Thailand - the first week or so.
We have had a busy few days, and thus the lack of blogging!
We arrived rather late in Bangkok on the 23rd October. This delay was due to us being involved in more Japanese Typhoon malarky, namely Typhoon Lan. This was quite a belter, and involved us sitting on the aircraft in Tokyo whilst the airport was shut for 20 minutes due to some quite vicious squalls during which the aircraft rocked quite noticeably from side to side, complete with rain lashing down! Eventually we got clearance to push back, but there was now a large delay of departing aircraft so it took about an hour of taxiing before taking off. That was quite hairy, with severe turbulence for about an hour or so after departure during which all of the crew were strapped in their seats. I notice later that instead of taking a route around the storm, the aircraft flew directly into the typhoon. I guess these people know what they are doing......
We stayed overnight in a hotel close to the airport, and then flew on to Chiang Mai the following day where I am glad to report our bikes and luggage all arrived safely. There are a couple of holes in the nylon of the bags which we will get repaired before final departure. Then the fun of reassembling the bikes began outside the airport. Having chosen what we thought was a quiet spot, it took only about an hour or so to put them together, mainly because we didn't have to take them apart as much with the bike bags. The spot, typically, was only quiet for about half an hour before what appeared to be most of Thailand descended on us.
The plan was to stay in Chiang Mai for a couple of days to get ourselves orientated, but we soon realised that the day we had intended to depart on was the day of the late Thai King's funeral, and roads were to be closed, so we stayed an extra night. We felt quite privileged to be around and watched a lot of the exceptionally ornate ceremony on the television. The vast majority of Thai's were dressed either totally or partially in black and I'm glad to say that ( including us) the vast majority of Westerners were making an effort not to wear brightly coloured clothes.
The weather is coming to the end of the monsoon season here, and the first few days were interrupted by some belting showers that you really get little warning of. No sooner do you say "Oh, it looks a little dark that way" do the heavens open and complete stair rods of rain belt down. However, its very warm and no sooner does the sun come out do your clothes dry off, so wearing any sort of waterproof is pointless.
Rather strangely, and contrary to what I thought, we feel safer on Thai roads than we did on Japan. The main roads are in good condition, lorries and cars give you a good berth, and there is very often a good hard shoulder of a couple of metres to give you confidence. No obvious creepy crawlies apart from mosquitoes and the only live snake we have seen was at the receiving end of a villager with a large bamboo stick. Sad, but I suspect the locals cannot afford to have any considerate feelings given the obvious danger.
Fuelling up here is no problem - the place abounds with street food sellers that can rustle up some carbohydrates for silly prices - no more than 35 Baht gets you a good plateful ( 80p). Accommodation is equally cheap - if you are paying more than about 1000Baht ( £23) you are pretty much into the luxury bracket. We are in a perfectly decent little bungalow tonight thats clean and has AC for 400Baht. OK, the wiring for the shower perhaps isn't UK standards, but as along as we don't touch it it should be OK........
Our only downer curiously was last night, where we had booked what appeared to be a well recommended place just outside Tha Ton, which is about as close to the Burmese border as we have been - no more than 2km. Having had to push our bikes up the crazily steep gradient, I poked my head through reception to announce our arrival. The woman rather lazily lifted her head and said "yes?", as if the arrival of a western face might equally have been the arrival of a double glazing salesman. We were most perfunctorily shown to the bungalow by a pool, and then came across the ex pat owner of this joint, a Frenchman named Paulo. He seemed only to want to know which booking agency we had been through, and then announced that we were privileged because this was a better bungalow than we had booked. From that point on, we appeared to be an irrelevance, and the whole experience was rather uncomfortable, and we couldn't wait to make an escape in the morning. We looked up a few reviews on booking.com and on trip advisor, and whilst most seemed to suggest that the sun shone out of this pair's rear ends, there were a significant few that complained of a similar treatment of us. I cannot wait to write my review of the establishment.
Tomorrow we are heading further east, over another mountain range ( sorry Sian!), and then north to the Burmese border. We need to get a visa extension, and it's cheaper to do this by crossing into Burma. There you surrender your passport for a permit that allows you to remain in the border town of Tachilek for 14 days, but we will just return on the same day and get a further 30 days visa exemption. However this trick can only be done twice in a calendar year, so we will probably have to get a proper Thai visa in Laos.
This is mimosa pudica - the sensitive plant. Brushing it makes the leaves all close up, so that it looks dead, and therefore I presume less attractive to whatever wants to eat it.
We arrived rather late in Bangkok on the 23rd October. This delay was due to us being involved in more Japanese Typhoon malarky, namely Typhoon Lan. This was quite a belter, and involved us sitting on the aircraft in Tokyo whilst the airport was shut for 20 minutes due to some quite vicious squalls during which the aircraft rocked quite noticeably from side to side, complete with rain lashing down! Eventually we got clearance to push back, but there was now a large delay of departing aircraft so it took about an hour of taxiing before taking off. That was quite hairy, with severe turbulence for about an hour or so after departure during which all of the crew were strapped in their seats. I notice later that instead of taking a route around the storm, the aircraft flew directly into the typhoon. I guess these people know what they are doing......
We stayed overnight in a hotel close to the airport, and then flew on to Chiang Mai the following day where I am glad to report our bikes and luggage all arrived safely. There are a couple of holes in the nylon of the bags which we will get repaired before final departure. Then the fun of reassembling the bikes began outside the airport. Having chosen what we thought was a quiet spot, it took only about an hour or so to put them together, mainly because we didn't have to take them apart as much with the bike bags. The spot, typically, was only quiet for about half an hour before what appeared to be most of Thailand descended on us.
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| Bikes ready to go. Hordes largely dispersed by then |
The plan was to stay in Chiang Mai for a couple of days to get ourselves orientated, but we soon realised that the day we had intended to depart on was the day of the late Thai King's funeral, and roads were to be closed, so we stayed an extra night. We felt quite privileged to be around and watched a lot of the exceptionally ornate ceremony on the television. The vast majority of Thai's were dressed either totally or partially in black and I'm glad to say that ( including us) the vast majority of Westerners were making an effort not to wear brightly coloured clothes.
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| View from a villa we stayed in - we should have been in a smaller room, but an agoda.com cock up meant we got a rather palatial upgrade. |
The weather is coming to the end of the monsoon season here, and the first few days were interrupted by some belting showers that you really get little warning of. No sooner do you say "Oh, it looks a little dark that way" do the heavens open and complete stair rods of rain belt down. However, its very warm and no sooner does the sun come out do your clothes dry off, so wearing any sort of waterproof is pointless.
 |
| One of a garmin inspired off road section. Some deep puddles and wet mud caused a bit of an issue. |
Rather strangely, and contrary to what I thought, we feel safer on Thai roads than we did on Japan. The main roads are in good condition, lorries and cars give you a good berth, and there is very often a good hard shoulder of a couple of metres to give you confidence. No obvious creepy crawlies apart from mosquitoes and the only live snake we have seen was at the receiving end of a villager with a large bamboo stick. Sad, but I suspect the locals cannot afford to have any considerate feelings given the obvious danger.
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| Geriatric elephant sanctuary - bit of an aww moment. When working elephants reach the end of their usefulness they are just released into the jungle where they die alone. This place takes them in and looks after them until they die naturally. You can spend a whole day here, but we just visited for an hour or so- you get given a basket of bananas to feed them. |
Fuelling up here is no problem - the place abounds with street food sellers that can rustle up some carbohydrates for silly prices - no more than 35 Baht gets you a good plateful ( 80p). Accommodation is equally cheap - if you are paying more than about 1000Baht ( £23) you are pretty much into the luxury bracket. We are in a perfectly decent little bungalow tonight thats clean and has AC for 400Baht. OK, the wiring for the shower perhaps isn't UK standards, but as along as we don't touch it it should be OK........
 |
| We stayed in that blue bungalow. Ginormous large fish in the pond. |
Our only downer curiously was last night, where we had booked what appeared to be a well recommended place just outside Tha Ton, which is about as close to the Burmese border as we have been - no more than 2km. Having had to push our bikes up the crazily steep gradient, I poked my head through reception to announce our arrival. The woman rather lazily lifted her head and said "yes?", as if the arrival of a western face might equally have been the arrival of a double glazing salesman. We were most perfunctorily shown to the bungalow by a pool, and then came across the ex pat owner of this joint, a Frenchman named Paulo. He seemed only to want to know which booking agency we had been through, and then announced that we were privileged because this was a better bungalow than we had booked. From that point on, we appeared to be an irrelevance, and the whole experience was rather uncomfortable, and we couldn't wait to make an escape in the morning. We looked up a few reviews on booking.com and on trip advisor, and whilst most seemed to suggest that the sun shone out of this pair's rear ends, there were a significant few that complained of a similar treatment of us. I cannot wait to write my review of the establishment.
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| Buddhist temples (Wats) are common, and most surprisingly there are new ones being built all around! |
This was a fantastic moment after a climb to a
an astonishing wat by Thaton. In the distance is Burma,
but the music playing in the background made
the moment.
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