Oldies Gap Year

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,...

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 Chian...

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...

I’d like to say some interim thanks to you for having us over these past two and a bit weeks. You have been overwhelmingly welcoming to us. You haven’t minded in the least where we have camped. You have laughed with us when we make gaffes. You have come up time and again and made conversation, and whilst google translate is a good tool, you have been patient when the message hasn’t quite got through. You have even brought us breakfast in the morning when camping out in towns. You have lots and lots of convenience stores which are always a welcome site when we are hungry, and we have started to expand our repertoire of things to eat, including, recently, the red bean filled pancake which I am glad to report was delicious. Thanks to your population holidaying mostly in July and August some of your most beautiful locations have been quite deserted. Even where we have met people in these places, they have again been friendly and inquisitive and always wanting to know where yo...