Northern Thailand...on to the Mekong

We finally broke free of Chang Mai's holiday indulgences and headed in a northern direction on the main roads out of town.  We probably were carrying about 5 kg extra weight (i.e. body habitus) from all the holiday ham and cookies and our sedentary week. The riding proved pleasant and after a long climb a few clicks from town we dropped into a beautiful valley with small towns and wonderful vistas of the encircling hills.  We spent a few nights camping in various school yards and ate wonderful bagged curries picked up at the village street markets, a great discovery that we joyed and will surely miss once we leave Thailand. We were also excited to see the famed Wat Rong Khun, the all-white temple designed by one of Thailands most famed artists,  We decided to head straight north toward the famed Golden Triangle and found a fascinating corner of SE Asia that seemed less frequented by western travelers and to be more of a local holiday spot.  This ennui came in spades when we arrived at the small, sleepy Mekong river town of Chang Saen where we took a night at a guest house that was run by the sole westerner we saw in town and who was also mildly socially inept (maybe not putting our best foot forward with this guy). No bother as the room was clean, ridiculous cheap, and immediately across the street from beautiful outdoor eateries overlooking the river.  Picturesque does it no justice.  Chang Saen was ancoasis that we no expected and may have been one of the most pleasant evenings we have had in a few months.  We collectively could not have been happier with our decision to come far to the north and this was only strengthened when we rode in to the Chang Kong area to meet our next Warmshower host.  Tiansak and Nisakorn lived on some land abutting the Mekong where they had a beautifully simple open air home with a small separate cottage where the cyclists stayed.  We were dumbfounded as this place was something that we would have be willing to pay good money in order to stay.  Quiet, except for the Lao neighbors on th far side of the river (more about this later) we were intending to spend only one night before shoving off to cross into Lao but the beauty, solitude, hospitality and knowledge that this one in a million place would probably not come our way anytime soon we stayed an additional two nights and even "celebrated" the 2016 New Year by sharing a fantastic dinner with our hosts and then fell asleep promptly at 10pm.  Rock Stars have nothing on the life lived by long distance cycle tourers!?  Other than maybe one too many Beerlao and the fireworks set off at midnight we had one of the simplest and most pleasant New Years that I can remember.  Thank you both so much and we hope you take us up on offer to come to Portland so we can show you the same gracious hospitality.

  

Wat Rong Khun, and some of the macabre details at the entrance 

Baan Dam- museum built as a counterpart to the white wat

  

Bruce eating CRICKETS!!!!!! for a snack, beautiful northern Thailand scenery

  

The golden triangle where Laos, Myanmar, and Loas meet

Nothing special...makes it all that more special

We were once again on our own as we left Krabi and our 'vacation-within-a-vacation' and headed north toward the west coast of Thailand.  We had decided that based on the maps that the best riding would be heading west and then turning north along the coastline that boarders the Andaman Sea and eventually Myanmar.  Our bet paid off as we were welcomed with pleasant riding consisting of quiet, wide lane roads, super friendly locals in mostly small vllages and towns, new tasty food options, and beautiful rolling terrain.  Also we welcomed the return of pleantiful, easy camping along any roadway.  We chose between schools grounds, parks, lands around new homes that had not yet been finished, to name a few.  No beaches, unfortunately, as this and most of the Thai seaside is developed for the vast tourist market that dominates every inch of available beach.  No worries however as we usually had water, toilets and shelter from storms and slept well through this section.  It turned out, in fact that we even went further then we thought we might and finshed our tour of southern Thailand in Chumphon, a very popular transit point for most of the 'backpacker' crowd going either north to Bangkok and Chang Mai or south to the islands.  

  

Underestimating what it actually means to be in 'high season' in Thailand we soon discovered that our nice cushy overnight train ride to Bangkok in a 2nd class sleeper car would be spent on a 3rd class bench seat.  On the bright side the ticket was quite a bit cheaper...no consolation when a full grown adult male is trying to contort and curl himself up onto a 3 foot long bench seat on a loud, brightly lit train car for 8 hours.  No bother, we would just get in early and get a nice sleeper car ticket for the next night heading to Chang Mai--WRONG again!  Thi time the tickets were booked 2 days out and we were not going to endure another overnight in the 3rd class bench.  After discussing our options we deecided a bus ticket would be the way to go.  We secured seats online and then headed out for our one and only day exploring Bangkok.  We stowed our luggage for the day and started walking around this massively sprawliing city.  We wandered for most of the day eating at local food stalls, people watching in the markets and just taking it easy.  Content that we only had only the one day in Bangkok, as we are fairly tired of big cities at this point, we made our way back to collect our luggage.  Now came the fun of the day...ever heard of a tuk tuk?  Well this picture will help you understand what it means to pack 2 people, 2 folding bikes, and all our bags onto the back of a 3 wheeled scooter!  Probably the highlight of Bangkok for us...maybe not so much for the driver that dragged our butts halfway across the city in rush hour traffic.

  

That fun behind us we found out why the buses in Thailand are the way to travel.  These 2-level behemoths are super modern, equipped with all the amenities including wifi, folding seats, tv screens and they even serve food.  For those intrepid 'backpackers' looking for the nostaligia and romance of taking the train in Thailand, we totally understand but as cycle tourers of >5 months we can safely say "Screw that"...Take the bus.

We were so much more well rested when we arrived the next morning in Chang Mai.  We pedalled a few km around the city to kill some time before arriving at the home of our next warmshowers hosts, Jared and Katie.  This little oasis was a wonderful respite and where we would be spending Xmas.  We did little while there other than gorge ourselves on what we were told is a traditional Kiwi Xmas feast.  In town we met some great folks including a few bike shop owners like Stu and Mong of Mong Cycles and Nu of Triple Cat Cycles.  What warm, welcoming and helpful folks.  Thank you all for your hospitality and making these two orphan cyclists feel at home this holiday season. 

  

Hanging out at Nu's shop, Triple Cat, in Chang Mai

Our fabulous hosts, Katie and Jared

    

Chowing down on appetizers. I can't tell y the last time I had bread, pesto, and cheese!!

Start of something great

Boats waiting in the harbor at Ao Nang beach

We quickly discovered the wonders of southern Thailand, not the islands full of westerners getting drunk and WAY too much sun (like a walking skin cancer ward), but the quiet roads that cut through flooded plains filled with water buffalo, birds of every variety, local fisherman and happy smiling locals.  On the way north toward our next stop, Krabi, we saw all of these things and except for the heat we were enthralled by Thailand.  As it had in the past this good energy gets tested a bit whenever we enter more touristy locations, and Krabi is certainly one of those.  We were lucky enough to have a nice Russian warmshowers host named Andrey allow us to stay at his home while we explored so that we were able to escape paying the usual overpriced rates for substandard accomodation you find in all of these beach resort locals.  Not so fortunately (or so we thought at first) Andrey was "double-booked" foor guests at this time.  Apparently he was also expecting a French family to arrive that evening.  While we were sitting and drinking a local beer of choice (ie Chang, Singha, Leo) they arrived and it turned out this amazing husband and wife were on a similar tour as us only in reverse order AND with a 6 year old son!!  Our figurative jaws dropped as Chiara and I only days before were in the midst of throwing in the towel just short of the 5 month mark on our journey over some petty, insignificant trifle that we could not agree upon and here Albon, Delphine, and their son Vincent had spent the same 5 month period touring eastern Europe with their young son and seemed almost unscathed?!  Seemed these folks had a thing or two to teach us and we were excited to hear more as they had just come through Turkey, the country we plan to start our Europe leg of the tour.  

    

Andrey, Bruce, and Alban, reading to Vincent on Andrey's porch aka our living quarters, Delphine and Vincent cycling

But first the Tetris game of tent accomodation must begin in order to get everyone a place to sleep.  Andrey's place was modest and therefore we figured we would stay on the porch in our tents in order to not completey take over his space.  The next two days we ate, drank, compared tour "notes" and decided that maybe ths was the time for our "Tourist" part of our Thailand trip.  We would team up with the "French Connection" and take a boat trip to a small island to camp and snorkel for a few days.  After a large amount of recon work to discover where was ok to camp and what we would have to bring with us, we finally made our way out to Bamboo Island by long-tail boat with minimal gear and lots of excitement.  Turns out this island is one of many that gets flooded with a daily stream of boat that plop tourists of all shapes and sizes for short visits before scooping them back up and taking them to another island.  Usually 4 in a day, which must be a whirl-wind of chaotic boat travel.  However for us the true enjoyment started around 4pm  when the last of the day boats left the island and we were left to enjoy the peace and beauty of this place with no one but the few national park staff that remained to clean up from the day and prepare for the next days onslaught of sun-reddened, selfie-stick carrying travelers that would make the journey.  But for us a beautiful sunset, meager meal of rice and vegetables, a couple sips of Mekong (local whiskey type drink) and good company of new friends was all we needed.  Until about 10am the next morning this little island was all but ours and early morning swims and stretches on the beach were ours for the taking.  Though to now we are till not sure if anything we did was 'legal' the small family of staff were wonderful to us and we felt like one of their crew.  

Turns out, however, that getting off these islands can be a bit tougher when not pre-arranged.  After 2 nights we decided that it was time to move on so we started searching the seemingly endless line of charter boats for an open spot to hitch back to the mainland.  The only one we found was not exactly heading straight back to the mainland but would be doing the before-mentioned "4 island tour" of which we were the first.  We resigned ourselvess to the fact that we would be in for a long day and boarded the long-tail.  This, to our pleasant surprise, may have been the bet thing that could have happened as we became part pf a tour that took us around to other islands where we swam, hiked, climbed on rocks and were amazed by the beauty that is southern Thailand.  Who needs one of those package trips?!

    

A beautiful beach sunset,climbing and snorkeling around Bs,boo island, the dramatic cliffs around Krabi 

We made our 'triumphant' return to Andrey's house in a horrendous thunderstorm and  torrential downpour.  One that Chiara and I were very familiar with by this time but one that appeared to have spooked our new French companions a bit regarding the weather they would be facing in SE Asia as their trip began in earnest.  Our last night was spent exchanging emails and hopes and plans for visiting each other in the future in our respective home lands.  This burgwoning friendship we hope will be one that carries foward into the future as we truly enjoyed the companionship of this young family and were inspired by their will and determination to live their lives and raise their family in a truly unique way.

Bridging the Malaysia-Thailand Gap

Our last push in our abridged Malaysia tour promised to offer a treat of sorts- the ability to dust off the old nylon and screen home-away-from-home and spend a night in the outdooors, this time at a beauthiful park tucked in the Northwest corner of the country.  The location, Perlis State Park, just happened to be in our path as we made our way toward the Malay-Thai border.  Though it was quite a treat for us to stay in this paleolithic jungle-like environment which showed signs of once being a bustling and popular educational park with gardens, caves, rivers, and animals.  Now in somewhat disrepair, most likely from government defunding (the Malaysian economy has been on a downward trend as a result of falling oil prices) it was still a treat to walk around, set up camp, watch monkeys climb the tree canopy and at dark witness the pyrotechnic wonder of nature as the fireflies (something that Chiara had never seen in her life) flitted about the field.  Truly a fantastic way to end a fantastic tour in Malaysia.

    

Pictures from Perlis.  Doing my best to model pose.

The next day we said a fond fairwell to Malaysia and headed to cycle across the border into Thailand, the first time we crossed a border by bike on the trip.  After a fairly uneventful crossing into Thailand we made an easy pedal into the city of Hat Yai.  Hat Yai is all but unknown to foreigners unless they cross the border it is the third largest city in the country; unlike all the others there is little to no tourist market and is mostly Thai locals. We once again had an awaiting Warmshowers host and Chiara was ready to burst with anticipation over her impending massage (one that she had been thinking about since Taiwan).  Priscille and her husband John were amazing hosts for two nights, Priscille cooked us some wonderful dinners, we shared finally- cheap-again beers, Chiara was able to shop, we both enjoyed a two hour full-body Thai massage for 300 bhat (about eight USD) where the massa, t therapists worked out all our kinks and troubles.

    

Our first temple right in the border, yay, Thai massage! It hurts and feels good at the same time.

Priscille, making serious Prince-eyes 

After our restful time in Hat Yai, we hightailed it north along a flat and trouble-free road that eventually led us to Rangot.  We had intended to find a flat spot somewhere to camp but as the sun began to drop and our search for food was in full swing a nice Thai woman and her husband called out from their passing vehicle and aked us where we were going.  After a bit of conversation, she and her husband led us to a local food market and eventually to there friend's "Resort" which was still under construction.  They introduced us to Will, a lively young guy who spoke quite a bit of English.  His family was doing a "soft opening" (as Portland folks might pretentiously call it) of their new beautiful (and very unpretentious) resort.  Will let us camp in the common area, and that evening we also met Martyn, a recent arrival from Lithuania who was on Rangot to teach Englissh.  Lively converation ensued covering all topics from music, to travel, to politics, and after a few hours and another surprise flat tire (after over 5000km we are starting to notice that this happens a bit too readily and that maybe it is time for that new set of Schwalbe tires we have been talking about), we decided that one day was not enough at the resort.  We needed a little more time to explore the lake next to the resort, paddle around in the kayak that Will kept on the property, and just plain chill out a bit.  Which is exactly what we did the whole next day, save for a very cool kayak paddle at sunset to the main town market 5 km from the property, and a visit to a local bar where we drank Leo beer and listened to wonderfully talented local Thai musicians.  

     

Right outside of Will's resort, rowing to the might market with Martyn

Will is playing guitar here

We went to bed that night unsure about when we might leave this great little spot we had stumbled upon but when we arose the next morning we both knew that the road was calling so we quickly packed up and hit the road.  Sorry to not be able to say goodbye to our new friends as they were still tucked up in bed, we left a note and a surprise for them to find!