Triking in Thailand

After many frustrating days of trying to get Windows Live Writer ((WLW) re-installed without success in Thailand I finally had to admit defeat, which just tears me up, but if I didn’t put aside the corrupted installation issue, I would not have enjoyed the remainder of my vacation. Blogging online in Thailand has been problematic with slow connection speeds and with my offline software Windows Live Writer being corrupted even more so.

I was finally able to get Windows Live Writer re-installed at home so this last blog will be all inclusive and a bit long. Lesson learned on this trip, if your computer is running fine don’t let windows update get anywhere near it until you are in a place where you can deal with the corruption issues it might throw your way and always carry your backup image.

DISCLAIMER

I HAVE READ AND RE-READ THIS POST THREE TIMES TO CHECK FOR ERRORS IN TENSE, SPELLING AND JUST PLAIN TYPOS. ANY MISTAKES FOUND IN THIS POST ARE DUE TO LACK OF ANY FURTHER INTEREST ON MY PART TO CORRECT THEM.

So I begin this last post on day three of the ride from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai. We spent the morning climbing up the pass after leaving our resort. Some where while climbing to the pass we entered a small town where “Children’s Day” was being celebrated early. I was invited in to see the celebrations, but not knowing how much farther it was to the pass summit and if we would get over it before the heat of the day I decided to catch up with Myron and keep rolling. I remember doing a three day ride with Thailand Green Ride many years ago where we stopped to see children’s day at a local temple. The children were competing for prizes, performing classical dancing and generally eating anything they wanted as all things are free for children on that day. When we came upon the celebrations it was hot and a child came up to practice his English with me. I told him I was hot and could he tell me where I might buy a cold soda. No more having said that he ran off and quickly returned with a cold Pepsi on ice for me. When I tried to pay for it I was told that everything at the celebration was free. It had a good day watching the children play and win prizes. The local powered parasailing club was flying over the celebrations and the local fire department was taking children up for sky rides on a ladder truck.

After a long hard ride we finally crossed the pass and was more or less on our way down to Chiang Mai. About half way down the other side we spied a coffee shop so we stopped for lunch and coffee. By far this shop had the best coffee I have ever tasted in Thailand. It was fresh and must have been roasted just that day the taste was so fresh. I have yet to have another coffee as good as that day. I had noticed that a Doi Chang coffee plantation was just 10 km up the road from the shop and I assumed they must be getting local beans. While at the shop I found the coffee roaster they were using. It was rather old, but seemed to be functioning well. Standing next to it was an experience in aromatic smells, even though it was off and not roasting beans at the moment. The restaurant was a pleasant spot along a creek off the road some distance so the endless noise from trucks lumbering up the hill was at a minimum and the babble of the creek could be heard. We had lunch and I had two Thai ice coffee drinks before we left.

After descending the mountain that’s I that’s missed a turnoff as I was watching traffic, not the GPS. The turn back to the correct road only cost us .5 km so no big deal. I had decided to take back roads instead of getting on the ring road around Chiang Mai which can seem like a hyper race track at times. The skies were clear, with not a cloud in the ski nor a hint of rain. Unfortunately the one road the GPS was routing us down must have been too dusty for the local residents so they had it watered down so heavily that mud and grime was covering us from head to foot. Neither of us had taken our front fenders with us from the states as Thailand is usually bone dry during that time of year. When we stopped to chat with local people they asked where had we been that it was raining as no rain had fallen in the area for over a month.

Before coming to Thailand, Myron and I had run into a man touring the western United States. Tim was his name and he told us about and organization called “Warm Showers.Org”. It is a group of people worldwide that open their homes to people touring by bicycle. The object to is offer a place to stay either in your home to camping in your yard. Along with that you can offer to wash clothing, allow people to have a warm shower, feed them or whatever you are willing to offer to help make someone’s tour easier. Just on a lark I decided to look for people in the Chiang Mai area and I ran across and man named Robert who is German and his wife Thai . I had previously emailed Robert to see if he could put us up for the night and he said yes if his guest house was not full as he often had visitors this time of year.

Robert is a very interesting man. He has done many different things in life after his retirement. At one time he was buying up old teak houses to build handmade teak furniture. His designs are unique and robust. They look like any given piece is built with enough quality it could be handed down several generations. The craftsmanship in the pieces I saw in his guest house is superb. It should be noted that his guest house is built out of recycled teak wood. Teak is a hard wood that has very good resistance to water damage both fresh and salt. For years before fiberglass composites it was the wood of choice for decks on sailing boats because it’s water resistant. Below is a picture of the teak guest house out on the patio. It should be noted that this house is two stories tall and beautiful.

This is Robert’s cat who was very friendly. I am a cat person so when ever I come across a friendly cat I pick it up.

Staying with Robert at the time was his friend Ernest. Ernest is an interesting man in that he is the only foreigner I have met that has spent two years in a forest monastery studying meditation. He told me it was a quiet life focused around self awareness of ones’ mind. He raised a black cat in the monastery from a kitten that stays with Robert. The cat stays with Ernest whenever he is in country and visiting Robert. There seems to be a very strong bond between the cat and Ernest that years have never broken. We spoke of mediation techniques. I prefer sound as my focus point, but Ernest pointed out that I would most likely never find true focus until I took up quiet meditation such concentration on one’s breathing or a walking meditation. In meditation it is hard to focus your mind as it is always bouncing from one thought to another. It is referred to the “monkey mind” which acts like a young monkey never still, always moving and exploring another thought, image or sound. Training one’s mind to become calm is the whole point of mediation. When this calmness is achieved it is like, at least for me, my mind floating in a vast sea of stillness where I can examine closely one thought without outside distractions. It leaves one with a vast sense of peace, again at least for me. I have personally only achieved this true stillness of mind a few times, but every time I have I come back to the present feeling well, at peace with the world, open to new thinking about why the world is as it is. Ernest uses meditation with people who have severe depression. Depression is defined by me, as the inability to be at peace with what you personally see happening about you in the world. I say personally because the human mind is a unique instrument that is capable of defining reality based upon our own personal experiences and how we dealt with them. There are people who have nearly nothing in the lives with regards to power or possessions, yet are happy. There are people who have power, money and every opportunity to be happy which are not. They tell themselves life is unfulfilled and they continue to chase after more power, money or relationships hoping that it is these things that will give them happiness, when something as simple as focusing ones’ mind through mediation is free to all. Please note I say simple, but not easy. Maybe that is why so many people in the world who try meditation do not find the center of thought and peace they seek. Personally I find it very difficult to overcome the busy little monkey mind we all have running in our heads. Thinking back now it would be a week later we would be at a sea side resort which turned out to be very quiet. I could hear the waves on the beach, the soft hum of the refrigerator. It was a great time for mediation, but my little monkey mind was chasing around thoughts on how to fix my broken blog software. Yet it was very quiet and it was easy to be at peace.

So back to our stay with Robert. After a very short visit with Robert and having to turn down an offer to do a short tour of 50km with him and his friend Ernest we decided that we needed to go early the next day to catch a 9 AM train to Phitsanulok. It seemed like the best thing to do on our schedule as we were a little behind. After a 11km ride into downtown Chiang Mai and to the train station we were told that yes we could go to Phitsanulok, but the train would not leave until 5 PM, so we had a whole day to kill waiting on the train. We should have called from Roberts house so we would have known there was no train until later in the day and we could have made the tour with him. It seems that while touring one is either rushing to catch transportation or sitting around waiting on it.

Here is an interesting mural at the train station in Chiang Mai. It is basically a advertisement of the things one can do in the Chiang Mai area. The traditional dressed people are the northern hill people who have close ties to Chinese and other ethnic groups. For years their major form of cash was from growing poppies for the opium trade. The Thai government has stepped in and introduced new cash crops for these people who are also making better money on the tourist trade. They were always the lowest paid of people in the opium trade as they had no other cash crop to grow and where more or less at the mercy of the drug lords who controlled the trade. The area of drug production between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos was known as the Golden Triangle. Afghanistan now has the dubious distinction of being the worlds largest opium producer.

Some day I want to try the bamboo raft tour in northern Thailand. Notice that they don’t let the foreign guests stand on the river. Also notice that they don’t seem to be wearing safety vests. Thailand accepts a lot of things that would be considered too unsafe to let go unregulated such as 4 people on a motorcycle. A large majority of people riding motorcycles do not wear helmets and 3 out of 4 people who die on the road do so in motorcycle related accidents.

The government of Thailand is trying to educate people on the risks of using motorcycles carelessly and even have put out some graphic commercials. Here is one that makes the point about bad decision making regarding motorcycle safety.

We boarded the train at 5 PM and began the ride down to Phitsanulok. Our car was one away from the restaurant car and large party was just getting started as we pulled out of the station. As we rolled through the country side it got louder and louder, making napping impossible. Suddenly there appeared a young lady who happened to be from Scotland who was sitting on the arm of the empty seat across from me. She was carrying an unopened bottle of Singha beer and could not get it open. I did one of those old truck driver bottle opening things where you catch the cap on a sturdy edge and give the bottle a little tap to pop the top. She wanted us to have a drink of her beer and was very merry. Neither Myron or I was in the mood for an overly cheery drunk women from Scotland so we told her that we did not wish to have any beer as we were scheduled to arrive in Phitsanulok at 4 AM and did not want to be riding about after drinking needing our wits about us. She told us she wanted to get us drunk and be part of the on going party. After another polite refusal she stood up and bounced from seat to seat back to her sleeping car with her open bottle of beer in hand.

We arrived late in Phitsanulok and had to drive about in the dark to find a hotel using Myron’s mapping software to direct us to hotels we found on the internet. Google maps and turn by turn instructions turned out to be very handy at 4 AM in the morning. We found the first hotel, but was told they were full so we chose another and settled in for the night and a late morning wake up.

SUKHOTHAI

From Phitsanulok we rented a car to take us to Sukhothai which was about an hour away. It was easier to leave the trikes at the hotel and just walk about the ruins on foot.

The following bit about Sukhothai was shamelessly ripped off from the Internet

The Sukhothai (Rising of Happiness) Kingdom flourished from the mid-13th century to the late 14th century. This period is often viewed as the 'golden age' of Thai civilization – the religious art and architecture of the era are considered to be the most classic of Thai styles. The remains of the kingdom, today known as the meuang gòw (old city), feature around 45 sq. km of partially rebuilt ruins, which are one of the most visited ancient sites in Thailand.

The next morning we needed to find a bus station that had a bus to Khon Kaen which could also carry our trikes. This turned out to be more difficult than expected as the staff working at the hotel had little knowledge of bus schedules or even how to tell us how to get to the station. Even if I am told to go straight down the road and look left for the bus station it is difficult for me as I do not read one word of Thai. I must go by land marks like the “Big Tesco Sign” or “turn left at the Seven Eleven” on the right hand side of the street. Easiest thing for me to do is try and look up the location of the terminal on Google Maps and pull a lat/long off the map and put it in my GPS and navigate to the location myself. The usual problem I have is many large cities have both public and private bus lines. Sometimes they are at the same station and sometimes not. Searching in Google maps for the word bus can give you two or more results for a given city, so determining which station to go to can be difficult. I am looking forward to the time when I have the time to tour about Thailand and not worry about catching a plane back to the states. I plan to tour at my pace, where I can stop when I desire and talk with people to look at sights that interest me and not have the sense of being on the clock. We met a German couple, man and wife who were doing just this and really enjoying not having a set deadline for return to Germany. Some days they only covered 30 km and one they did 140 km, but usually averaged about 80 km per day or 50 miles. I have a desire to tour around the perimeter of northern Thailand some day. It will basically look something like the pink area seen in the picture below. I do no know if I will do it clockwise or counter clockwise. I am sure I will start in the north western part of the country as it is the most mountainous and would be best to do while one legs were still strong.

To easily convert kilometers to miles multiply by .6 which is very close to .62 miles per kilometer. 10 kilometer is therefore 6 miles or 80 kilometer is nearly 50 miles. It can be a bit confusing for the new user, but the math is easy. I remember after a long hard climb up a hot mountain years ago where I looked down to see 30 on the computer and felt good until I remembered it is only 18 miles, because it was 30 kilometers.

Well I went off on a tangent, so back to getting to the bus station. After much talk and confusion it turned out the bus station was less than 2 km from the hotel. After finding the bus station, this time a easy thing to do we purchased our tickets and sat down to disassemble our trikes for transport on the bus. In order to make things fit we both folded the trikes and took off the front wheels. It was an uneventful ride from Phitsanulok to Khon Kaen except over the pass I had crossed 4 years ago while on tour with TCHA Thailand Cycling for Health Association. There was major road work being done on the road making the trip about 30 minutes longer due to short delays. It brought back some interesting memories of that trip and how hard we struggled over the mountains for three days in a row. It is my understanding the club has not yet again offered this ride and I can only assume that many of the riders went home to say they would never do it again. I remember many people pushing their bikes up the hills and a few that just gave up and road in the support vehicle.

As we bused into Khon Kaen I remembered we stayed at the Kosa hotel and it was nice a few years ago, so I suggested we stay there again. It is still a nice hotel, with helpful staff and a good restaurant, but we had major problems with internet connectivity. Keep in mind this was not much of an issue for me as my software had been offline due to corruption.

It was my plan to visit a restaurant called “Khao Soi Chiang Mai” that specializes in northern style “Khao Soi” noodles. I had seen this restaurant on YouTube and many people remarked that they did enjoy the food, but as luck would have it we arrived at the hotel 30 minutes after they closed. The restaurant opened again the next morning at 8 AM, but we had plans to be on the road by 7:30 AM so we missed eating at this restaurant.

At 7:00 AM we pointed our trikes north and started to pedal off towards Nong Khai. Khon Kaen. I know the reader is most likely getting a bit confused with the similar names. Khon Kaen is most likely the largest city in the Issan region of Thailand. If not it seemed like it was as it took nearly 30 minutes to clear town, due to stop lights and roundabouts.

We were traveling up highway 2 which is a very busy road, but it was not the traffic that was turning us off, just the noise level, so we plotted in a route paralleled the main road on country roads just to the east of highway 2. It added a few KM to our trip, but the possible quiet seemed worth the extra kilometers so off we went. We passed many fields of sugar cane, pineapples and other root vegetables winding about here and there. Travelled through some small towns where the city limits signs were back to back. The road was well paved, so we pushed on, until we came to stretch where the pavement ended and dirt began. It was here I stopped to check my GPS routing to make sure I had not plotted the wrong path. The GPS continued to indicate we were on the correct road so we pushed on and sure enough after about ¾ of a mile the road returned to concrete. Watching traffic at an intersection I missed a turn, but got turned around and back on path. Started to notice that the concrete road was becoming narrower as we continued on and then again it turned into dirt. We pushed ahead until we reached this wide concrete drainage channel. I thought it strange to have such a channel in a road, but the sides where not that steep and a car or truck could cross it so we pedaled down one side and up the other. At the very top the road was now grass and about 20 meters farther down the grass was a bamboo platform surrounded by sugar cane fields. On the platform were women cleaning and processing cane by hand most likely to turn into juice for fresh consumption. A lady came up to ask where we were going, I told her Nong Khai and she just smiled and said you can not go this way. It was painfully obvious we were not going any further north no matter what the GPS said, as there was no road and we were surrounded by sugar cane on all sides. I looked at the GPS which was showing a road running straight north, but reality was telling us something entirely different. At that very moment I was thinking of the news story where the couple from some place I can’t remember drove their car into a lake because the GPS told them to turn right and go straight. She kindly told us that we needed to go back about 1 km and turn west on the major road we were trying to avoid. I don’t know where the data for the road that was not there came from, but it surely needs to removed from some ones data base. Unfortunately both Myron and I were so surprised when we came to a sudden and definite stop that we both forgot to take a picture of the “Road to Nowhere”.

Riding along highway 2 in January was difficult as it is the time of year when rice fields are burnt to prepare them for a new crop. When rice is cut, only the upper most of the stalk is taken leaving a lot of stalk behind in the field. This stalk is burnt to return the nutrients to the field before it is plowed and prepared for the new crop.

PICTURE SHAMELESSLY STOLEN FROM INTERNET

One might see how this would make riding during this time of year very unpleasant as we rode miles and miles though smoke and particulates, which causes respiratory problems. The smoke along with dust and engine emissions also added to our respiratory problems. I would highly recommend no riding during this time of year in this area, but if you do then consider buying and using face masks used by so many Thais. Even basic paper masks would help, but there are many advanced types of masks now available for cyclists. Some cover the nose and some do not for those people who prefer to breathe through their mouths and exhale through their noses. Funny thing is while we were riding we didn’t have much in the way of problems other than eyes, but every night we coughed and choked at we were trying to clear out lungs.

During our ride to Nong Khai we stopped in a town called Nam Phong and I went to visit with a guy named Steven an expat from England. Like many other English people he was retired in Thailand because he can not live on his pension in England. His house is about 80% built and we talked of the difficulties of getting a house built in a reasonable amount of time in the country side of Issan. Steven’s biggest problem with the building of his house is his desire to use newer methods and materials. Local builders are very much set in their ways of doing things and are very reluctant to try new methods and materials. Personally I believe the contractors are reluctant to try new things because they do not want to be responsible for a failure of the project due to lack of knowledge. “Saving face” in Asian culture is a strong cultural concept. I believe it has both its’ good and bad elements in that it often encourages people to try harder as long as they are comfortable in their working knowledge, but it also makes them reluctant to try new things as no one like to be embarrassed by a failure. When I was teaching English years ago I found that if you could get the student to believe there was no “loss of face” or embarrassment in making mistakes or that they would begin to try harder and become engaged with the group. I wanted to take Steven out to dinner and we rode off towards a place, but he decided to return home before dark and I ate alone. Many roads in Thailand at night are pitch black due to very limited public lighting and he did not want to be on the roads. I had dinner at a small outdoor restaurant and went back to the hotel, but I must admit it was dark and riding was difficult. Riding can be difficult because road hazards may or may not be marked. All cyclist and motorcycle riders suffer this problem while riding on the safety strip in Thailand, but motorcycles have better lighting and the power to move over onto the road way to avoid hazards when needed. I was over riding my lighting and had to slow down to make sure I didn’t catch a wheel in a depression or something and end up in the ditch. I have seen many places in Thailand where parts of the safety margin on the road where I was riding had been washed away by a rain leaving a gap in the asphalt and extreme hazard.

About half way from Khon Kaen to Non Khai we stopped to stay at a Home Stay. It was owned and run by an older Thai man who had travelled some in the United States years earlier. He was very friendly and spoke limited English. When I pulled out my iPhone and showed him pictures of my troubles with Dengue Fever last year and told him I was being very careful about mosquito bites by using personal body spray I believe he misunderstood me as 15 minutes later a man was in our bungalow spraying for mosquitoes. During the day we went down the road to the local outdoor restaurant to eat and he came to me with an Atlas in Thai asking exactly which state we were from for his personal information. He showed us the states he had visited years ago. After that he was eating with a young man and women and I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation about Myron and me, the usual things where are they from, where are they going, do they speak any Thai, etc. Pictures of children around our trikes at the restaurant.

Next day we checked out early to ride in the cool of the early morning. We were about 16 km or 10 miles down the road when a truck passed us and pulls over to the side of the road. During this trip this had happened many times as people often stop, get out to take pictures or shoot a video, but this time it was the owner of the resort we had just left along with his wife in a blue cotton bath robe. They had driven down the road to give me back a computer mouse I had left behind because it was giving me troubles. It is a cheap $4 mouse I had purchased at my house in Muak Lek for travelling with the plan that if it should break there was no big costs and could be abandoned. Because I had not placed it in the trash the owner thought I had forgotten it and chased us down the road to return it. With the cost of fuel in Thailand it might have cost him more in diesel to return it than the purchase cost of the mouse. It is times like this I find the Thai people so appealing. No hotel owner in the states would run down a customer traveling by bike to return an item left behind. Four years ago when I was riding a border to border ride in Thailand I had stopped at a fruit stand to buy a watermelon which I shared with the seller and hier children. I had left my clip on sunglasses at their stall when I left. I was nearly 15 miles down the road when suddenly a motorcycle passed me beeping their horn and pulled over to the side of the road. A young girl most likely the granddaughter of the lady who had sold me the watermelon was returning my $3 Kmart sunglasses.

We finally made it to Nong Khai and found the train station before looking about as we planned to travel to the islands in the south eastern part of Thailand by train if possible. Because of the political problems in Bangkok we were trying to figure some way of avoiding entering Bangkok no matter what transportation we took and the train was going to go to Bangkok. To the best of my knowledge most buses would also be going to Bangkok also because the major hubs are located in Bangkok. The original reason for going to Nong Khai was to visit Laos. We wanted to ride our trikes the 20 miles across the border to Vientiane the capital of Laos from Nong Khai. My wife had warned me earlier that the drivers in Laos were just short of crazy, the roads were narrow and there were no safety margins on the roads and after talking with her again on the phone we decided to not ride across the border. I know it can be done and many people do cycle in Laos, but my wife felt it was a high risk we should not take, so I listened to her and decided to leave our trike in Thailand and take a bus. Now for the second problem, which was our 60 day visas were single entry only, which meant that if we left the country we would have to re-enter Thailand on a new visa and we were not sure if a standard 30 day visa would be issued or a shorter one of 15 days which would caused problems as we were planning on staying longer. Obtaining a visa at the border is one set of problems, usually much less than say going into Bangkok and applying for a new visa, especially with the political problems brewing in the capital, so we abandoned our plans to visit Laos and just rode about Nong Khai.

We decided to stayed at a nicer hotel in Nong Khai. I began a dialogue with the hotel staff as to what might be a better way of traveling from Nong Khai to where we needed to go. I wanted to avoid the northern and eastern bus terminals even though they were not near the political demonstrations. The demonstrations would how ever make getting around in Bangkok much more difficult especially for us carrying our trikes and luggage. One of the receptionist spoke good English and she believed that there were tour buses going directly from Nong Khai to Rayong. After checking we found that true so we were off for the bus station to get a bus to Rayong and then Trat.

It was a long bus ride, but at least comfortable as we were riding in the lower deck where there was more leg room. After arriving in Rayong we we had to find a Van service that would take us from Rayong to a drop off point close to what we believed would be the pier to Koh Mak, but which turned out to be the pier for Koh Chang. The ride from Rayong in the van was hair raising as we must have been riding with a resurrected kamikaze pilot turned van driver. By far the worst drivers in Thailand are those people who drive the mini-vans, which is a misnomer as they are regular sized vans. They drive too fast, take too many chances and will make you believe maybe some divine power was looking out for you if you arrive safe and sound. Getting the trikes into the van was a challenge as there were 6 other people with us. We had the folded trikes in the back with the front wheels off. Seats, wheels, bags and parts where packed all over the van, with a large amount of our items in the front passenger seat. We had gotten into the habit of doing a quick item count when ever we got off a bus or train. The van was in a big hurry to take off, but our count on front wheels was two not four so I asked the driver to look about until he found the two missing wheels behind the rear seats. It is the responsibility of the traveller to make sure you have all your stuff before you allow a driver to leave as you will most likely never see any missing items again if they get to far down the road. Just three days later we would be getting off a bus in Wang Nam Khiao to find a driver had unloaded someone else’s bag into our pile of items. We returned the item to the bus and the person who would have ended up one item short was none the wiser. I could not have carried the bag so it was good Karma that we noticed it and had it returned to the hold of the bus.

We had a ride of about 10 miles from the drop off point to the pier. Along the way we stopped for lunch and I changed a leaking tube which was causing me to stop and pump up the tire every 15 minutes. There was a young girl named Nong who came up and was eager to speak some English with us. It turned out she was employed by a Swiss man to work at a small shop on the island of Koh Chang and he was teaching her English. She had a small book full of phrases and words which we used in the conversation. She seemed to have a strong drive to learn English and if given the opportunity to study in a class room I believe she would do well. Like so many people in the world her ability to expand her life is limited by lack of opportunity, money or obligations.

Sister holding a very demanding cat, who just walked up and jumped into her lap.

After lunch we rode to what I believed was the pier for the ferry to to take us to Koh Mak, only to be told that we could not get there from here. Because it was getting late in the evening we decided to hunt down a sea side resort to stay an evening before going to Koh Mak. We ended up in a little sea side resort. The resort was very quiet except for the sounds of tree frogs croaking and the waves crashing against the rocks. Time to time I could hear a gecko croaking some where in the trees. The resort did not have WiFi and my WLW was corrupted so I just kicked back, did some laundry and tried not to be frustrated about my computer issues. The yellow push pin is the location of beach front resort. The island with the green tree on it is Koh Chang and our destination was the small island south east of Koh Chang about three times the travel distance of Koh Chang to the mainland. We packed up the next morning to ride to the pier which I believed would take us to Koh Mak, only to be told we could only go to Koh Chang the big island. Instead of riding another 8 miles to the correct pier we decided to go to Koh Mak and transfer to Koh Mak later.

We bought our ferry tickets and were able to ride directly onto the ferry without problems. Like all ferries this one was rusty and there were places on the deck where the deck plates wrinkled under ones weight because they were so thin from rust. We met a young couple on the ferry that were touring the world on their upright bikes who had logged over 6,000 km if I remember right. Either way they were friendly and happy to talk. After about 45 minutes we reached the island of Koh Chang and pedaled off the ferry. I remember Koh Chang having very steep roads, which started about 4 km from the pier. We went off that direction looking for a place to stay and possible transportation to Koh Mak. We came to the beginning of the steep part of the road and began to grind our way up the road to the nearest town. It is hard to imagine how steep these roads are so here is a YouTube video I found showing a very stout hearted couple riding up them on the Pino bike.

I would like to tell you we made it up these hills but it would be a bold face lie of the grandest sort. Call me slacker, light weight or any other adjective you want, but until you have ridden over these roads it is hard to understand how steep they are and how dangerous with the mini van drivers flying about the island like they owned the roads. After 6 km we arrived in a small town had lunch and decided to turn around and try the other side of the island, which later proved to be the best decision considering how much harder the roads were to the southern part of the island where we would take a speed boat to Koh Mak.

So back to the pier we went and we decided to ride about the north eastern part of the island while looking for a place to stay. We dropped into a few places to find the stay would be about $120 for the night so we continued on down the road. We found a resort and it turned out to be down a short steep gravel packed road. The owner was Thai and it turned out that as we rode down the hill to his resort, his help had already run ahead and told him were coming on trikes. I got off the trike to ask about accommodations only to be told they were fully booked. The owner was very much interested in our trikes and walked with me back to where I had parked them for examination. He asked the usual questions and set one of is employees back to the restaurant for two bottles of cold water. The water was very welcomed by us as the day was beginning to warm up. After a short time a family of Chinese appeared who were also very interested in the trikes. If I remember right Myron allowed one of the group to ride his trike around the parking lot. There are not too many people who can sit down in my trike and even reach the pedals alone ride it. After a bit of time we road around the parking lot where I made sure I got into my lowest gear, because the road was so steep. I pedaled up the road, slipping the rear tire here and there until we made it to the asphalt to continue our ride around the north eastern part of the island in search of a hotel or resort.

We came upon what looked like a good place to stay, but could not find anything that looked like a reception area. We decided to drive down into the resort where we meet a car leaving at a high rate of speed. We rode around the resort, got off our trikes and walked about. We could not find one soul in residence. The pool was bubbling away, the grounds clean and orderly, but not one person could be found. It was down right creepy. I began looking under the bungalows on stilts for dead bodies. I was imagining we might have rode up on a gang land murder scene where all the survivors had fled. We rode back up to the street, found what might be the reception area and still no one was to be found. After that I was beginning to feel like I might have been transported to the “Twilight Zone” or something so we headed down the road away from this creepy situation.

We saw another sign for a resort rode down a gravel road to a resort that specialized in cleansing stays. It was interesting to see the wait staff giving patrons 2 liters of what they claimed was alkali water to begin their cleansing routine. I just had to giggle under my breath as I could have offered them all the alkaline water they could drink here in Wyoming for free, but to each his own as long as they are not hurting anyone. Funny to sit at dinner and listen to true believers of cleansing over the benefits of different types of enemas. Seems just plain old clean water isn’t good enough and the expense of what is used by some people is noteworthy.

Next morning I was at breakfast when this little girl came over to me while I was taking off my shoes to enter the restaurant. She needed help getting her shoes on so I helped. I was eating when I happened to look over to see her in my shoes walking about the deck until she fell over and bumped her forehead. I picked her up, but only mom could bring her any comfort. She was so damn cute. After breakfast we loaded up in the resort’s van and were driven by a very good driver back the way we had come, back over the first set of steep hills and then down to the southern part of the island. It was only near the end of the trip we realized how difficult the road would have been to the southern part of the island. It was the best money spent on any part of the trip regarding getting from place to place. We arrived at the southern part of the island and dragged our trikes and bags down to the pier. I could tell the speed boat operators were not happy when they saw the folded trikes, wheels, seats and other goods by their comments which they did not know I understood. As always they kept to their promise of getting us from Koh Chang to Koh Mak and the loading of the speed boat was an interesting affair with out trikes stacked on top of other passengers luggage in the front of the boat. As we tried to back away from the dock we could not as we where stuck in the mud and had to have about a third of the people get off the boat so we could get off the bottom. After pulling away fro the dock we started off for Koh Mak. First part of the trip was nice, but once we reached open ocean the swells became larger and all sitting in the rear of the boat were being covered in spray. Guess where we were sitting? By the time we arrived Koh Mak I was soaking wet down to my undies.

Departing the speed boat was the usual trial of strength and daring. One had to walk forward in the speed boat, step onto the gunnels and then stretch across from the boat to the pier. There were many younger hands to assist in the transfer from the boat to the pier and no one took a dunking including our trikes and bags. We sat on the pier, assembled our trikes to the usual questions about their comfort, price and country of origin. We road off the pier directly to a restaurant where we inquired about a place to stay. This was the first time during the whole trip where I did not have to struggle getting information as the lady sitting at the desk was European and spoke very good English. She asked what part of the island we would like to stay at and she made a recommendation which I accepted. It turned out I asked her why she was on a smaller remote island working an information desk and she simply replied “It is my plan B”. I took that to mean her retirement plans had not worked out well for what ever reason and we generally chatted about this and that. She called the resort and made sure they understood we would be arriving within an hour after eating and as it turned out it was the last room left at the Pano resort when we arrived. Pano resort is stretching the meaning of the word resort. It is basically 5 raised bungalows with two rooms in each bungalow.

No door or window closed without gaps that allowed mosquitoes to fly into your room and most were already occupied by either geckos or the common lizard.

This place is very laid back and not much to worry about if you accept the internet is down more often than up and the food is limited in variety, but delicious. The highlight of staying here one night was the people I met. Most interesting was the couple from Sweden. One should never judge a book by the cover, but this cover did not speak to me. Both the man and women had extensive tattoos on their arms and legs. They did not look young nor like they spent all their time high on crack so I said hello. That was the beginning of a four hour of discussion on life in Sweden verses the USA, people’s thoughts and bias along with many other subjects. They spoke very good English to which I enquired why that was true. I was told that every child today had to study English from the second grade on, and little as 10 years ago it was from the fourth grade on. Sweden takes the study of English seriously. Yes it is true that English has become the second language of the world over French and it makes sense to study if it is not your native language, but the lengths that Sweden goes to is amazing. I was told that all TV is in English with Swedish sub titles for the older generation. I can only imagine the amount of grumbling and down right whining that would occur in the USA if we had to say watch TV in Spanish with English sub titles as part of the governments push to have us learn Spanish. I know not all my readers, assuming I have any, would feel the same amount of respect I have for a country such as Sweden which has shown so much focus in having it population learn a second language. If only we could do that with something more basic like math and reading in the states. Well I am not writing this blog to rant about what I feel is a failing education system in the states, so time to stand down from the soap box.

Koh Mak is a small island and it can be ridden by bicycle completely in two hours if you have either a very limber spinal column or a very good mountain bike. To be blunt the roads are rougher than a dried out corn cob with about 90 percent of the kernels removed. There was no joy in traveling on the trikes on Koh Mak. The roads are a patch work of concrete and asphalt both of which have large holes, uneven edges and just plain rough surface. Even with rear suspension I found myself leaning forward more often than not to negotiate the roads. In many places care had to be taken to prevent bottoming of the trikes, even my Adventure which sits much higher than the Sprint model being ridden by Myron had a few bottoming issues. The roads were so rough in some places we joked that it must have been intentional to add extra traction for those snowy days they never get.

After one night at Pano and the condition of the roads which would make riding difficult we decided to leave for the mainland. The slow boat to the main land only ran Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As it was Wednesday we decided to leave quickly in the morning for the pier and the 8 AM boat. We checked out after waking the manager who was so sleepy he was having trouble adding up the bill and made our way to the pier.

We were afraid we would miss the boat as we had only 15 minutes left until “suggested” departure time. I say suggested as time in Thailand can be very fluid wandering from the straight and narrow so carefully defined in other countries like Germany. When we arrived at the pier we found only one slow boat and it was the garbage boat. To be fair it would be better to call it the reclamation boat as it was filled with bags of plastic bottles.

PICTURE TAKEN BY MYRON KLINGENSMITH AT KOH MAK, THAILAND

People interested in having a different slant on this trip might like to read Myron’s blog at http://thailandrsvp.blogspot.com/2014/01/slow-boat-to-trot.html

We met a mother and daughter from Slovakia who were traveling together and both were named Eva.

I understand that when a father and son have the same name you ask for senior or junior, but what does one do when mother and daughter have the same name. I must Google that some day. They along with us were not eager to ride the salvage boat as we could not see any seating and personally I was wondering about the smell which turned out not to be an issue as there was no decaying food on the boat, just the plastic bottles. Come time to load the boat it was a real challenge. The boat was sitting at least 10 feet lower than the pier. There was no gang way to be used, only a 10” wide steel plank which was lowered to the boat and was just barely hanging onto the concrete of the pier. I consider myself adventurous, but the walk down this smooth steel plank at an angle which looked to be 30 plus degrees was putting me off. Every time I saw the end of the plank on the pier slide away and back towards the pier as the boat bobbed on the waves made me think it would surely slide off just as I reached the middle of the scramble. I was wondering if anyone else in the group was noticing that only about 10” of plank was on the edge of the pier and looked to be ready to slip off at a moments notice and drop into the ocean. Our trikes were handed down by two men end first so the man on the boat could walk up and grab the rear rack as another would follow down holding the crank in front. All of this was done by men wearing flip flops no less. As the trikes were being loaded I found my mind slipping back, no pun intended, to my classes in Engineering regarding traction, coefficients of friction and normal loads as I tried to determine my chances of getting down this narrow slippery looking steel plank without slipping and ending up in the water between the pier or boat. If it had been raining I would have refused to try the plank as the surface looked so smooth to be untrustworthy. After making it safely onto the boat we were pointed towards the back of the boat and told there was seating upstairs which was true. One had to walk along the edge of the boat to the very rear and then hang onto a ladder and climb up to the seating area. This same narrow walk way had to be used to go down to the toilet. I found myself thinking how easy it would be to slip off the ladder, miss the narrow 12” or less landing and fall directly off the rear of the boat and never be seen or heard over the diesel engine as we plowed our way towards the mainland. The usual 3 hour trip turned into 3 3/4 hours as we fought the head winds and swells. I was hoping we would not have to turn back due to high seas which is common in winter in these waters. I could not drink nor eat during the trip, but much to my amazement neither did I feed the fish during this trip. An full stomach has a lot to do with getting sick for me so it was the best recourse.

Choppy and windy ride back to mainland

Our engine

We finally reached the mainland and said our goodbyes to Eva and Eva and began our ride to Trat to find a hotel for the night. It turned out we stayed in one of the nicest places during the entire trip and it only costs us $18 dollars.

I wanted to visit a friend that lives in Chonburi, Thailand which is located outside of Bangkok. In fact he really lives in a little town called Bang Saen. So we jumped on a bus and made our way to Bang Saen, but Chonburi was as close as we could get. This meant we had a 16 km ride from Chonburi to Bang Saen. That short distance turned out to be one of the busiest rides of our whole trip. We negotiated the worse traffic we had encountered during the whole trip. Lucky for us there was only about 6 km of this traffic making the remainder of the ride pleasant. We stumbled about in Bang Saen until we found a hotel where I made contact with my friend who arrived to meet us about an hour later. Khun Ton is a recumbent rider also. He is the rider in the red shirt standing along side his two wheel recumbent.

We went out to dinner at an outdoor seafood restaurant. The best part of the dinner was the “Eagle fish”. It is sort of like eating halibut both in flavor and texture.

As we were eating one of Ton’s friend came flashing by on his bicycle on the way home. He had not seen us, so Ton called him and he circled back to have some water and talk a bit. During this conversation the solution to avoiding Bangkok bus stations came up. We would take a bus from Chonburi again 16 km back from where we came to Wang Nam Khiao and then ride to my house in Muak Lek as seen by the red oval on the picture below. The ride from Wang Nam Khiao to Muak Lek is about 94 km or 59 miles.

Next morning we rode to the bus station and bought our tickets for Wang Nam Khiao. We were dropped off at a wide spot in the road and began the assembly of our trikes for the ride to Muak Lek. It was here we almost adopted an extra bag as the bus driver was unloading our trikes and bags in a great hurry. Lucky for the owner I noticed the bag, asked Myron if it was his and it got returned to the belly of the bus. Across the street where many vendors setting up for what looked to be a weekend market. After getting our trikes together we went over to purchase some longan and other fruit along with grilled pork on a stick and some sticky rice. We ate lunch while fielding the usual questions regarding the trikes and our wanderings. It was approximately 3 PM and we were off to find a hotel or resort in the mountains along the road to my house. First couple of places we stopped were very expensive so we plodded down the road until Myron notice a resort that was 400 meters up a steep hill to the left and we decided to check it out. I felt that it was going to just as expensive as the other places, but it turned out to be reasonable, but awkward in that it had neither showers or toilets in the rooms. It was sort of a high end camping resort.

The night we stayed at this resort there was a company having an end of year party. It was strange to see not just a party, but the group doing various skits of dating situations and marriage. For the party that night a half suckling pig was brought in and quick roasted over a very hot charcoal fire. Here is a link the technique used in glazing and quick roasting of the pig.

When the pig is done, the skin is very crispy and hard. The pig is cut into small strips about 1/2 inch wide and 2 inches long. The meat on these strips is cut so that it is about 1/8 of an inch thick. The crispy strips are then served with a thick sweet soy sauce or just plain thin soy sauce. I spent about an hour talking with two older ladies from Bangkok and the receptionist who had lived in England for two years studying. She told me she was unable to find a job in her field of study that paid as much as being a receptionist that spoke English. She worked at the resort 4 days a week and then returned to Bangkok about 100 miles away to work at the resort office for two days.

The next morning we set off around 6:30 AM for Muak Lek. Not having ever ridden this route the whole trip back was by GPS. I have found that the digital map I bought and use is accurate regarding major highways and most town roads, but back roads are often inaccurately indicated on the map with fairly large mistakes in turning points. This is not a problem if the turn you are looking for is the only one within plus or minus 200 meters, but if there is another roads in the area is is easy to turn in the wrong place. One must remember that this is same map that had us out in the middle of a sugarcane field looking for a road that most likely had not existed for many years.

About half way to Muak Lek we approached an intersection out in the middle of nowhere which had a traffic officer controlling traffic. After being passed through the intersection I heard a bull horn announce that “cyclist should be careful of traffic”. I was more than a bit confused as I saw no other cyclist than ourselves. Suddenly from around a corner there came 4 cyclist, then 5 others, then more and more cyclist pumping up the hill one after another. All in all maybe over two hundred cyclist coming up the mountain. I did not stop to ask anyone, but I thought it was the 100 km Chokchai “Tour de Farm” which starts within 15 km of my house, but after checking the internet I now know it must have been some other race as the Chokchai tour was a month earlier.

About twenty miles from the house one can take the route shown by the red arrows which is a larger road that takes you out to highway 2 which is Mittraphap Road and one of the three major interstates in Thailand. This road is very noisy and busy as you can see in the pictures below. I usually take the back route which is narrow, but usually has less traffic. Well it turned out I was wrong about the back road in that this area has been discovered and there is construction going on all along the road. In just two years since I last rode this way there are two new resorts and I mean real large resorts, the kinds of places I can not afford. There was a third resort going up that would make the other two look small. Many of these resorts were also condos most likely being bought by people from Bangkok who have money and are looking for some place away from the flooding which will most likely become more and more prevalent. We stopped for water and found the restaurants packed with people. As it was only 2 days until Chinese New Year I must assume all the people we saw where taking off early to celebrate.

We finally arrived at home and found my two sister in laws were not home. They were on their way back from Bangkok. After getting a shower I went to the back yard and did my laundry by hand. This involves three large plastic tubs, a scrub brush, laundry soap and a scrub board. All articles are put in the first tub and scrubbed if dirty or hand rinsed if lightly dirty. Clothes are then wringed out and placed in the second tub to be rinsed, wrung out again and then placed in the third tub for rinsing and then wrung out again to be hung for drying. It is a labor intensive method of washing clothing, which the larger portion of the population on this planet uses, but it does give one time to think about things and can be relaxing. Dish pan hands are the down side along with a sore back for people not adjusted to doing laundry in this manner. I remember doing laundry with this method when I was in Navy boot camp, so many years ago. We did use a metal bucket, and had a concrete stand to work on. I remember getting our white hats as white as possible was the holy grail of our existence for those 6 weeks of training. Still remember we used Wisk liquid detergent to scrub them. We hand to hang our cloths on a line with them tied to the line with a square knot and spaced so that the knots of two adjacent pieces of clothing would touch. Drill sergeants would come around to see if they could find any “granny knots”. If they did they read your name which was stenciled on the clothing and punished you. It was all part of the heavy discipline to see who was going to wig out under stress so they could weed you out before putting too much time and training into an individual or so that they could correct “bad habits”.

Next day my sister in laws took us to Pakchong which is about 15 miles from our house to a very unique restaurant set up by a Thai man who had travelled the world and especially American. His restaurant is a private museum of American life with things dating back into the 19th century. The owner seems to have been very interested in Norma Jean Baker, red flyer wagons and just about all other cultural icons of American life. He had one of the biggest Pez dispensers collections I had ever seen. Besides being an interesting place to see they have excellent food and the restaurant is located along a quiet creek, with some of the seating very near the water.

After lunch we headed home and Prasanee decided that we would stop to see the white Buddha on the hill. There is a Buddhist temple located about 9 miles from my house with a large white Buddha statue on the side of the mountain. The temple grounds are very quiet and peaceful.

Well that is just about it. Of course many things did not get covered. We took a day trip to Khaio Yai National park near our house and went to the waterfalls. You can see the pictures in the next blog where I posted all my pictures in full resolution. There are some interesting pictures of a standing bronze Buddha I noticed as we were travelling down the road.