Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Stormy Travels in Southern Thailand
Sawadti Khap Phreds,
I’m sensing a pattern
developing.
The first stage of the tour
began with a month of rainy weather and a cluster of equipment failures. This
stage began the same way but, hopefully, all that is in the past now.
I suppose I should not have
been too surprised that there was more or less rain every day for 18 days,
going back into Malaysia. When you look up the climate for “Thailand” in travel
guides it usually says that October to April is the “cooler, dry season,” with
clear skies and little rain. However, this
completely ignores the long, narrow “tail” of the country, which extends down
through the Gulf of Thailand to the border with Malaysia. That part of Thailand
has a climate more in common with its southern neighbor than with the rest of
the country. So the northeastern monsoon, which is in fine form right now,
produces considerable precipitation in that part of the country. After all,
monsoons don’t recognize arbitrary national borders. The rain was sometimes
just for an hour or two a day, though it was occasionally heavy. Overall, it
did not slow my progress very much though it did cause me to stay inside
overnight once or twice instead of free camping. With fairly warm temperatures
still prevailing, I continued to not make much of an attempt to stay dry, and
so was wet most of the time for a few weeks. That’s life.
The recent group of
equipment failures is not life, however, or at least it shouldn’t be. Mostly it
was little things like my led flashlight, and a few zippers. More annoying was my tent poles breaking AGAIN, and an unfortunate bit of
damage to the bike that was very untimely, incredibly frustrating, somewhat
embarrassing, potentially costly, and at least to a certain degree, my own
stupid fault. Consequently, I don’t feel like talking about that right now.
That, and all the other things, are more or less fixed or otherwise taken care
of, and I’m moving well again. There will be some effect on my future
itinerary, but I think I will try and turn that to my advantage. We’ll see.
From a practical and
logistical standpoint, everything continued to be quite easy during this
section. The roads were good, though almost universally carried much more
traffic than I would have preferred. Food was readily available, with
restaurants and food stalls almost always being the best of the tour so far,
though the small stores and mini-marts were slightly less well-stocked than in
Malaysia. Costs continued to be pleasantly low, and with reasonably nice rooms
usually costing around US$ 10.00 per night, staying indoors to avoid the rain
has had little effect on my budget.
The only really challenging
aspect of Asia so far has been getting my laundry taken care off. I have never
been one who has had any desire whatsoever to hand wash everything in the sink,
as that is a chore I really dislike. In Australia, most hotels had a guest
laundry that was sometimes free, and there were also Laundromats in larger
towns, though I never needed one. In Asia those are nonexistent or rare, and if
a hotel has a laundry service it’s slow and expensive, taking a full day or
more, and perhaps costing US$20.00 or more. The popular tourist destinations
have more affordable services, but they are still rather slow, however I have
not been at the right place at the right time to take advantage of those. So
far I have managed fairly well, but during the rainy times, I was often
completely out of clean dry clothes.
The only other slightly
difficult aspect of this section was language.
English is the most common western language used, but I found very few
people who could understand any of it, certainly less than in Malaysia. Then, of course, there is the unique Thai
alphabet. I have toured through several places where I did not understand the
local language, but this is the first time I have ever been somewhere that did
not use the Roman alphabet, I have to say that I found this rather bamboozling.
Usually I try to pick up a few words in the local language from road and shop
signs. Not this time, however. Fortunately, most of the really important road
signs also had a smaller English translation below the Thai. Thai is a rather
attractive script, however.
So then,
about the ride through this section.
My original plan was to cross the Malaysian border at the western side of the
Isthmus of Kra, in order to avoid the 4 small
provinces in southwestern Thailand where a rebellion has been escalating in
intensity in recent years. Then I was going to cross back over to the east cost
and follow the coastline north to the vicinity of Bangkok. I can’t really remember
why I originally chose that route, probably because I usually like coastal
riding. Then the Dec. 26th tsunami hit the west coast of southern
Thailand, and I thought that it was a good thing that I chose that route.
However, while in Singapore, I was talking to someone from Phuket,
the hard-hit resort island, and I was told that everything was back to normal.
So I began to feel a desire to see that area and then modified my route
accordingly.
The westernmost border
crossing, from Kaki Burkit Malaysia into Thailand in
the vicinity of Satun, must be one of the smallest
and quietest in the area. Indeed the road on either side of the border was one
of the few really quiet ones in recent days. Consequently, the crossing
formalities were rather quick and painless. I could sense a slight, but
distinct, change as I crossed the border, with buildings appearing slightly
more Asian in design, more traditional markets in the towns, and, of course,
the unusual road signs.
From there I went straight
up the west coast and then took a ferry across the bay to Phuket.
Traffic was surprisingly heavy in that area. I was quite surprised by Phuket. First of all, the town of Phuket
is surprisingly large and urban, and lies on the eastern side of the island,
several kilometers from the ocean. So it was not directly affected at all by
the tsunami, apart from having to deal with the large numbers who were
displaced from the coast. This was not quite what I expected based on the media
coverage of the disaster. I stayed there for a couple of days, in one of the
more luxurious places since I left Singapore. Even though the weather was not
too great, I did head out to the beach one afternoon, and as I was told there
was not the slightest indication that anything had gone wrong there at all. If
you did not know it, you would not have believed that many lost their lives
there. There are now “Tsunami Evacuation Route” signs in the area, which I
presumed were recent additions. Phuket is heavily
built-up and busy, and not quite the sleepy seaside resort that the news
indicated. The resorts were full of western tourists, many from Europe, and I
must say that they didn’t really put a pleasing face on western society. I they
had to run for their lives from another tsunami, I don’t think many would get
very far.
After Phuket,
my route headed north, passing through the smaller tourist town of Khao Lak, where there was a
considerable amount of construction going on. I assumed that this was a result
of the wave and that the smaller towns were only now getting rebuilt. In a
couple of days, I curved back over to the east coast and continued north. It
was fairly crowded there as well, however from Chumphon
to the north of Bang Saphan, there were a series of
small, quiet roads along the coast that were the only really nice backroads of
this section. The next rest break was at Bang Saphan
though with the weather and the longer than expected route along those
backroads, which were not marked on my map, I could only take a half day there
instead of a full day.
From there I continued
north along busy Highway 4, the only through-route along the narrowest part of
the country. The next stop was at Phetchaburi, and I
rode hard one evening to be able to spend two nights in that interesting town,
For once that meant I ended up in the right place at the right time. In
the evening after I arrived I was walking around the town for food and to check
out the local services, and I ran right into the big celebration for the King’s
Birthday holiday. That was fun, there were big candles lit along the main
street and the crowds gathered in the street mostly wore yellow, the royal
color, and held candles as well. Someone gave one to me just before the crowd
sang a few songs which, fortunately, did not include “Happy Birthday.” After
that there were a few fireworks and some performances by traditional Thai
dancers. The following day I went to visit some of the towns
famous temples and the summer palace of a former king, but since I spent too
much time on the ‘Net and doing a few chores in the morning, I had to rush
through those.
Continuing north, the
traffic really increased as I neared Bangkok. With its famous congestion, I had
no plans to go there at all, and hoped to avoid the worst of it by swinging
around the city to the west and north. The effect of the city extended as much
as a couple of hundred kms around the center. That meant a couple of days of “just get
through this area” until I reached my next stop, Ayutthaya,
which was nice for two reasons.
First, it is where I
finally broke free of the monsoons and officially entered the Dry Season. More
importantly, it is an important historic town. Ayutthaya
was the capital of Thailand, or Siam as it was called years ago, for hundreds
of years. At its height it was home to maybe a million people who lived along
canals, like old Mexico City or Venice, and contained many spectacular brick
and stucco temples and other buildings. However, the city was invaded and
completely destroyed by the Burmese in the 1780’s, and was then abandoned.
Eventually, a modern town grew up amongst the ruins and it is easy to explore
the ruins of the old city, which are spread all through the modern town.
Unfortunately, this was where I had the really annoying bike problem that I
don’t feel like discussing right now, so I had to spend an extra day there.
The last part of this
section was a turn to the east and a visit to Khao Yai National Park, which has aided my goal of visiting as
many World Heritage Sites as possible, by being added to the list just this
year. It was a very nice ride up into the hills of the park, and though I
didn’t get to see one of the four species of giant Hornbill birds that inhabit
the park, one of my main desires, I did see a truly interesting first for me.
Namely a group of wild elephants that were at a salt-lick on the roadside as I
rode back put of the park. Amazing. It was a group of
two or three cows, a few juvenile cows and bulls, and three small babies, one
of which was supposedly only 6 weeks old. Really Amazing.
That’s all for now, the
next country, Cambodia is up next, followed possibly by a major route change.
Kwap Khun Kap,
Mike
--
The Tour of
Gondwana
May 02005 -
Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Sat,
18 Feb 2006
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael
Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana
- Not much Time in Northern Thailand
Sawadi Kah Phreds,
With all of the delays,
re-routing, and rescheduling caused by my foray into
Laos, I had very little time left to comfortably tour through eastern and northern Thailand. Unfortunately, that meant skipping
most of eastern Thailand and some interesting sights
there. I had most of six days available to reach Chiang
Mai in time for my evening flight out of Thailand.
Flying for any reason is a disappointing event on my tour, and having to rush to catch the plane is even more upsetting.
However, worst of all was that this flight was
necessitated not by geography, but by politics. That
is a subject for the next post, though. Six days would be just
barely enough to catch the plane and still visit the one place that I really did not want to miss.
Touring conditions were
just as they had been in the rest of Thailand, though
this time the weather was just right. The roads were good, though traffic was now back to its
higher, and speedier, levels. Food was now much more
readily available, though, unfortunately, I did not have
much desire to eat any of it.
At this point I was still
dealing with the effects of the bad food I ate in
Laos, and that really killed my appetite, and correspondingly, my energy levels. The terrain was gentle, however, and I
made reasonable progress on the first couple of
days. I did forget that it was a little harder to
find a decent camping spot in heavily-populated Thailand so I had a hard time on the first night. Eventually I located what seemed like a tolerable spot, but just as I finished setting up the
tent, a large barrage of fireworks shot up into the
sky about a kilometer away. That was kind of nice,
but after that, whatever event was going on over there changed
to a rousing evening of outdoor karaoke, with a sound system so powerful that it seemed as if I was right at the center
of the party. Listening
to hours of Thai karaoke, while one is trying to get some much needed sleep, is a fate about as bad as being forced to
listen to Vogon poetry. ;-)
The following day, still
with no appetite, I really began to slow down. Normally, with such a malady, I
generally prefer to let things run their course, if
you’ll pardon the pun. This time, that did not seem
to be working out too well, so when I reached town
of Phrae, the first place I had been in a while with a real pharmacy, I decided to
stay there and pick up some treatment. I only
mention this to point out how important it is to carefully
read labels in such a situation. The pharmacist originally pointed
me to the only item on the shelf for such a situation. I almost grabbed it and went on my way, but instead spent a few
confusing moments examining the Thai writing on the
package. Luckily, I flipped the box over and noticed
the English small print that said “Identical to
Imodium”. I have vowed
never to touch that particular medication again after I took some on my first Madagascar tour, with nearly calamitous
results. Instead, I asked for something else and was
offered some Norfloxacin,
which did the trick nicely, though it took about a
day and a half to take effect. So I spent another day off in Phrae sleeping, which was very unfortunate as I could have really used that day later on.
Eventually, I made it to
the one place on the route that I was unwilling to
bypass, the ruined city of Sukhotthai.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this was
the first capital city of a unified Thai kingdom, which
was known to the outside world as Siam. It only lasted around a hundred and fifty years, before the capital shifted to Ayutthaya, and then fell into disrepair. I had only a few hours to see the
city, which was just barely enough. It is a large
site, with many stupas,
temples and other building, mostly built of brick,
spread out among acres of pretty, treed parkland,
and reflected in several moats and ponds. Fortunately, while
the ruins are beautiful and impressive, they lack significant decorations or accessible interiors and so are best seen
from a short distance. That makes the site ideally
suited for a quick visit by bike. I would have liked
to stay longer, but at that point I was just glad I made it
at all.
Now, with absolutely no
breathing room left, I had a long stretch left to go
to catch my 9:00 PM flight. On the last day, I had just about enough time to reach the town of Lumphon, a decent-sized place just south of Chiang Mai. I paced myself so I would arrive there just
about at sunset, and then I thought I would grab a
taxi or tuk tuk to the airport which was also south of the city. I did my part and pulled into Lumphon with only a few minutes of daylight left, but it was just my luck
that I had chosen probably the only town in all of
Southeast Asia that does not have a single taxi. Not
one. After a several frantic minutes of trying to ask locals
if there was one available, I had no other choice but to ride the rest of the way to the airport myself. Based on the
location of the little airplane icon on the map, it did not look to be very
far, but it turned out to be over 50 km away. Sprinting that distance, through a strange country, in the dark, with a deadline,
and after an already long day of riding was
completely un-fun. The whole day’s ride turned out to be almost 220 km. Whew. Arriving for the
nine o’clock flight at 8:17,
I broke down the bike hastily, and checked in with literally one or two minutes to spare. Completely exhausted, I was nearly
done with Thailand, though with all the route
changes and rescheduling, my short flight now
involved an overnight layover in Bangkok. The KFC restaurant at BKK, which was still open in the early morning hours was a true sight for sore
eyes.
At this point, the Asian
stage has covered about 3,000 km more than I had originally
assumed it would have. This was mostly due to the addition of Laos, and a longer route through Malaysia. I had made the
latter change a several months before leaving home,
though I neglected to add the extra distance to my
estimated total. Ooops. So much for my leisurely stroll through Southeast Asia.
From Singapore to this
point has seen occasional encounters with other tourists,
most all of whom are also on fairly long tours. Holland seems to have been a popular homeland with a few separate pairs
hailing from there. There
were also two German men, and a few others from Europe. Three other Americans were each riding solo, one woman and two men.
The fellows were interesting cases, both novices.
One was a college-aged guy who was in China, and
decided to buy a cheap bike and head south. He had almost no gear, but seemed to be doing ok when I met him in Laos.
The other had just started in Chiang Mai the day
before I arrived there. He planned to do a lot of
Asia including China and the Himalayas, but also had a very light amount of gear. There was one unusually-shaped item, in a
very long and thin case. I asked what it was and was
told that it was a “camper’s guitar”. I wondered how long
it would be before that item was sent home in the
mail.
Then there was Cindie and Tim Travis. They are
the Americans who started out on tour four years ago
with the intention to tour the world on a shoestring
budget. Then they apparently decided to make the tour a permanent
lifestyle, and began seeking support from industry sponsors. Now they are pushing Miyata bikes and Rohloff internal hubs. Good for them, though I could never use that strategy as I’m probably the world’s worst salesman. I had,
rather frustratingly, seen their Web site years ago as I was
planning, and repeatedly postponing, my own tour (there is a link on my site), and it was a rather unbelievable coincidence to
meet them on the road, which I did just before
reaching Luang Pra Bang. They are an interesting pair.
That’s
all for now, up next; the reason for the obnoxious airline flight.
Khawp
Khun Kah,
Mike
--
The Tour of
Gondwana
May 02005 -
Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour