Tag: Motorcycle
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.
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.
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.
The Loop is a 4 day motor bike road trip based out of Thakek, or at least it should be. I arrived in Thakek at the guest house which was meant to have the most travellers. Joined up with 4 other people heading out the following day so all going to plan. We set off at 9:00 the following morning on the only bikes available; 110cc Chinese step through semi automatics, with which according to the LP would most likely suffer a blow out or need the shocks replacing while on route. Before I go any further I just want everyone to know I am 100% ok. So we headed out slowly as most of the group had very little or no previous experience riding. A couple of hours in and every ones confidence was up as we drove in tight formation riding down the empty roads, all was going well until a pice of the bike two in front of me fell of and one of the girls (Karen) in front of me put on her breaks to pick it up with out checking her mirrors, traveling a little two close behind I slammed on the breaks and managed to slow down a fair bit before I rear ended her (all happened within 3 seconds). As I said I am fine, Karen came off with a couple of cuts on her legs, I came off with a graze on my shoulder and one on my ankle, my bike came off worse and had to be taken to the next village for an oil change and a bit of straightening up. Two hours later after we had patched our selves up with our first aid kits and had some lunch we were back on the road.
We headed north and then east until we came to a 40km dirt road which lead to a the village we were heading for, with our slow progress on the very rocky road and the 2 hour delay from the crash it soon became dark two people dropped there bikes but no injuries just a few busted wing mirrors. We arrived at the village at 20:00 and managed to find two home stays, had our dinner an joined the locals at what appeared to be mobile disco off the back of a cart. The following morning we walked down to a cave that stretched 7km through a mountain to the other side (the reason we visited the village in first place) we spent 3-hours going through the cave and back by boat and returned to our home stays for lunch. After which the plan being to head back up the hard road and then on east to the next stop, unfortunately Karen had lost her key! It was decided that we would give her a lift to the top of the dirt road where we herd she could arrange a pick up truck to take he and the bike back to Thakek for only 15$, on arriving back at the main road we found it would cost a lot more than that. Getting late we found a guest house and me Jasper and Jason (all three of us had had to share a bed due to cost) set out early the following morning on two bikes to collect Karen’s bike. We managed to get down to the village and back with me hot wiring the bike in under three hours, not bad!!
Back at the main road we had a new lock fitted for only 3.50$. As we were all including our bikes a little broken (I failed to mention the front break just fell off Jason’s bike) we decided to head for home, saving a couple days bike hire to pay for the repairs. Had a nearly ok ride home with some amazing view, with the only problems being running out of gas.
We arrived home safe a little after dark. The following day we went to see some cave south of Thakek we would have seen at the end of the loop, by tuck tuck (much safer).
After lunch we split with 2 going south and me Karen and Jasper heading north to Vientiane. Second photo byJasper Wolleswinkel, Third photo by unknown Dutch girl.
