As I write this we are heading to Brunei for the weekend ( as you do.....) to see some friends, having stayed here in Kuala Lumpur for the past 3 nights. After that we are heading back to Bangkok for a couple of days, and then coming back to the UK for a week or so to experience what it is like being cold for a short time!
We left our bikes in the guest house that we used in Chiang Mai, so when we get back there mid December we are heading for Laos and probably Vietnam after that.
The last blog had us heading into Burma for the day. The border town of Tachilek whilst in Burma really appears to be an outpost of Thailand and uses the Thai currency throughout. Sian was a little nervous about being stamped out of Thailand and not being allowed into Burma, therefore spending her days in perpetuity on the bridge over the Mekong between the two countries. Fortunately ( and rather surprisingly) the Burmese immigration officials were a very smily friendly bunch. We got to sit on some seats, they asked us how long we were staying and gave us a green receipt for our passports.
Off we went- border towns are great for people watching, and whilst the wealth of Thailand hadn't reached Burma we still got a grandstand view of the border from a little cafe. There isn't much else to do it has to be said, apart from wander around the standard market selling a myriad of Chinese knock off goods. Included in these are various stalls selling a rather worrying array of weaponry such as bowie knives and knuckledusters. We wandered up to a wat, got told off for not taking our shoes off ( in our defence you usually do this if going into the temple building, not just the entire complex) and then got chatting to a monk with good English. I was interested in why there were so many young ( probably no more than 9 years old) novices. Essentially they get a good education, get well fed and are never forced to be a monk - they can leave of their own free will at any time. It is quite amusing to see them all crowding in their orange habits into any place that youngsters like to be - mobile phone shops in particular!
The following day saw us in a not so wise situation. On planning our route following the Mekong river I thought it would be pleasant to follow a path that was right next to the river for a bit. It's near on impossible to tell what these paths are like- they can be tarmac, or just a cinder type path. In this case it was the latter. The first sign that all was not as I had expected was the rolls of barbed wire at intervals along the path. However, we were still at a distance from the river, and we pressed on. As we carried on though, the path got narrower, more muddy and we became less sure about whether it would just peter out altogether. The thing that made our mind up about not progressing was coming across two men that just looked completely out of place- not your typical field worker. So at that point we both felt that we should do a u turn and head back- which included passing the two dodgy characters again.
About 3km later we got back onto tarmac roads, and Sian then told me that she had seen a third person in the fields and that he was armed! It is all too easy to forget common sense on occasions and this was one. Looking back in retrospect this is one of the major drug trafficking routes - apparently used to be opium coming down from Burma, but now is more likely to be methamphetamine.
Beyond here took us to the Golden Triangle, which is the meeting point of Laos, Thailand and Burma. The Thais have done a wonderful job of promoting this as some form of major tourist destination, and if the definition of this is a confluence of two muddy rivers then they are correct. For us, a bit meh, and I'm glad we hadn't taken a tour bus two hours north just to witness this sight.
We've been getting better at staying longer in places of interest, one of which is Chiang Rai. Quite a few westerners here, and we seemed to be staying in the backpackers quarter of town. I say backpackers, as a word that has crept into usage is "flash packers", denoted by perhaps the travellers being a bit older and having a bigger budget. Apparently if they are lugging around a MacBook then this is a sign - so I guess that we are flashpackers. Chiang Rai has one of the blingest wats around - an almost pure white affair that is very much on the tourist destination list.
Whilst here we met a couple of Dutch cycle tourists who put our exploits to shame. He had quit his job, and they had started in Holland in January, and had cycled all the way to Japan ( well not quite ALL the way) and then back. This involved subzero temperatures in Switzerland, and cycling through Uzbekistan. Like all these meeting, it always seems to happen on the day we are departing- it would have been good to sit down for a while and swap notes.
So we have cycled some 745km and will have about 3weeks out of the saddle. We are bringing home a fair amount of kit that we just haven't used and are not likely to use. This includes cooking pans and stoves- food is just so cheap and everywhere that there is not point. So hopefully the bikes will get lighter and the cycling easier!
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| The Mekong river separating Burma and Thailand. Taken before we got nervous I suspect. |
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| This was a little side trip enrolee to see some primitive paintings on the sides of some very impressive sheer limestone cliffs. You had to use your imagination a bit, but in the top right quadrant you should be able to make out the brown outline of an animal. There were lots of handprints which were a bit more obvious, but frankly the whole place needed to be blitzed with a power cleaner to make them stand out better. ( ;)) |
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The view from one of the resort type places we stayed. The term resort is rather loosely used and usually just means you get a little house rather than a room. This particular one use to be the estate managers house, and you can just see the one hole golf course that he had installed.
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Rubber is increasingly being grown in Thailand. I was fascinated by the process - just at the top of the picture you can see the area where sequential slashing of the bark produces a constant flow of the latex into the black pot. Did you know that the milky stuff in dandelions is also latex?
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| This is the rather bling wat at Chiang Rai. I'm not sure about how we managed not to show the heaving crowds of tourists, but they were there. Sian is very polite about not getting herself in all the various selfies and pictures being taken- I am not so polite, so there are going to be a few pictures with a fed up Scotsman in the background. |
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| I love these kind of splendid ruins - nature taking back. This is the entrance to an old wat. It's of brick construction, which is in stark contrast to the modern concrete construction of all the new wats being built in Thailand. |
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This is the lake beside Phayoa - a delightful place that we stayed for a couple of nights. We cycled around the lake on our "rest" day. The video is the feeding frenzy when you throw some fish food into the lake.
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| A rather imposing Buddha. Like most of these places, it's up a hill. A steep hill, and if I remember correctly a "get off your bike and push" type hill |
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| This is a Thai loo for the disabled, or as the sign put it rather undiplomatically "Toilet for lamers" |
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| So why have I included a picture of a top. Well, a bit of a sad day- this top has been with me for many years, including when me and my mate James ran the Marathon des Sables. However it was no longer white, and I think only the term "minging" could be used to describe its rather awful brown colour. We left it in the bin, but given the fact that the Thai's are excellent recyclers, I live in hope that it may still be exist in a far away country.... |
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| The Petronas towers. A bit too ornate on the outside for me, and I think the effect is somewhat diminished now by the other buildings creeping up close to it. I thought that the bridge between the two was a bit higher as well. Massive great mall underneath, choc a bloc with all the crass stores that if you have to ask the price of an item then you can't afford it |
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| Now that's more like it! There are some wonderful ex colonial buildings arounds, and this was the Sultans palace. The old train station which looks very Indian to me is an absolute cracker as well. |
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