getting old) for a few days, enjoying all the offerings this package tourist island has to offer. He also provided us with maps for Thailand - one with a CD-Rom which would prove to be extremely helpful to avoid the main roads. Thanks again, Chris.
After the goodbyes, we hopped over to the more understated island of Ko Phangan, where we planned to spend New Years Eve. Despite arriving on the 28th December, we still found a cozy small bungalow resort on the west coast, far away from the mad shenanigans of the Full Moon Party.
While staying at the Nantakarn Bungalows, right on the beach which we shared with only ten people, one could almost put a blind eye to the obvious: the fast development of this backpacker island. I was there in 2005 - hardly a time when KPG was still a 'secret paradise'. Still, outside of the party beach in the south, the island was still mostly quaint - with backpackers lazing in hammocks all day doing nothing but sharing travel stories, sipping a cold Chang Beer and having a muesli once in a while. Five years later, the western coast of the island has now a paved road as well and large-scale resorts are popping up all the way to the northern end of the island, which five years ago was a place only the 'old school backpackers' went. KPG is definitely being flashpackered. The amount of money backpackers spend these days is ridiculous anyway. A new generation of travelers has arrived in South East Asia for sure.
Anyhow, all of this couldn't spoil our good time we had lazing around, taking a few island tours on our scooter and watching the sunset at Tom's Love and Peace Bar. (see image)
Then, it was time to get our a#$es back on the saddle, we had a goal to meet: on 7th February, my parents would arrive in Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand.
Cycling from Chumpon to Hua Hin was a revelation. I expected all beaches in Southern Thailand to be as packed as the onesds on Samui and Phangan. Far from it! There are hundreds of kilometers of empty beaches, with plenty of accommodation available on them. Seriously, if you want a nice beach holiday - go to Hua Hin, rent a scooter and ride south from there. You are guaranteed to find a nice, affordable spot and have the place almost to yourself. Just make sure you are going during the week. On the weekends the places apparently fill up with Thai tourists.
We thoroughly enjoyed the ride along the beach and even camped on it in Sam Roi National Park. Nice. We also used CouchSurfing a few times to meet more locals and save some money. Good experience and thanks to all of you hosts. You are awesome! From Hua Hin, we took the train to Bangkok, we didn't particularly fancy riding into this Metropolis.
We didn't stay in Bangkok too long - it is a cool city, but it creates that tendency to consume and therefore spend a lot of money. The new camera we bought alone swallowed up half a month's budget. We did get to see some Thai Boxing and met up with Bret, the lecturer from my time at SAE in Perth, Australia. But then we blew out of Bangkok to Ayutthaya by train.
Ayutthaya is one of Thailand's old capitals and with all its ruins a main tourist attraction. We got 'ruined out' after two old wats and started pedaling again - not before meeting our next cyclist: Vincent, a young German also on his way to Chiang Mai.
As with the south, as soon as we left Ayutthaya, the white faces disappeared. The scenery was mostly of massive rice paddies, which we both like to ride through. The only negative point was the constant headwind which had been following us for almost 1'000 kilometers all the way from Malaysia.
Thanks to Chris' CD-Rom, we were able to ride tertiary roads which are completely devoid of traffic and lead through the smallest of villages. Combined with the flat terrain, it made for very relaxed riding and a good way to get back into shape to tackle those mountains leading up to Chiang Mai.
Just before our first mountain stage, we met Nic and Kate, a Dutch-British cycling duo on their way from Bangkok to Shanghai. We joined forced up to Li, which was a much easier climb than we all had anticipated. They pushed on towards Chiang Mai to celebrate Kate's birthday, while we stayed in Li. Unexpectedly, we were way ahead of schedule to get to Chiang Mai. We did not want to hang around Chiang Mai without cycling even longer than we would while my family is there anyhow, so we decided to make detour to waste some time. The only sensible - or not so sensible - way we could find, was cycling to Mae Cham on the western flanks of Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain and then cycle up to the mountain and down to Chiang Mai on the other side. That's what cycling does do you: you become crazy enough to seek out the highest possible point you can get to and then you go. Nuts!
Unexpectedly, Vincent joined us for this craziness and for three days, we were battling very steep mountains together. The two days up to the National Park were really difficult, especially with our overweight gear. At times, I had to help Erika! push the bicycle up the road because it was just too steep. Vincent, with his lightweight load patiently waited for us. Eventually, we made it to the Ranger Station (at 1'625 meters) and we enjoyed the seven kilometer downhill to the National Park Headquarter, where we camped for two days.
On the next day, Vincent and I summited the peak with unloaded bicycles. The climb from 1'200 meters up to 2'565 meters in 16 kilometers was still quite a bit of work and took three hours. The downhill took 20 minutes, clocking a maximum speed of 72 km/h - in a 40 km/h speeding zone. Hehe.
After this, Erika! and I lazed towards Chiang Mai while Vincent went ahead of us to organize his Chinese and Vietnamese visas.
Yes, this is the story of the last two months. Here some fast facts of the trip so far:
- On the road: 287 days
- Countries: 4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand)
- Kilometers cycled: 7'082.81
- Longest ride: 133.16 kilometers
- Flats: 7
- Broken chain: 5
- Broken spokes: 2
- Food consumed: about 5 million tons of rice (hehe)
Now, we will relax with my family here in Chiang Mai and will also give our bicycles some much needed love, i.e. a thorough service. Then we will head towards northern Laos. Yay, a new country!
There are tons of new pictures, you can find the the last 50 photos here (for older ones, navigate to the galleries for Thailand and/or Malaysia). We also have plenty of video footage and I will edit a new video in the next few days. There are also plenty of new photos and links on our Facebook Page.
OK, until the next time then, which I promise will be sooner than in 2.5 months!. Take care.
Adrian
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