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On June the 10th I will be heading out east on my motorcycle towards Nepal. Taking my time the plan is to cross Europe, head up through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, taking the ferry from Baku across the caspian sea to traverse Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, crossing the Pamir mountains into Kyrgyzstan, down through the Xinjiang province of China, over the Karakoram range on the KHH into Pakistan. In Pakistan I am going to trek to the base of Nanga Parbat the ninth highest mountain at 8128m before continuing on to India and eventually onto Nepal.
With planing well underway for my 2015 trip and a new web site under construction it seemed like a good time to revisit my trip from London to Thailand back in 2008. As this new site will be the home for all future travels it only seems right that it should be the home for my old ones too. I have copied my old blog here post by post with some spelling and grammar correction as well as some additional photos.
You can use the map below to follow my overland trip to Thailand in 2008 and navigate between posts.
In the final hours of my trip I guess I should update the blog and bring it to a close. In 24 hours I will be boarding a flight heading for London. I left of having just arrived on Koa Tao, what I failed to mention was that all the parting in Bangkok had not left me in best health and I was coming down with a horrendous cold. Knowing from when I used to dive in the UK that you can’t dive with a blocked up nose I postponed my open water course for a few days. With little else to do I decided to go for a swim in the bay, but my bad luck continued and I kicked a big rock and gashed the top of my foot. My cold improved a bit and I knew that that the first two days were only shallow training so I started a few days later. In a bit of pain I completed the first two days but didn’t manage the 3rd. I waited a couple more days but it was no good so I left the island to recover and heal some where cheaper.
Over the next week I spent a bit of time in Bangkok and had a Visa run to Lao.
Fully recovered and with the Full Moon approaching fast I headed back down to the Islands to meet up with Jasper and Karen. Jasper had arrived a day earlier and got a bungalow so I shared with him. The first night was a Buddhist holiday so there was no music on the beach but this gave us a good chance to make lots of new friends by just sitting and drinking on the beach. Night 2 was a little more lively and ended with a pool party. Night 3 was the full moon it’s self (well it wasn’t as it was postponed due to the holiday) Which was crazy but but it rained all night, a little like a British festival. Night 4 the after party was my favourite and I danced till 6 am.
The following day booked on the 11:30 ferry back to Koa Tao turned into a very long day indeed, having sold twice as many tickets for the 11:30 we had to wait 6 hours in the baking sun until 17:30 until they could get another boat to pick us up. Picked up the course where I left off and completed the course where I had left off with no problems. Few more days on the beach and a few more days in Bangkok brings me up to my first “official” flight of the trip (I am not counting the one with my parents).
The flight to Macau was quick and easy and I managed to find my hostel after one bus ride and one taxi. Spend a couple of days wandering the city and the casinos but got stuck on the island unable to get my boat to Hong Kong due to a tropical cyclone passing by.
Made it to Hong Kong after the storm passed leaving me just two days in the city. Watched the opening ceremony to the Olympics on a big screen on the street today and fly home tomorrow night.
I had been looking forward to getting into Bangkok (BKK) as I always love big cities but was a little apprehensive as some Canadians told me BKK almost made them loose there faith in mankind. After a day I loved it and realised that I haven’t really had faith in humanity for a while so it didn’t bother me. Got a bit over excited and spent 4 days and too much money in the shopping malls and learning the bus and transport systems. After meeting up with Beth and a few nights in BKK I made my way to Cambodia to meet my parents for their two week holiday. I decided not to take the packages from Khao San road known as the scam bus but instead do it independently, slightly more expensive but more comfortable, less scams, less hassle and you actually get into Siem Reap in time to pick your one hotel. With one night before my parents arrived I checked into a guest house where Bry and Tish were staying (friends from London), spent the night with them and then checked into my parents hotel and awaited there arrival in the gym. When they arrived we had a good meal out and spent the next 3 days exploring Angkor Wat which is truly amazing but you can’t help but think how much more amazing is was when it was discover by the French. Rather than go to the beaches in Cambodia as they are not meant to be all that, we decided we would go to southern Lao instead. We headed to Phnom Penh to get our Lao visas and for the obligatory trip to the killing fields. I was shocked at how little I new of such recent history. As other people said the fields them selves were not that powerful but the museum was tough, just standing there looking into the eyes of endless photos of children, men and women and seeing fear, confusion or defiance. With our visas in hand we started out on our trip towards the Lao border. First day of traveling was a long one with the bus taking an extra 6 hours than planed due to a stuck truck ahead.
The next day we got up early to go take a boat trip a little way up the Mekong to see the rare fresh water Irrawaddy dolphins. I was a little skeptical we would see any but I was wrong and we watched them for over half an hour. After lunch we got a bus to the next town which we left early the next morning to get a mini bus to the border and them on to the 4000 islands. We arrived on Don Det the busiest of the islands (back packer wise) hired bikes and cycles to the less busy Dong Khon where we stayed for 2 nights in floating houses, cycling around the islands looking at big rapids and trying not to get washed away by the current. Moving on we headed by boat to the bigger but still very quiet Dong Khong, where we stayed for the night before heading for the Bolaven Plateua. We made it to the waterfall resort in good time. We got a villa at the resort with views of the top of the water fall. We spent the next day walking between waterfalls and attempting to swim in them. We had one more night at the resort and head to Pakse by pick up truck with the locals the next morning. In Pakse I had a decision to make; back to Thailand or stay in Lao for a bit to avoided another Thai visa run. After hearing that the monsoon had hit I realised that I needed to get to south Thailand fast so took up my parents offer to fly me with them back to BKK, wouldn’t have taken them up for connivance alone but it meant I got to spend two more full days with them. So I took the first flight of the trip, it seamed wrong but as I had already made it to Bangkok by land the trip is not really broken. For a treat we had our last night at the Millennium Hilton which was stunning. Seeing my parents off, giving them all my cold weather stuff and flying had made the trip shift in my mind from traveling to a holiday and I was looking forward to my last 2 months relaxing and partying. I was sad to see them go and half expecting to get on the flight with them to return home, I decided I should do one weekend night in Bangkok and after checking in to my guest house I got ready and headed into town.
Had a great nigh out and met some Thais that took me out the next few nights as well. Now writing this up on Ko Tao the first proper beach stop of my trip.
Once again an update is well over due. On arrival in Chang Mai who would be sitting Reading at the guest house but Jasper. Turned out that we were both planning the same motorcycle loop up north, so we rented dirt bikes and determined to actually finish a loop we headed out a few days later. Starting badly we lost each other in the one way system after getting gas. After spending ages in the one way system looking for each other (we only had each others Lao numbers) we gave up and headed for our first nights stop, but with no guide I headed back via the hostel to pick mine up. I was happy to hear my name shouted when I was stopped at the main cross roads in Pia, bus less glad to hear that Jaspers bags had come loose on his bike and he had lost one bag and the other had got jammed in his rear wheel causing a crash. His knee was bashed up and the front forks bent but he wanted to keep going and the repair shop said they could straighten the forks by the end of play the next day. Four nights later with the bike eventually back we headed out at 5.30 am, we had worked out that by extending the hire by just one day and missing out some sights we could still make it back by 9am. With hind sight fitting 3 days driving into one day and one morning was a mistake. The day went well and we made good progress to the long neck village where we stopped for a bit and then pushed on stopping at the next major town for lunch.
Continuing after lunch the weather turned bad and the long day of hair pin bends took it’s toll and on a wet sharp down hill bend I lost control of the back of my bike and in recovering it drove off the rode. Jasper came round the corner 30 sec later and helped me out from under the bike, slightly sore but mainly angry with my self for crashing we got my bike upright having lost a fare bit of gas from the ill fitting petrol cap. After a short recovery I jumped back on the bike but was less than pleased to discover that the bike had no power, hoping it was just a fuse I took the side of the bike off searching for it hoping I could bypass it, to no avail. With no kick start I had to resort to rolling it down the hill and bump starting it, fine on the hill but a bit of a problem when we stopped in the next valley to replace the petrol I lost. We continued on our way very slowly me with my confidence shatters and an out of alignment front wheel over more mountains until we reached our town to stop in for the night. The next morning after a good nights sleep and shower we headed out at 6am, as the town was in a valley I had to push my bike for a bit and then up a hill to try and get it started. With the cool mountain weather it took four attempts down the hill and when it eventually started and I gave it some gas I realised that my throttle cable was no longer connected to the carburetor, sweating quite a bit from all the up hill pushing and fearing I had snapped the cable I was relived to find that that the cable had not snapped but just come off the carburetor. I managed to fix it by which point the engine had stopped and I had to push it up the hill one last time. Once going we drove all the way home without stopping and got in just before 10am. Jasper ended up paying quite a bit for some new front forks and I got away with a busted mirror. Spent 1 night in Chang Mai and saw the big Wot on the hill before getting the night bus to Bangkok.
Took the local bus to Luang Prabang, pleasant enough but did leave over two hours late and not get in until after 1am. And also at the road runs along the the edge of the special zone we had an armed soldier with us, wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t spotted the machine gun wrapped in his coat. Had a few days in Luang Prabang and then got the slow boat to Thailand.
I had read that it was possible to hire 250cc trail bikes in Vang Vieng and after the failed loop I really wanted to get out and see real Laos by proper bike. I had also read that you could now ride up to Long Cheng (Long Tieng) the old CIA town used during the secret war. But first some background, around the time the USA got involved in the Vietnam war the CIA started recruiting Hmong men to wage a griller war from the Lao side aimed at disrupting the main supply line to the NVA, when the war ended and the CIA town fell and some of the Hmong fled to the surrounding mountains in fear of retribution, there they have lived since some groups hiding some still causing problems for the Lao government, this has resulted in an area of over 4000 square km being closed off until up to very recently. Looking at some maps and based on a trip the author of the lonely planet Lao had taken I worked out it should be possible to make a 4 day trip into the special zone, up to the base and back round the top. After a bit of investigation I discovered it was in-fact not possible to get a dirt bike in Vang Vieng and I had to head back to Vientiane by bus to pick one up there and arranged to drop the bike in Vang Vieng for an extra cost and headed out early the following day. Heading north the roads were empty and the bike was great. About 3 hours in I turned east on to the road that would lead into the restricted zone, about an hour in I saw the check point that signed the entrance to the zone, but that is as far as I got. As I approached the check point I got waved down and stopped by the army, as I don’t speak more than 2 words of Lao and there English was enough to say “closed” and “go now” I wasn’t able to work out why I wasn’t allowed to pass, without much choice I turned around and made my way up to Vang Vieng. With the bike booked for another 3 days the only option without back tracking was to drive up to Luang Prabang and back in 2 days which was meant to be a great drive through the mountains. As the crow flies it’s only 170km but the drive was a enjoyable 6 hours of bendy mountains roads and breath taking views. Randomly bumped into Jasper in the mountains when I stopped for lunch and then again in Luang Prabang at dinner, he was traveling by bus from the plain of jars. Back in Vang Vieng again with the bike for one more day I did a easy 45km on dirt tracks through the hills around Vang Vieng and in the afternoon went tubing one last time.
Vang Vieng’s attraction was always the stunning scenery but a fair few years back some one invented tubing, which has become so popular that it is now the number one reason people visit Vang Vieng, in fact it is the only reason some people visit Lao. Of course there are lots of other actives available like climbing, rafting and canoeing but like most, all me and Jasper did was tube and on our days off recover while watching friends at one of the many bars on the main strip which show episode after episode of friends, in fact there are so many bars playing friends that walking down the main street you can always hear the opening credits from atlases one bar. So what is tubing? Well basically you pay $5 and receive your inflated tracker tier inner tube and get taken 4km up the river by tuk tuk, from the starting point you sit in your tube and float down stream back to Vang Vieng which takes 2 hours, or used to…
Now due to the fact that there are 14 big bars along the route it takes up to eight hours to compete, assuming you stop at at leased 5 of them. So this is how it goes you float for a minute or two and when you see a bar you like the look of and a good rope swing you wave at the staff and they throw a bit of bamboo attached to a rope at you, grab it and they pull you in.
You stay for a few drinks have a play on the swing and then tube to the next bar, simple. After a few days tubing you will really want to leave the amazing yet hellish place. The motto of the guest house we were stating was “You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave!” from the Eagles ‘ Hotel California’ it fitted the place perfectly.
Vientiane
We arrived in Vientiane a little after 23:00 and as we had heard that you could get a tuk tuk into town for 5000 kip each we shunned all the drivers trying to charge 20,000 each. We tried the classic walk away and wait for them to follow bit they never did. After few km down the road with our heavy packs we flagged down another 5 tuktuk drivers and after a while got one to take us the 8k into town. We arrived a little before midnight after the guest house curfew of 11:30 and promptly went around waking up the guest house staff to discover all the reasonably priced ones were full. Not having much luck traveling with this lot, luckily our luck changed and at one guest house attached to a cafe Karen asked jokingly if we could sleep on the sofa for free, they said yes. In the morning we woke up just before the cafe opened at 6 and ordered breakfast.
We had a couple of nights in Vientiane found a triple room and spent far to much cash on some very good western food.
The Trek
Jasper and Karen were planing on doing a trek and even though it wasn’t something I was that interested in I thought it was something I should give a try while out here. We headed out early to catch a local bus which would take us 2 hours east to a village called …, and on arrival arrange a local guide to take us on a 3 day 2 night trek through the bush with the possibility of seeing wild elephants. The first night we stayed up a watch tower in the bush near an area that the elephants come but no luck. On the seconds day we pushed on to a cave with water fall, we bathed in the water fall and slept in the cave quite a night!
Overall the trek was good but with the humidity and the number of times I walked into spider webs and got attacked by hundreds of ants I think I will stick to the mountains.
