Sunday, December 31, 2006
Hilly hilly hilly
Mat: We had a really great time with Mel & Joel - on the 26th we all went to a cooking school to learn how to prepare Laos dishes, and the day after we went on an elephant trek which Mel absolutely loved; I think she'll be badgering Joel to buy her one for her birthday!On the morning of the 28th we said goodbye to them after our final banana pancake and started on the road to Kiu Kacham, far too late as it turned out. Here's a simple puzzle: what do you get if you don't cycle for two weeks, have a quick bout of food poisoning, leave too late, tackle the hilliest day's cycling in the world and can't find anywhere to eat lunch on the road? Answer: very tired. The final hill (read mountain) into Kiu Kacham is a 1000m climb over 20km, and took every ounce of our strength. By 5:30pm with daylight disappearing, Kat was all for soldiering on, but with no end to the hill in sight I started flagging down passing vehicles, and we rode the last 7km in style in the back of a lorry. The village had no running water, so our 'hot showers' were a large bucket full of water (boiled over a fire) and a smaller bucket to pour it over yourself.
The next day's ride was much better, we left at 8am and took lunch with us just in case, but we didn't need to worry as the road was easier too - still hilly but more downhill with spectacular scenery. This was possibly the best day's cycling I've ever had, certainly the most impressive landscape. Every hill-top village we rode through was full of kids who shouted Sabaidee and high-fived us as hard as they could, and many villages had water taps with 'World Vision / UNICEF' stencilled on them. It's funny to think that money I raised for World Vision as a kid (a 24 hour sponsored famine) may have ended up being spent in villages I've cycled through. We ended the day at a small resort near Kasi which had a very welcome hot springs in which we soaked away the road and soothed our aching legs.
We've met so many cyclists on this stretch of the journey - four or five each day - and it's been great to compare notes and find out what the terrain is like ahead. We've even met one guy twice - a German called Sven who we first saw in Houy Xai recommended us to stay at an organic mulberry farm in Vang Vieng, and when we arrived there last night he was staying there too!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Happy Christmas from Laos
Kat: Festive greetings! We've had a delicious 5 course meal at the L'Elephant that went on all afternoon and are looking forward to the Christmas puds and presents of chocolate that Mel and Joel stashed in their suitcases. A tummy bug knocked Mat and me out for a day but luckily we got our appetites back in time for today's feast. Around town here are decorations and people wearing santa hats, but we've been asked whether we're celebrating Christmas on the 25th or 31st of December, so there's a bit of confusion!The last few days we've spent relaxing, the biggest decision being where we'd eat each day; Mel's working her way through the banana pancakes in every restaurant in town (they're all served differently). We've managed some sight-seeing: the 16th century Wat Xieng Thong, the Royal Palace and Kuang Si waterfall, which involved a dusty ride in a tuk-tuk, being adopted by a stray dog and a steep scramble to the top of the fall. We cycled round the villages across the Nam Khan where we saw mulberry paper (sa paper) being made and silk being woven. We've haggled at the night market, where the Hmong women sit with their babies selling silks and jewellery; when they make a sale they tap all their goods with the cash for good luck.
Our guest house is opposite one of the many wats in Luang Prabang and we're usually woken by the gong and drum call to service at 4am, but the chanting is very soothing so we fall straight back to sleep again. The monks are friendly and like to chat; they explained that they go to school from Monday to Friday and only eat two meals a day. We've noticed that they haven't shunned modern technology - many have mobile phones which they hurriedly turn off when they go into the temple and I'm surrounded by them in this internet cafe!
Friday, December 22, 2006
Loving Luang Prabang
Mat: Mel & Joel arrived on Wedsnesday, and they've brought Christmas with them! They're bringing new things out of their bags each day, so far we've had xmas decorations, an iPod full of festive tunes and a packet of iced mince pies - my favourite! I haven't seen M&J since August 2005 when they got married, so it's really great to be able to catch up and spend some quality time with them.Luang Prabang's a really lovely place, very relaxed with loads to see and do - definitely recommended if you're in this part of the world. The town is full of beautiful temples and great restaurants, and has a large, vibrant night market every evening. The only slightly odd thing is that Laos has a country-wide curfew of midnight, so places tend to close quite early!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Boat cartels and baguettes
Kat: We've arrived in Luang Prabang, but for a while we thought we wouldn't make it!On Saturday we went through Thai customs, put our bikes on a tiny long-tail boat and crossed the Mekong into Laos. We were expecting Laos to be poorer than Thailand but our first impression was that we'd underestimated just how much poorer - until we realised that the main high street was being re-surfaced. Even so, Houay Xai was noticeably different to Chiang Khong, just a stone's throw away. There's less on offer and service is extremely laid back/slow (depending on how you view it). On the plus side, you can buy baguettes everywhere!
After a comfortable night's sleep we arrived at the boat launch in time for departure at 8.30am - that's when the fun and games started. There are two main ways to get from Houay Xai to Luang Prabang by boat: the extremely uncomfortable 14 hour slow boat that overnights in Pak Beng, and the extremely dangerous (particularly in the dry season) and deafening 6 hour speed boat. We had been recommended a safe and comfortable boat that made the journey in 9 hours by a bike shop owner in Chaing Mai. In order to leave we needed a stamp in the boat's log book from the local boat association - the same association that owned all the slow boats and wanted us to travel with them instead! The day before, several people had tried to convince us that the 9 hour service had stopped running or never existed. Our boat, the Nagi of Mekong, was delayed until there wasn't enough daylight to make the journey in one day. The despairing boat operator sent us passengers over to the office to protest and I ended up being put on the phone to an official! In the end, our boat operator ended up buying seats for us in the slow boat and we were allowed to set off in the Nagi. I get the feeling that this is not the first time there have been problems, and that getting anything done in Laos involves a lot of patience and flexibility.
The boat journey was excellent and well worth the extra money: there were 9 people on a 20 seater boat with comfortable reclining coach seats and food and drinks included. We met a couple who caught the slow boat and said it was a hellish experience: 80 people crammed onto a 60-seater boat with wooden benches. Because we were forced to overnight in Pak Beng, our boat operator paid for accommodation at a brand new guest house and we took the journey slower than usual, stopping at a village selling hand-woven silk on the first day and the cave shrines at Pak Ou on the second day. There were no windows (because that would have made the boat rock) so it was a windswept and cool journey, but we were able to enjoy the sights of the mighty Mekong surrounded by mountains fading into the mists. Our captain also did a great job: right now the river is low, down to 1m clearance in some places, and we passed through several rapids; in the wet season the water rises by up to 6m and is much easier to navigate.
Yesterday we arrived at Luang Prabang, a delightful low-key place filled with beautiful French colonial buildings and bakeries. Mel and Joel will arrive tomorrow and then we can start exploring properly.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
La vie est un long fleuve tranquille
Mat: We left Chiang Mai by super-VIP bus, which was more like business class on a plane with gigantic seats, movies, and free food & drink. It made the three hour drive to Chiang Rai very enjoyable, and we were pretty glad to be on the bus as the road was very hilly and busy the whole way.On arriving in Chiang Rai we fought through the crowds of guys selling guest houses, and picked a nice one a little way out of town. Chiang Rai is a really nice place, more laid back than its bigger cousin Chiang Mai, and seems more international, with lots of foreign restaurants. We spent the evening at the night market, where we saw several stalls selling deep-fried insects but I didn't try any - we watched some other farang try them and the look of disgust kind of put me off!
Yesterday we left Chiang Rai by bike heading for Chiang Khong, the border with Laos. It was 117km door-to-door. The first 90km were very pleasant rolling hills with friendly villages every 10km. It's much cooler up here, which made it more pleasant too - it's hard to enjoy the ride when you're sweating like a pig! We passed several schools where the kids were playing on the field, and as soon as one spotted us we were treated to a few hundred yells of Hello! and frantic waves. The last 30km of the ride was over really rough road (obviously trying to prepare us for Laos) and so by the time we arrived in Chiang Khong we were ready for a rest.
It's very strange sitting in a bar looking out over the Mekong river, which forms the border between Thailand and Laos here - Hoi Xai on the Laos side looks exactly the same as Chiang Khong on this side, it's funny to think that both towns exist purely so that people can travel between them! We're crossing over today, so it'll be interesting to see how Laos is different from Thailand - all we can tell from here is that they have houses, electricity and scooters.
P.S. The title of this blog is one that autofilled when I started typing in this internet cafe, which seemed nice and also appropriate considering we're entering an old french colony! The river is indeed long and quiet.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Cookery school
Kat: On Monday we put on our aprons at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. It was a bit pricier than some of the other courses on offer but well worth it. A group of ten of us were taken to a huge house out-of-town set in lush gardens. Over the course of the day we were introduced to the main ingredients in Thai cooking, then shown how to cook six dishes: hot and sour soup, fish/potato cakes, green curry, pad thai, spicy salad and water chestnut dessert. After each demonstration we cooked it on our own which was great fun. All the food tasted amazing1 (even if I do say so myself) and by the end of the day we were stuffed. The facilities were top notch and we got a glossy recipe book to take away as a souvenir. The chefs even went out of their way to create a veggie alternative for each dish just for me.Produce in the markets in the north of Thailand is noticeably different: as well as the regular Thai staples there are avocadoes, strawberries, grapes and cauliflowers. We've eaten extremely well in Chiang Mai - it's nearly time to get back on the bikes and burn some of it off!
Yesterday we went to see a crazy Thai film called The Possible. It's a comedy about a 70s pop band that time travels to the present day and "hilarity" ensues. Actually it was a pretty good comedy even though we must have missed at least half the jokes. Not only was it confusing because the subtitles were the standard broken/misspelt English that you always get in Thailand2 but Thai years are different to western years (2006 is 2549) so it seemed like the scenes in the past and present were actually in the future! Before the film started, we all (without exception) had to stand up to show our respect as images of the king rolled up the screen accompanied by rousing music.
We had an earthquake last night! It happened around midnight and measured 5.1 - not bad for our first quake! It's ironic that we lived in New Zealand for a year, one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world, and always slept through them.
We've got one more night in Chiang Mai, then it's off to the Golden Triangle and the Laos border.
1 apart from the dessert which I think is more appropriately described as weirdly pleasing
2 today a man drawing a town plan asked us how to spell snake then showed us his map - every other word apart from snake was spelt wrong
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Over the hill
Mat: The middle of Thailand is as flat as a (banana) pancake but the edges are pretty hilly indeed. Just how hilly we found out yesterday as we left Wang Chin heading for Lampang. You'd be proud; Kat and I cycled up a 7km-long, 600m-high hill in 35°C heat and only stopped once for a breather! All that training we didn't do for the trip obviously paid off, it was an amazing view from the top, and half an hour of pure joy freewheeling down the other side. The scenery this far north is breathtaking, as our photos hopefully show.At the end of the day, Lampang was a nice town - although we managed to stay at the scummiest guest house in town where the walls were paper thin and the bathroom full of ants. It redeemed itself by being located right in the middle of a really great night market, where we found a few souvenirs and got accosted by some super-friendly Thai schoolchildren who wanted to practice their English on us, and take our photo! It was also close to a great restaurant where we dined - we sat next to a table of Thai English teachers who coerced us into singing Happy Birthday to one of their party then rewarded us with a large slice of their birthday cake!
This morning we came to Chiang Mai by train - the only road from Lampang to here is described as a 'superhighway' on the road signs and we didn't feel like getting run over. We're staying at a really nice guesthouse for the next few days, doing a Thai cooking class tomorrow and generally enjoying being back in a city. There are about 1.6 million people here and it feels like a smaller, cooler version of Bangkok with less pollution. We've just been to the (self-proclaimed) biggest english-language bookshop in SE Asia and wandered through a tiny fraction of the city-wide night market that is Chiang Mai.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Sukhothai to Wang Chin
Kat: It wasn't just us who left Ban Thai refreshed - our bikes were beautifully cleaned and oiled for a small fee. As we left, the Tour De Thailand team turned up to collect Ronny for the Sukhothai-Phitchi leg of their journey. Seems like you can't move for cyclists round here! The backroad to Si Satchanalai was empty and rural as promised, with sugar cane fields joining the rice paddies. We rode up the main high street in Si Satchanalai and didn't spot anything that might be a bed for the night, so went back to the police station we'd passed on the way in. We must have looked particularly helpless because they threw our bikes in the back of their ute and drove us to a guest house (lights not flashing, sadly). They would have shown us the other choices but we were happy with the first one and the owner was very pleased with 300 baht that the police told him we would pay. Si Satchanalai has a historic park too, less restored than Sukhothai and very peaceful in the late afternoon. With Ayuthaya they make up two of Thailand's five world heritage sites. In retrospect we could have taken the route past the historic park into Si Satchanalai: it would have saved us a 25km round trip and we'd have found the resort just south of town.Today we had the first hills of the trip, the road rising ever-so-gently along a river up to Wang Chin. It was a gorgeous ride full of distractions - lush forests, flowers and friendly villages. One man drove past and flagged us down, insisting that we took a bag of oranges from him! It's definitely the highlight so far. Inexplicably, Wang Chin has a very large and totally deserted resort. It's a small place and when we wandered up the high street earlier we were most definitely the talk of the town. Mums brought their toddlers out to point and wave at us.
Some more notes from the road... the food has been fantastic. Breakfast at a tourist-friendly guest house is eggs & toast, muesli & yoghurt & (tropical) fruit or banana pancakes (oh yes!) From street stalls we've had BBQ'd lady finger bananas, toasted milk bread spread with sugar-butter, waffles and sugar-butter coated sweet potatoes. For the road there are chewy peanut and sesame seed slabs, fresh fruit and BBQ'd corn. Apparently all tourists drink Pepsi because that's the first thing we're offered. There's ice tea in two forms: weak black with lemon or an intense orange concentrate served with condensed milk over crushed ice - a real sugar rush! For main meals, mung-sa-virat brings a good selection of dishes. I've had vegetables and tofu served sweet and sour with pineapple, different variations stir-fried with rice or noodles and noodle soup. Condiments are almost universally sugar, dried chilli, fresh chilli slices in rice vinegar and soy sauce; even fresh pineapple comes with a packed of sugar-chilli. The beer (Chang, Singha or Tiger) comes in one litre bottles and is up to 6.5%, so after a tiring day's cycling one is usually enough for both of us!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Happy Birthday Your Majesty
Mat: Yesterday was the king's 79th birthday. Thais are incredibly patriotic and we felt left out so before we left Phitsanulok we bought two Thai flags and attached them to our bikes for the day's ride. And what a day! What was advertised as a pleasant single track road, marked on our map as 'scenic drive' was in the process of being heavily upgraded. The 60km cycle to Sukhothai was 90% roadworks, with 60% off-road!It was worth it though to stay at the lovely Ban Thai guesthouse - a lovely laid back collection of bunglows run by a Belgian named Ronny and his Thai partner. Almost as soon as we arrived we decided to stay two nights instead of one, and Ronny spent an hour or so giving us hints and tips about our proposed cycle ride. As a consequence we're going to avoid Uttaradit (everyone says it's a very boring place, even tourist info!) and go through Si Satchanalai and Wang Chin instead. In the evening we watched a 10,000-strong procession through the streets of Sukhothai for the king's birthday and then went back to the guest house for a slap-up feed :)
This morning Ronny showed us a back road route to the amazing historic park that is the central tourist feature of the town. It is the remains of an old 13th century city that was the first Thai capital, and has some incredible sights including an 11m-high statue of buddha. The park is a car-free area, so all the other tourists were also on bikes, ranging from rust buckets to brand new bikes still in bubble-wrap while people were riding them!
Monday, December 04, 2006
Nakhon Sawan and Pitsanulok
Kat: Yesterday was our longest cycle ever in the history of matnkat cycling - 137km! Here's a flavour of what it's like on the road...It's been flat as a pancake for the last 3 days, which is good but means relentless pedalling. From Ayutthaya to Singburi the countryside was swampy and open; there were several ramshackle and shanty houses dotted along the river that the road followed. There was quite a lot of litter, burning rubbish and nasty smells. After Singburi the countryside became cleaner and more cultivated with rice paddies and people herding water buffaloes along the river. Houses were bigger and well-built. Every 10km or so there's a wat (temple) and stalls/roadside cafes every 1km, so no danger of running out of food or drink. There are the same number of flags and pictures of the king, so no danger of forgetting what he looks like.
Off the main highway, the traffic is made up of some cars and trucks but mostly scooters/motorbikes and utes. We've seen up to four people on a scooter and others where the passenger has their arms full of luggage (e.g. a TV, a motorbike wheel, a chicken). The Thai drivers have been unfailingly courteous and leave plenty of room when overtaking, often with a cheery beep and wave. The roads are sealed and good condition, usually with a hard shoulder big enough for us to cycle side by side (although it's also used by motorbikes going the other direction!)
It's not surprising that two farang on jakkayan attract attention: sometimes people look mildly concerned but a smile nearly always gets a friendly response. We've had loads of waves and greetings; one group high-fived each other when Mat shouted "hello" back.
We met a cycle club heading out of Singburi and caught up with them at Chainat, where they were meeting 70 other cyclists to ride to Bangkok for the king's birthday celebrations tomorrow. One girl had a home-made cycle helmet made out of half a coconut shell! They were very friendly and we compared bikes and swapped photos. From Chainat we left the river we'd been following and cycled through pretty rural roads to Moraman, where we took a ferry across a major river. The road to Utthai Thani was lined with trees and very pretty. We rolled into Nakhon Sawan at 5pm after 135km. Without any map or guide to the town and unable to recognise the word for hotel or guesthouse, we looked helpless and asked for directions. Everyone we asked was helpful and twice people led us by motorbike to where we wanted to get to. The first hotel was full and we got lost finding another one, so by the time we checked in we were dog tired.
Yesterday was another long day's cycle from Nakhon Sawan to Pitsanulok. It was along one extremely straight road with markers every kilometre which made it even more tedious. It was dual carriage-way (although not busy) and there were far fewer cafes or shacks - possibly the most boring ride as well as the longest we've ever done. The route via Phichit might have been more interesting but we made it and are having a well-deserved day off today.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Start of the ride
Mat: We left Bangkok yesterday and began our long ride. We didn't fancy the idea of cycling in Bangkok itself, so we got a train to Ayutthaya (eye-YOU-tea-ah) so it was a very relaxing first day's cycling, all of 5km from the train station to the hostel. Yesterday arvo we cycled around the amazing ruins in the city, which is like something straight out of Tomb Raider! The other thing that the city seems famous for is buses painted like fairground rides - amazing spray-paint jobs and hundreds of flashing lights at night! We would take a bus ride somewhere, but we have no idea where they were going - they looked like they were taking people to work, as everyone on the buses were wearing matching uniforms...This morning we started the ride proper - 80km north to Singburi. The road was almost perfectly flat the whole way, which was nice, but it is incredibly hot and so by the time we reached Singburi we were both a little the worse for wear. This is absolutely our standard way of beginning bike rides, we always totally overdo it on the first day and then remember that we should:
a) stop at least once an hour for food and drink
b) shelter from the midday sun (mad dogs and englishmen)
Unlike the places we've stayed so far, Singburi is off the tourist track and nobody speaks english, so it's been a real adventure getting a hotel room and trying to order food! Luckily a kind soul in Bangkok told Kat how to say that she's vegetarian (mung-sa-virat). Armed with this phrase and a few others we've been doing okay. If you're interested, bicycle in Thai is jakka-yaan.