Oldies Gap Year

Curiously enough the Japanese don't use "sayonara", as it basically means a final goodbye! Our complete Japanese trip So we have only a day left in Japan. Tomorrow we pack the bikes up ( more on that later) and get the bus to Hiroshima airport, then to Tokyo and from there to Bangkok and lastly Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. We have spent the last 6 days or so in Hiroshima, mainly because the weather has been somewhat autumnal, which in this part of Japan means wet. Fortunately its allowed us to get a few things sorted out and do a bit of planning for Thailand. First problem to overcome was a very poor bit of planning on my behalf, which was to assume that we got 90 days visa exemption in Thailand. Oops - it's only 30 days. Fortunately we can extend this, but the old saying that assume makes an ass out of "u" and "me" holds particularly true. Our bikes came out in bike cartons that I begged from Halfords, who, bless them, always ha...

I used my artistic skills of a 9 year old to illustrate the above map to show how far we have come from arriving in Osaka on the 11th September. All of the scenery has been spectacular, but the area of the north coast adjoining the Sea of Japan particularly so. It's not all been plain sailing though. We have had our share of rain, causing us to have to camp in an abandoned camp site whilst the rain and the wind passed through. Fortunately we were able to camp directly beside what used to be a covered barbecue and had a dry area to store panniers and be able to cook. One soggy tent This was taken by an Australian couple who had taken the train out to the beach that day. Yesterday in particular though was an absolute soaker. We started in relatively light rain, and initially it seemed quite pleasant. As it does though, it gradually got worse until you realised that it was pelting it down. This was bad enough, but Japanese roads seem to have an odd c...