A Broken foot in Thailand & back on the road in JAPAN!

Waiting for the broken foot to heal was a painful process. Though in many ways if I were to break a bone on this trip the timing couldn’t have been better.  I took the bus to Chanterburi, eastern Thailand and spent a week hobbling around at my friend Steve’s house/restaurant. Steve was a fireman with me when I worked at  Canterbury before transferring to London. Though unlike many of the fireman I see, who retire to work 6 days a week painting people’s houses/driving lorries or spend the rest of their lives vegetated in grim south east London cafes whilst trying to relive the fire brigade and eating themselves towards a heart attack, Steve chose the Sun. He had build himself a wonderful house come restaurant virtually on the beach in a small local village called Lem Sing. 

Some good grub with Steve and his wife Mem

After leaving Steve Betsy came to visit from London and we hit the Islands in the south of Thailand on the Andaman coast. Despite being extremely touristy they are incredibly beautiful. The first we visited was Pipi. One of the most famous and smallest of the islands where no cars or motorbikes are allowed. The tiny streets on the island were congested with human beings and littered with bars and street stalls selling alcohol out of buckets. One  of the bars had a Thai boxing ring where it was advertised that you could "have a go for  fun and protection would be provided".

More often than not the result was a complete tear up.Often  a westerner who claimed to have no experience but  obviously trained at boxing/kickboxing or an Irish Gypsy would beat the shit out of an innocent naive drunken tourist who wrongly thought it would be a bit of fun! Pipi was a good spectacle for a few days but I soon decided it would be better to go to a more chill island where I could rent a moped to use as my own personal motorized wheelchair. We went to Ko Lanta and I booked the place with the largest pool I could find. Betsy had brought me an aqua sock off ebay which was meant for swimming, and by this point with so much time without exercise I was starting to go a bit crazy.

Beach somewhere on Ko Lanta

From Pipi we had a few days in a town called Ao Nang before returning back to Bangkok. Ao nang was a nice enough place with some great beaches nearby I was keen to enjoy. After being such a spectacle riding through India I was looking forward to blending in with the rest of society for a brief while. A beach holiday would have been the perfect answer...... though riding a moped to the beach with a foot in a cast and having to put a giant blue condom over my leg so that  I could swim prevented me from doing this. The lack of balance from having a broken foot left me quite vulnerable and I also managed to bash up my toe on my good foot, which bled for days and started hurting more than the broken one. On top of that, the aqua sock wasn't as aqua proof as it was designed to be - or it was perhaps because I tried to do a one legged dive off the side of the snorkeling boat. I felt like I had two wooden legs and my broken foot was beginning to itch like crazy with all the salt water and sand which had become wedged between my leg and the cast. The stench coming from it was the least of my concerns - the doc did say DO NOT GET IT WET! There was only one option, a self operation.

 I bought myself a bottle of red wine and set about trying to remove the fiberglass cast - which felt as solid as concrete. My choice of tools for the procedure were a pair of nail clippers I had bought in Bangladesh and a house key to be used as a saw. It took me around 3 hours to remove the cast as I slowly made incisions with the nail clippers and ripped away at the cast with my hands. I thought that my foot would be completely fine as i was able to walk in the cast without the strap on sandal they had given me, though I guess the cast takes more weight off the injury that you realise.

I had taken the cast off well before the doctors earliest recommenced removal date and as I finally removed it I was somewhat hesitant to stand up on my newly revealed foot. I slowly put my weight onto it and it felt very fragile and tender! The swelling and bruising had gone.......... though only to be replaced with infected saws from the wetness and rubbing! Though it did feel awesome to set my foot free. It still hurts a bit now but seems to be getting better everyday.

Coincidentally the only other bone I’ve managed to break is also my 5^th metatarsal, thought on the other foot. I also broke it running, though by putting my foot in a drain running home from work. The so called “bad news” from the NHS doctor was actually a blessing as they put my foot in a walk –a – boot, which unlike my cast on this trip, meant I could walk quite well and cycle perfectly. The doc signed me off work for 2 months in the middle of summer. I immediately set off riding to Spain. On reaching San Sebastian I had a phone call from my watch manager at the time, Ivan, who had been mad with me ever since I got on the wrong fire engine for a fire call. I am probably the only fireman capable of doing this and have long had a reputation for living in the clouds. He presumed I was in bed or hiding somewhere and went nuts trying to find me, after abandoning the search he arrived at the fire late only to find his favourite fireman on the branch (hose) saving the day wearing the most ridiculous pair of goggles following lazer eye surgery, he was not a happy man! I’m going off on a massive tangent here, anyway, Ivan called me on my mobile, and angrily asked, “Simon, where the flip are you?! (Clearly it wasn't flip but my mum doesn't like my language on this blog and told me off) You’ve missed your flipping medical!!!” I have no idea why the brigade would want to give me a medical when I had a broken foot. Though neither was there anything in brigade policy that said you couldn’t cycle to Spain while on sick pay with a broken foot! 

I arrived at Bangkok airport on the 24^th March for my flight to Osaka, Japan. There are actually 2 airports In Bangkok, luckily I checked that morning and realised that I was flying from the old manky low cost one. Flying with a bicycle is never easy but this airport was particularly problematic. The lady at the check-in desk asked me for proof of onward travel out of Japan. I didn’t have any. Though I did have proof of flights booked from Sydney to Hawaii and Hawaii to Alaska. I didn’t want to book the Japan – Sydney leg yet as I had no idea where I was going to cycle to or when I would arrive. She told me I would not be able to fly and they would issue me a refund. I unsuccessfully tried to argue my point, why the hell would I book flights to Hawaii and Alaska if I didn’t intend to go there, which I thought was a good point. She out rightly refused to let me fly without having proof.  This may sound a touch racist but I thought to myself....Jesus I’m from the UK not an economic refuge! In the end she had a word with her manager and I had to show them my online bank account to proof I had sufficient funds!?!

Next came the bicycle box, which I was somewhat rehearsed for. She asked how many pieces of luggage I had, I replied 2. – one bike and one carry on. There were actually 3, I hid one behind the bike box – I’ll explain later! She put the bike box on the scales and it weighed in at 24kg. The first 15kg cost 1400 baht, the remaining 9kg cost me 550 baht per kilo!! – 4950 so 6350 in total. That’s about 150 quid, my flight was only 200! I was told to go over to the excess baggage payment counter. In fact there were about 4 counters, almost as many as there were check-in counters. AirAsia were quite the experts in ripping everybody off. But It could have been way worse, I had hidden all the heavy goods such as my tent, cycle shoes etc in a pannier bag. After paying my fee I ripped open my bike box and stuffed it full with everything from the pannier bag before borrowing some tape from a different counter to reseal it and returned with my box and payment receipt to my original check in counter. Luckily they didn’t reweigh it, it would have cost another 100 quid! Another passenger at the excess baggage payment counter said she had paid 3 times the price of her ticket for her excess baggage!

I thought I couldn’t have hated Air Asia anymore when I went to order food on-board (nothing is free on the 5 hour flight) to discover there were no more hot meals on offer so I had to buy 2 overpriced pot noodles! The final dagger was the announcement made during the decent, “in an effort to *****load of bullshit***** we will be weighing carry on hand luggage on arrival and anyone carrying over 7kg will be charged.....” I couldn’t believe it! People sometimes call me tight but this was unbelievable! Anyone who had loaded up with cheap booze at duty free was in for a shock! I started putting layers and layers of clothes on in readiness, there was no way I was going to give these c***s another penny!

Waiting for me in arrivals was....(no, not a large breasted tall blond supermodel)...but one of my best childhood friends from school, Karl Hannaford. Karl had moved to Taiwan to learn Mandarin, met a Japanese bird and moved to Osaka. He had not been home since moving there 6.5 years ago.  Japan, immediately struck me as being completely different to anywhere else I’d ever been. Obviously I knew it had a reputation for being futuristic, but I was amazed how different the simplest things were. It was like the Brits doing things differently 100’s of years ago, like opting to drive on the left when everyone else drove on the right. Though in Japan everything seemed to make good sense. Doors open sideways not inwards to save space, food in restaurants is ordered on a touch screen computer as you enter and delivered to you on a conveyor belt – in the case of sushi, and the toilet...the toilet is f'ing genius.

“Have a go on the toilet!” Karl said to me shortly after entering his flat. I sat down to find the seat was self heating and already warm by the time I sat on it. As I flushed the toilet the water refilled the cistern into a bowl which enables you to wash your hands in the water for the next flush, saving energy. There is also an electronic control pad with a selection of buttons, I didn’t know what they were so decided to push one of them and find out. A plastic jet extended on a robotic arm out of nowhere and started spraying water into the air and on to my face!

It went all over the ceiling and door and I couldn’t stop it firing despite trying to stop it with my hand. “Karl!” I shouted, who came running over laughing his head off despite me drenching his bathroom. In fact karl is so incredibly laid back he wouldn’t have been angry had I covered the room in shit. The button I had pushed was one of the arse cleaning options, a spray of warm water, which I later discovered was extremely effective. What i thought was state of the art was in fact quite a basic japanese bog. The higher range models automatically opens the seat for you and plays relaxing music while you dump and gives you the option to clean your vagina, should you have one, or your arse.

Despite being extremely advanced much of Japan feels extremely retro, a time warp from the 1970s. Karl told me about the working culture which existed. Men work there arses of and demonstrating working stamina is an important part of culture. Sleeping at your desk is seen as a positive as it shows your working hard - i'll have to see if this excuse works at the fire station. They say that you are married to your company and working weekends and till the early hours is often expected.  Marriage was, and apparently still is a business relationship.  Often the man’s wage goes directly to the wife who allocates her husband a (often very small) salary. Because of this it is often not frowned up on for the husband to indulge in brothels.

Underground train in Osaka - carriage is obviously decades old but still in perfect condition - worthy of a transport museum!

Visiting the local park....dressing up as a cartoon character  for a photo shoot is apparently quite normal in Japan

On the subject of sex, what appeared to be quite disturbing was that Japan appeared to be a nation of Pedophiles! The girls which covered the magazines were of half naked women who looked like they should still be in school. I saw one middle aged bloke in a large black estate car with pictures of teenage girls from his favorite pop bands plastered all over it!...and a group of men in there 50s dancing erratically to a completely uncoordinated teenage pop band performing in the city centre. I later discovered the legal age to have sex in Japan was 13...no wonder such behavior appeared so acceptable! My friend Karl tells me that all of his female friends at some point have been subjected to a man with a strange fetish who has randomly pulled his penis out in public or started hugging them.

It seems to me that things have gone a little bit wrong somewhere! The younger generation are also apparently working so much that they aren't finding time for sex...and with no reproduction and an ageing economy Japan has been in a 20 year recession. More sex and less fetishes are surely whats needed!

I was anxious to hit the road but first needed some winter gear as Japan was very much still in winter and I had been using a 2 season sleeping bag (& Alaska was still - 20 at night!) Japanese people love image and spend 1000s kitting themselves out with the latest high-tech gear before even trying a new hobby for the first time. The cheapest winter sleeping bag I could find was 350 quid! Cheap used camping gear doesn't exist in

Japan....infact other than food, nothing is cheap in Japan! Then Karl recalled an old shop he had seen years ago. As soon as I saw it i knew it was right up my street. It was a gem. Old camping gear, some of it must have been there since the 70's, was hung up and thrown all over the place covered in cobwebs and dust, like a run down charity shop. He had just one down Japanese made sleeping bag in the shop window, completely bleached by the sun! I snapped it up for 120 quid and was good to go.

I persuaded Karl to join me for the first short leg on the road, a 30 mile cycle along the river to neighboring Kyoto. It was 25 degrees colder than Thailand, but 10 degrees made for some pleasant cycling conditions.

Kyoto

Kyoto is one of the most visited places in Japan as it wasn't bombed by the yanks. I found a cheap hostel and checked out a few temples. The hostel had a bath house attached, basically i naked spa. I gave it a go...and after taking a naked bath with an old Japanese bloke tried the "electric bath" out. It was a small cylinder shape bath tub with a glass circular screen which you have to climb into - it basically looks like a torture device from a Roger Moore era James Bond film. As i climbed in i thought i'd slipped a disc in my back.....but then realised it was the electric shocks been pulsed through by body!...at the point my right arm became paralyzed and i thought i was going to die i hopped out and called it a day.

I was itching to get back on the bike again properly, all that time off with a broken foot had sent me a bit mad and made me a bit soft, my plan was to head north into the mountains and cycle somewhere fucking freezing, camp to save money and toughen me up and give my lungs a proper burn out. Heading north i climbed over a small mountain, cycled along the side of the enormous Lake Biwa and then started climbing high into the mountains taking the smallest roads i could find. The first night i thought i had found the ideal camping spot, a perfect bit of grass just off a tiny track from the main road, it even had my own private Japanese gate. What i failed to observe was train line for the Japanese Bullet train was about 30 metres away!

Taking the small roads

Climbing higher each day i noticed the roadside electric temperature gauge dropping one degree at a time until the day time temperature was hovering around freezing. Nights were starting to get a bit brutal! My second camp was in the town of Gero just south of Takayama, I arrived in the pissing rain freezing cold and so decided to go directly to the local bath house (Onsen) before pitching my tent. This one was heated naturally from the underlying hot springs and at 350 yen -about 3 quid seemed pretty good value.

Bathhouse - Gero

Everyone squats on little plastic stools with there own shower hose and washes there body 10 times over before jumping in the hot wooden bath. Neither myself or Japanese men will win the worlds biggest willy competition and it wasn't a particularly intimidating place to be, the old boys seemed to like the fact i was embracing the local culture and seeing me in there, often coming over for a chat. Unfortunately the women's one was separate. When i left the onsen it was still raining, i pitched my tent on a bit of grass next to a flat block right by the river, by the time i woke up there was fresh snow on the surrounding mountainsides.

Takayama

Takayama

I spent half a day looking around Takayama, with its lovely old wooden houses and headed higher still. By now i was well into the snow level and snow was piled up metres high by the road side and I had climbed to 3000 metres. It had apparently been a very late winter, as by now the cherry blossom should have been in full bloom. I was keen to take the smallest mountain roads possible and had spotted a road on my map which would have taken me right over the top of Mt Norikura, the number 5, though when i arrived at the turn off it was well closed! Barricaded by a huge snow wall and completely in-passable.  I kept on heading uphill in the general direction of Mt Fuji and ended up passing several ski resorts,

one i popped into for lunch, the locals found it quite amusing to see a Westerner on the ski slopes with his bicycle! I eventually reached the top of the pass where the road flattened out and went through a massive tunnel and then immediately descended down and into a beautiful mountain town i have no idea the name of. When the sun was out it felt pretty warm, especially exerting constant energy cycling uphill, though you seen freeze your arse off when the clouds came in or descending downhill. Anyway, the town i got to was a dead end town! Other than the car only toll road - a tunnel right through the middle of the mountain, the only road out of there was the 158, which was a remote mountain pass. It was partially cleared at first so i  started making my way up it until it became completely snow covered. I realised it could be a long night but even if i had to walk i'd get there eventually! So i returned to the shop in town to stock up with food so I could last the night. I made another attempt once more up the snowy road........ but it terminated into a massive snow wall and became covered in feet of snow! It was well closed. The only other way out was the toll road which went through a 3km tunnel. The Japanese are very Germanic, rules are rules and there was no way i was going to be able to cycle through it. Very luckily i bumped into a couple of Japanese guys that had come up from Kyoto for the weekend and slept in there car to do some skiing. They bunged my bike in the boot, took a pic and drove me past the man at the barrier so i could continue on my way! 

Sun and Snow

The snowbound 158

Top of the pass - exiting tunnel before big downhill

One of the more interesting roads - my attempt up the closed 158

Lift pass the toll man from a friendly Japanese guy

A long decent followed some more climbs as a i passed through the city of Matsumoto, climbed yet another big mountain and from the top was amazed to look down onto the most beauiful lake just as the sun becan to set. It looked like an awesome place to camp and it was. I found a nice spot of grass next to the lake that wouldn't look out of place on a golf course and pitched up. It even had a public toilet nearby. It was one of the most beautiful places i've ever camped, despite me and my tent being frozen when i woke up at 5am.

Camping - Lake Suwa

Another day in the road brought me to the town of Kawaguchiko at the foot of mt Fuji. It was massively impressive to see it. I never thought a volcano could be so impressive. I spoiled myself and spent the night in a pod hostel and was rewarded with perfect blue skies the next morning.

ps i do realise ive just posted about 5 photos of the same mountain...but it deserves it!! As i left Fuji it remained in view on my right hand side for hours as i made my decent towards the coast and north into Tokyo. Temperatures rose rapidly as i lost altitude and by the time i hit the coast road heading into Tokyo i felt i was on the cote d'azur. The build up towards Tokyo went on for 50 miles of endless suburbia before hitting the big city...where I am right now getting fed up of writing this blog in an overpriced Starbucks with a hangover! In short i found myself smiling at big group of Japanse who were sitting getting pissed under the cherry blossom on the river bank, i was invited to join in and found myself eating Sushi and some strong Japanese liqour....a few hours later I was dressed up in a lions costume at 2am on the microphone in a Karaoke room!

Cote De Jap

Drinking under the Cherry Blossom followed by Karaoke 

Camping shop come hostel by night where i stayed - strange choice i know - where i had a massive row with the owner..long story!

Tokyo!

Tokyo - Massive!

Burma to Laos!!.............& an unexpected end to the Asian Adventure!!!

Burma was everything Bangladesh was not! Touching down at Yangon International airport I could have just as easily been in Terminal 5 Heathrow. A brand new super clean state of the art airport...it was hard to believe a few hours earlier I had been dropped off in a rickshaw at the tired looking Dhaka airport with my bike tied to the roof with a piece of string found on a scrap pile. I chucked my shrink wrapped package of bike components into the cab and headed for a hostel in the city centre.

With Burma's former political instability and oppressive military regime I was half expecting it to be something like the Congo. Instead it couldn't have been easier! For the most part it seemed a  super clean relatively modern country with good food, nice scenery and pleasant people. They would politely ask you just once whether you wanted a taxi etc and then always leave you in complete peace. After my travels in India and Bangladesh where i couldn't even take a roadside piss without a circle of people forming around me, this was a very welcome change!

My plan was initially to make a "b line" straight for Thailand, though i was quickly advised the main thing to see it Burma is Bagan, an ancient city of 2000 temples directly north of Yangon. A guidebook would have been useful. Since it was an 800 miles round trip in the wrong direction i decided to take an overnight bus there and back before setting off on my bike from Yangon. The must see in Bagan is sunrise. Its supposed to be spectacular, the hazy sunrise view of the temples has a backdrop of 100's of hot air balloons. I didn't see it. I did see the sunset though which was pretty impressive. The silence of the sunset was however  disrupted my 3 mad Chilean girls blasting out Latin music and mixing red and white wine. I was soon to join in. The following morning the girls invited me to go to the very plush "Famous Hotel" so we could use the swimming pool. It clearly wasn't that famous as there wasn't a single person at the hotel, bit it was definitely a nice place.. and the 3 good looking bikini clad girls was for me as impressive a view as the Bagan Sunrise might be, with the benefit being I didn't have to get up at 5am to see it. Equally as impressive was the maturity and table manners of the girls. They are the only people i know to top mine - their party trick being to squirt water elephant style in each others faces at the restaurant table.

Another interesting character I met in Myammar was a fellow traveller who called himself "Irondick". Irondick was a 24 year-old 6 and a half foot tall lump with a huge beard and was built like a brick shithouse. He looked a cross between a rugby player and cage fighter though had recently graduated from University and worked for a couple of years in banking to save cash to travel. He told me how I must travel to Changmai and how he had stayed there for over 2 weeks. Intrigued as to what was so great about Changmai Irondick went on to explain how he had developed yellow fever and what had kept him there so long was "Tinder". He told me about his daily success rate using this app, and how at one particular bar, where western men would arrange to meet local girls, how the girls would go from guy to guy showing a picture of the man's face on there phone to try and work out who it was they were supposed to be meeting. Irondick had difficulty explaining to his intrigued parents what was so fascinating about Changmai that had kept him there so long! You may have now guessed that the nickname  "Irondick" was due to his seemingly bullet proof nob which had enabled him to, quote, "shag internationally bareback for years without catching a single infection!". A very interesting character though probably one I would not introduce to my female friends! Irondick also has a blog, though unsuprisingly only for close friends. I'm sure it makes a very intriguing read ...........while he plays russian roulette with his dick and is still alive to tell his story.

"The Chilean Invasion"

"Swimmig pool at the Famous Hotel"

Temple at Bagan

Not sure of my exact route at this point i headed east to the Thai border, stopping off at a few touristy towns on the way. Myamar, the golden land, certainly holds true to its name. One town i passed through, Kyaiktiyo, had the famous "Golden Rock" - apparently the biggest pilgrimage sight in Burma. Another, Bago, had an enormous Buddah lying on his side - 55 metre long, and no it wasn't Silver. By far the nicest of these towns was a place called Hpa-an. A very laid back riveside town with some incredible moutain scenery that juts straight out of the flat surrounding landscape. You cant even pass a small village without finding an ornately decorated golden something or another..though usually a Buddah.  The roads towards the thai border were pretty descend and smoothly paved.

Hpa-an

This is not a waste paper bin on my head! An locally made cap (actually meant for women) which is extremely light and breathable.

Heading towards Thai Border

No points for guessing this is the "Golden Rock"!

Accommodation in the town of  Kin Pun, Myanmar - close to the Golden Rock

Buddhas in a cave - Hpa - an

Temples as far as the eye can see - Bagan

Lying Buddha - Bago

Roadside food always super healthy and plentiful - plates of greens (sometimes as many as 6) always placed around your meal in a circle

Football pitch with a backdrop

Crossing from Burma to Thailand was a very easy affair.I wish it had been that easy crossing overland into Burma from the India side!! Though I was somewhat selfishly relieved to hear that the unstable India-Myanmar overland border was definitely now closed - a couple of cyclists who had made there way there had just been refused entry and had to turn back around. Choosing to fly over the border from Bangladesh had been the right decision.  After passing through immigration on the Burma side  at the Mae Sot border crossing, I cycled over the Moei River which separates the 2 nations, Midway across the bridge the traffic crossed from the right to left side of the road. (Though strangely most cars in Myanmar are right hand drive despite driving on the right - taxi drivers with there increased ability to pick up fares being the biggest beneficiaries) On reaching the Thai side of immigration I was given a 30 day long visa with the option to leave the country and re-enter with a 30 day extension on 2 occasions....and was free to go!

Thailand! - Immigration just a few metres behind me

If Myanmar was a big step up in comfort level after India then Thailand was a huge leap. I've only visited the country once before. That was 12 years ago as a 22 year old backpacker getting drunk at full moon parties. I couldn't believe how wealthy the country now felt. I spent the night in the border town of Mae Sot. My hostel had luxury Japanese pod style double beds and designer polished concrete finishes in the bathrooms. Many of the restaurants and coffee shops in town were more creative and trendy than back home in London - beating Shorditch at there own game....minus the extortionate prices! One of the coffee shops I stopped in for an iced cappucino had water redirected from the neighbouring hot spring to form a foot bath so you could relax your feet in spring water whilst drinking your coffee.Ingenious!....although admittedly for me I'd rather it came from an ice cold waterfall to cool me down rather than cook my feet.

Iced Cappucino and a foot bath

Another big benefit of being in Thailand is  awareness of the term "hygiene". Because of this Thankfully I can now eat meat and haven't had the shits since arriving. My colleagues at the fire station can no longer accuse me of looking like an **** victim.

From Mae Sot I headed east towards the city of Tak (which it wasn't - though neither was there much to do there) before heading north to Chang Mai. I had now made the decision I would head for Laos, a country I've never been to before. You may notice that my blog has become a lot more brief of late, that is partly because amongst many other things I have now broken my computer - half the keys don't work! - Partly because much less crazy stuff is happening here in south east Asia - which means I can take a poo by the road without a circle of spectators...and partly because my memory is so bad I can't remember exactly what happened! - I am now in an old school cyber cafe trying to remember the events of 3 weeks ago!

Anyway, wrongly assuming the whole of Thailand was flat the roads heading north towards Chang Mai were extremely hilly, so much so that I recorded my top speed of 46 mph descending one of the hills.  At which point wishing that my helmet, which has been in my pannier bag since December, was now on my head. Chang Mai, Thailand's second largest city was very pleasant and chilled out. Apparently the council were desperate not to have a repeat of the drunken drug fuelled Thai party islands (Ko Samui / Ko phangan) so curfews are in place to prevent that. I still managed to get myself into mischief though - exercising everyday and not drinking for several months meant I was pretty  hammered after just a couple of drinks, several drinks later I found myself in a snooker hall/illegal after hours drinking establishment and doing other things that may not be appropriate to write about in my blog!

A basic room in a small town I have no idea the name of - somewhere on the 106 Road to Chang Mai. Basic but for 4 quid i couldn't complain!!

Chang Mai

Shopping mall Chang Mai

The next morning, whilst feeling pretty worse for wear, a young french lad over 10 years my junior asked me if I wanted to "Hire motocross bikes and take them on some trails in the mountain then go bungee jumping". Keen to continue my routine of saying yes to everything and embrace being in backpacker land, I said "Yes". The young frog was clearly an experienced motocross rider and after pulling a wheelie at at every traffic light, slipped the back end of his bike out 90 degrees and started flying full speed down a dirt track, bike leaping in the air at every bump/jump he came across. Riding a motorbike around the streets of London was obviously not adequate training for motor crossing and, whilst trying to keep pace with the young frog I dropped my bike down a hill and snapped the clutch lever clean off.

Bungee jumping is something I've not really thought much about doing before. I've always liked doing dangerous things, but those that involve your own skill to keep you safe as opposed to relying on other peoples. I had been told that the bungee jump we were going to was over water. I therefore said to myself that I would treat it as a high board dive, making it irrelevant how badly the rope was tied around my ankles! Arriving at the Bungee jump site I realised the piece of water we were diving towards was not the sea or a lake but something the size of the school fish pond. There was also nobody else there! I elected to go first, the lad working there took a whole 5 seconds to attach the rope to my feet and I was whisked up into the air on a cable lift to the top of the jumping platform. Without over thinking it I dived off the side into what now looked the size of a bath tub. Despite shitting myself I managed to do a near perfect swan dive and was congratulated for doing so. In all honesty I'll put this down more to freezing into position than gymnastic skill!

A day or so later I got back on my bike and started making my way east towards Laos via ChangRai. Nearing the Laos border the roads became increasingly hilly before the road tracked alongside the Mekong River, the piece of water which separates the two countries. On reaching the "friendship bridge" border crossing, I looked ahead into Laos and in the near distance was a wall of mountains. The border could not be cycled across and I had to put my bicycle on the back of a coach for the 100 metre trip over Mekong Bridge Crossing.

Laos!!

Laos immediately felt far less developed than Thailand and as suspected, was extremely mountainous to ride.  The first major town I headed for was Luang Prabang. A popular destination set on the Mekong river 475 km from the Huay Xae border, though only 60 miles as the crow flies! Setting off from Huay xai the road initially headed north east towards China before I made a right turn at  Nautuey (a stones throw from China) and started heading south towards the sizable city of Muang Xai. Looking at the map there couldn't have been a more indirect way of building a road between the 2 places, though  I guess with a lot of mountains and lack of money roads can't always go directly from A to B. What was also a struggle was that both the road numbers and names of places were completely different on my map to in reality. I had picked the road to Muang Xai based on the fact that it was the only place I could find on my map with the letter "X" in it, luckily I was right!! At times using a paper map didn't feel so clever.

No saying "No" to this guy!!

Cycling Laos was pretty awesome, although the roads were pretty poor at times they twisted through spectacular mountain scenery and remote villages with relentless climbs followed immediately by descents and back into the next climb again. 5 km up, 5 down, 10km up, 10 down...30km up............On stopping for food at the little wooden shacks which littered the main roads the locals would often light a fire with wood to cook me up some grub.

 My first day on the road was pretty exhausting as I cycled some serious mountain roads until around 5pm, unable to find any sort of guest house and with nightfall looming I decided to get some dinner at a restaurant by the roadside and then look for a place to camp. As I arrived at the restaurant a drunken local came immediately over to introduce himself. He spoke no English but knew how to drink beer....and how to fill my glass up. I don't like beer at the best of times, though when your sitting a restaurant with a man completely adamant your going to drink with him you don't have that much choice! Being completely dehydrated didn't help matters! My camp site was in a neighbouring families back garden, they were extremely friendly and helped me to pitch the tent - after a few beers I needed it. It  sounds mad but I often prefer to be in the mountains reading my book in the tent than in a hotel, no matter the cost!...well I might not say that about camping in India, but in Laos it was very pleasant!

I liked the way Laos appeared to be completely lawless, many vehicles had no number plates, kids sat on top of or hanged off the back of the school buses and it was not uncommon to see children less than 10 driving mopeds - often bare foot. I felt very much at home. There was also a huge lack of Police presence. And despite all of this everything seemed to work and reported crime was almost non existent. One rape in a whole year country wide apparently! Its probably more like one a week back in Brixton! People seemed to have a good sense of humour and would line up to give you a high 5 as you were flying down the hills. Some slapped your hand as hard as they could and gave you a real stinger! What was bizarre to see was newly erected Chinese work camps with huge billboards and Chinese script, some showing off China's wealth and infrastructure. Just north of Luang Prabang a dam/hydroelectric power station was being build on the Mekong River. I'm sure they're were a few back handers being paid out on that one. Apparently all the electricity goes back to China! I couldn't help but think that the country and ecosystem was getting a very raw deal and a few people very rich on that one.

Another thing I liked was that it was both cheap and easy to eat healthy food. Doing long distance cycling in the past i've often reached out  for high sugar processed foods when I hungry/lacking energy. In Laos (like most of SE Asia) everything is cooked fresh with raw ingredients and lots of vegetables. I have leaned to discipline myself enough to exchange chocolate for vegetables and feel a lot better and more energetic for it, and the sugar craving has also massively reduced. Fresh milk is hard to source in Laos but you can easily get hold of Soy Milk, I thought I was doing myself a favour by drinking it, until someone told me it will kill my sperm and make me produce tits. Maybe back to the cows stuff. Below is a pic of one of my breakfasts...sticky rice,a  boiled egg, a lump of chicken, a whole fish from the Mekong on a stick and a coconut to drink. Since getting used to stomach such a breakfast (its a bit heavier than a bowl of cornflakes) I have been thriving off it!

3 and half days and 475 km of riding up and down mountains brought me from the border town of Luang Prabang. A beautiful yet very touristy city next to the Mekong. It was amazing how remote and isolated the roads had felt yet arriving in Luang Prabang was traveler/backpacker central. In an effort to keep the city nice (and in a similar way to Chang Mai) curfews had been put in place. The only drinking hole was a bar called Utopia. It closed early at around 11pm from where everyone took tuk-tuks to a bowling alley literally in the middle of nowhere, and got smashed until the early hours. It was a bizarre spectacle.

Breakfast on the road

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang - Nam Khan River - it joins the Mekong

Waterfall near Luang Prabang

The road from Luang Prabang to my next stop Vang Vieng was all up hill. Literally the whole day -  with just occasional short downhill sections. After 80 miles on the road on a normal day I would have reached my destination with hours to spare before nightfall, but with it being all uphill I was soon to find myself cycling in pitch black. The town I was heading for was called PhouKhoun, a remote town on top of a mountain which is the crossroads where the road heads east for Pak Mong (yes, strange name I thought too) or south towads Vang Vieng and the capital Vientiane.  As the sunset the mountain scenery and light was spectacular, though cycling in complete darkness is never as much fun. Normally I can see the lights of the place I'm cycling towards as night falls, but on twisty steep mountain roads there was none of that. Feeling pretty exhausted I spotted a stone "mile marker" by the side of the road. I got off my bike and went over to shine my torch on it, it was thankfully signposted to Phounkhoun, though the KM distance was overgrown by weeds. I pulled them out with my hand to uncover the remaining distance was "1 KM". That was a good feeling.

On arrival and in serious need of a feed I went to the first restaurant I could find, and was extremely surprised to find another western traveller there. A young Ozzy lad who had hired a moped, lashed his backpack to the seat and tried to ride it 500km per day. He was like a young Mick Dundee with a machete that was almost 2 foot long strapped to his belt. His clothes were covered in dirt and holes, apparently from a crash a few days ago where he awoke from being knocked out in a hospital with concussion. His other tales included getting in a fight with a local gay guy. He had asked the young Ozzy to save money by sharing a room, after politely agreeing he then repeatedly offered massages....and later tried to steal his money in the night. I have to say he probably deserved that one!

Setting sun on the climb up towards Phou Khoun

Trusty old distance marker

A young Mick Dundee

It had been a real shame in many ways to climb the mountain at night as I had been told it was some of the most spectacular scenery in the whole of Laos. I was really looking forward to waking up the next morning and seeing the view and an exhilarating decent. Instead I awoke to some of the thickest cloud cover I have ever experienced. I had climbed to a town completely submerged in the cloud layer and had to creep down the mountain with hands on both brakes at snail speed, barely being able to see the road ahead, until all of a sudden I dropped out of the cloud layer and could see for miles! The remaining stretch of road to Vang Vieng was a 100km half day downhill cruise. On this road In the distance ahead was what I  thought was a tramp pushing a bicycle. I could smell the stench of him from metres back. He was a man named "Edgar" from Portugal, and I have to say he fucking stank! Edgar had bought a woman's single speed bicycle from China for the equivalent of 20 quid and had been walking/cycling ever since. He told me, with a grin on his face how he had spend a month in a Chinese jail for entering the country illegally (he needed a bank account to apply for a visa - which he did not have). He spoke highly of there hospitality, how he enjoyed the food in jail and laughed about how fellow prisoners would watch him shower and try to touch him. I later bumped into Edgar again, in both Vang Vieng and Vientiane, despite his slow speeds (later I'll explain why). Edgar was previously living on one of the Spanish Islands, on asking what he did for a living, he replied, "Oh no, i don't need money, I live in the forest and eat fish". On this trip he didn't even have a tent and just slept outdoors. He made me feel that I was travelling in luxury! A lot of travellers I met dangle all sorts of beads and locally made jewellery around there neck pretending to be some sort of free spirit, Edgar was the real deal.

Edgar!!! - Vang Vieng

Descending from Phoukhoun in serious mountain cloud

Dropping out the cloud layer into the most spectacular mountain scenery

Incredible Geography nearing Luang Prabang

Vang Vieng was 100 percent a backpacker party town. No other words for it! Many of the bars had 2 hour windows where you could drink for free...and as long as you moved from bar to bar at the right time it was easily possible to drink the whole night without spending a penny. I was quite mythed when I met travellers my age who kept saying, "its not my scene, its not for me, I want to see the real south east Asia". Why they had chosen to come to one of the biggest backpacker party towns was beyond me! I too also like riding my bike through weird and wonderful countries..and am definitely not a big drinker...though right now It was time to embrace where I was and go on the piss...which I indirectly learnt to regret!

Following my cheap night out on the town I woke up not feeling as fresh as normal! When your body is so clean from cycling 100s of miles per week it doesn't take well to alcohol. That evening I went for a run to sweat out some of the toxins. Running in Lycra in a town of pissed backpackers felt slightly odd so i headed for the country lanes on the edge of town. It was a poor decision. Running along at pace, no sooner had I started to get a sweat on was I yelling out by the side of the road in agony after going right over on my ankle - where the roads edge dropped away. It hurt. I tried hopping back though was getting nowhere so flagged down a passing motorbike and hitched a lift back into town. I'm not used to breaking bones so presumed I'd just sprained in, though I could put no weight on it whatsoever and the swelling did not look good! I thought it best to rock up at the prehistoric looking Vang Vieng hospital the next morning. I was quickly put into a wheel chair and whisked away to the cashiers desk to pay for an x-ray..the doctor confirmed the brake and I was once again pushed to the cashiers desk, this time to pay for my bandages for a plaster cast.

This part of my trip definitely wasn't planned! I was left extremely immobile and with a big dilemma on my hands as to what to do next! Though there had to be a positive in it somewhere! I stayed in town the next few days thinking about my next move. Unable to walk and with no crutches I cycled around town with one foot as much as I could, though it was pretty uncomfortable and awkward to say the least! It did however make me a minor local celebrity. I was also able to use my dry bag for the first time - I haven't seen rain since leaving England! It fitted over my cast perfectly enabling me to do tubing - basically floating down the river on a blow up ring. Tubing in Vang Vieng had become quite infamous as the tubing route was littered with bars selling hard drinks, mushrooms and other drugs. However,  over the past few years they're had been an average of 20 deaths per year from intoxicated/high backpackers who had drowned. Due to this only 2 bars were allowed to remain on the tubing route. 

Determined to leave the alcohol fuelled Vang Vieng I finally (and it took a while!) found a bus company prepared to take my bicycle. They charged me double for the 100 mile trip down to the capital, Vientiane where, just before going to bed, I concocted a new plan, which I booked the flights for the following morning. I had enjoyed the trip so far immensely though was a bit pissed off how disjointed the trip had been. I started in Delhi, India, cycled through India, Nepal and Bangladesh and was then forced to fly over the border to Burma, cycled out of Burma across Thailand and into Laos where the pedalling panther was pedalling no more! It may sound strange but I like to look at a map, draw a line on it where I've been and realise I've cycled the whole lot!

I woke up that morning and sporadically booked the flight to Alaska. I will arrive on the 22nd April and have now committed myself to cycling the whole of the America's right down to the southern tip of Argentina - (Anchorage, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina). I believe its 16,000 miles. In the meantime while the foot recovers I will visit friends, in particular my friend Steve a fireman from Canterbury who has retired in East Thailand, an old school friend, Karl who now live in Osaka, Japan and Matt and Gill who live in Sydney. My other idea was to fly to Kazakhstan and cycle back to London, though I was put off by the complexity of getting visas in that part of the world. That one is for another time. Now I figure its time to leave the Asian world and start afresh in Alaska for the big ride down! The timing seems to work out well, as Alaska is in deep freeze until the snow melts in April. As I work my way south i hope to hit Canada and the US in spring/summer and as I hit the remote regions deep south in Argentina/Chile (hopefully by November) it should also becoming towards Spring Summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Something like this anyway - apart from I'm not Italian and won't be on motorbike!!

I was pleasantly surprised that all 4 flights:

Bangkok - Osaka 
Osaka - Sydney 
Sydney - Honolulu (all flights from Sydney to Anchorage, Alaska go via Hawaii! - not a bad place to stopover for a few days)
& Honolulu - Anchorage, Alaska 

were £200 each! I thought the Australia to Alaska part would be 4 times that price!

I have now had my old school plaster cast exchanged for a fibreglass one by a very proficient Thai doctor, who was able to confirm to me exactly what I had broken and the best cause of action. Currently I am staying with my good friend Steve in eastern Thailand, a fireman who got retirement right and opened a bar/restaurant on the beach! Between now and getting back on the bike, its not something I'm at all good at in life, but its time to learn how to chill out!!!

Vang Vieng, Loas - end of the Asian road!