Thailand (For travel and country facts: Thailand)
MURRAY'S DIARY for the complete story.
THAILAND Part 2
It is 6:00 in the morning
and we are queuing for the ticket window of the Aranya Prathet railway station.
Three tickets to Bangkok and three tickets for the bicycles. Nobody seems to be
surprised by our request for bicycle tickets, so that looks promising. The
bicycles are more expensive, okay, they are a bit bigger. With some
one-two-three’s we push the bicycles into the train. Just as we have lifted
them up and pushed them all in the train, someone points with his hands that we
have to move the bicycles. We agree that one of them has to move away because it
is somewhat blocking the path. The train has started moving already and we take
a seat close to our luggage and bicycles. The seats in the 3rd class
of the train (the only seats available) were definitely made for Asian butts.
Where in Europe two persons would fit, it seems (according the Thai railways)
here you can fit three. And so we are placed with three European butts in 3 Thai
‘butt-spaces’. At various times dried squid and fried rice is sold around,
or freshly brought in by the tenders at the stations or from the tenders in the
train.
Nearly thirty minutes later
a man in a training suit tells us also that we have to move the bicycles. This
time it is clear where we must move them to: to the cargo wagon all the way at
the end of the train. Of course we have just taken a seat in the front wagon.
First we refuse but the man is very pushy and is clear enough for us to
understand that we need to move everything right now, while the train keeps on
moving and shaking from left to right. He appears to be the train manager and we
only shortly notice his uniform under the training jacket. So, here we go,
moving three bicycles and three times 4 panniers through seven passenger wagons.
"in the train" " Bangkok"
Cycling Bangkok
It is not impossible and if
you take the time it is quite a lot of fun. As long as you don’t doubt your
decisions and just place your bicycle in front of the car instead of cycling
besides them. Then adjust to car speed and keep on paddling. You’ll do just
fine. Here’s your first puzzle. How to get from the far left lane to the far
right lane within 200 meters before a roundabout, moving 4 lanes to the right,
taking the roundabout halfway and moving to the left lane again to exit? Oh,
forgotten to include in the puzzle instructions, the five lanes just before the
roundabout change to three lanes.
Bangkok has about 4,5
million inhabitants but no underground. Public transport is with buses or the
expensive sky-train that runs only a few lines. In the centre it is like rush
hour almost 24 hours a day. The main roads have about 5 lanes in each direction,
each lane just broad enough for one car. We have geared up our bicycles after
the train ride from the Cambodian border and are now cycling towards the
guesthouse area. Luckily we are well equipped with children sirens for on our
bicycle, they have a variety of sounds that are so loud that it makes only me
death. We arrive without damage and a heart rate of about 145 beats per minute,
but that’s normal for cycling in Bangkok.
Since we arrived midday on
Sunday we still have some time to visit the famous weekend market. We stroll
around the many, many stalls that sell everything one could ever imagine. Dolls,
shoes, sandals, plants, jewelleries, all sorts of rice, all sorts of protected
rare animals, dogs, etc. China town is alike but is located in many mini soy’s
(allies).
Bangkok feels like a milestone for us. This was our initial goal, cycling to Bangkok, and now we have 10 weeks left!! Bangkok is also the city where we catch up with the latest movies that are viewed in English here (three in three days isn’t so bad, is it), go get a decent haircut and where we have our Christmas dinner. Here we also meet Sonja and Josh again, two cyclist from England (actually she’s Dutch) we met in Laos and Cambodia and are heading back home (more or less). We have a nice seafood dinner with them and discuss the cycling experiences around South-east Asia.
"enough choise to eat"
(25/12/04) Today it’s Christmas!! Nothing reminds us
of Christmas, at least if you try to think away the ‘I am dreaming of a white
Christmas’ songs and the white snow in the shopping windows in the upper class
shops down town. None of the guesthouses organises anything like a Christmas
dinner and so we organise an enormous seafood plate ourselves...
For Christmas dinner we have lots of shrimps and a very
good barbecued Red Snapper which only costs 100 Baht ($2.5), where is the time
that you had to save money for your Christmas dinner with fish!?!?!? Calculate
the profit of a very good X-mas dinner in a sea food restaurant in Europe!
Butt tight to Khao Sok.
(26/12/04) We challenge the
Bangkok traffic back to the train station and take the train to Chumphon in
Southern Thailand. No one wants to cycle this part, there its flat, straight and
includes dense traffic. We throw our luggage through the window from the
platform into the train and Raymond moves our bicycles over to the cargo wagon
at the front side of the train. We planned to go diving at Koh Tao, but after
Raymond had the flew that René (someone
has to be blamed) brought over from The Netherlands, I am the next victim. So we
have to postpone our diving for at least a week, bad weather anyway at Koh Tao,
and continue to Surat Thani instead of Chumphon. We arrive in Surat Thani at
10:00 and we’re still stiff from the wooden seats of yesterday. Raymond is
already at the cargo wagon taking our bicycles off, while René hands over the 15 panniers through the window of the
train to me on the platform.
To satisfy our stomachs we decide to have a ‘small’ snack before we head off to Khao Sok National Park. During our Chinese snack, existing out of rice and vegetables we see dark clouds coming into our direction. At the time we are ready to pay the check its really pouring down like a local dam has been broken. Luckily after 15 minutes the rain stops and we hit the road, while the water on the road is evaporating by the shining sun and brings the humidity to an uncomfortable level for the next half-hour. After 70km cycling (at 16:00) the sky gets dark again and we hide in a bus passenger shelter in the small town of Phanom. The town is the ‘district’ town and should have some accommodation. While the dam is broken again and we weather gods try to repair it we are eating some krupuk on the benches next to the waiting bus passengers. At least Raymond doesn’t need to worry anymore about the water penetrating into his panniers, due to his new waterproof Ortlieb panniers. We ask for the nearest guesthouse, which seems to be 5 km back(!). Unfortunately there are still two hours of sunlight left and we are tired from the couple of hills (and the lazy life in Bangkok). Khao Sok NP is another 40km, but with this weather and road condition it’s not much fun to go for it. So we decide to go for the nearest guesthouse, not after some discussion about logging these kilometres in the logbook (would give the wrong indication for other cyclists). Khao Sok NP is a primary rain forest where several hikes are possible. The road from Phanom to Khao Sok provides some beautiful scenery of several Karst mountains. The Karst mountains of tropical regions, such as found throughout Southern China, Laos, Thailand all the way to Indonesia, are distinguishable by their steep walled mountains separated by broad flat valleys or plains. These tower like mountains looming above, with rocky overhanging cliffs are riddles with caves and are only found in the humid tropical limestone regions. After these 40km cycling we take a ‘jungle bungalow’ in Tree Tops next to the entrance of the parks for 200 Bht and take the rest of the day off. During lunch we discuss with a park guide what we want to do. I suggest at least a night safari and a good ‘not-in-the-books’ hike trip. He takes away the books and comes back with a guestbook where a couple of tourists described a hike they did together with him. We read that it takes about 8 hours, so the next morning we want to have an early start. In the mean while it seems that René has moved to another bungalow, the fan in his room is broken and what is easier than just to offer a new room. Probably they don’t like him very much because first thing in the morning he tells us he was kept awake due to a fight with a red ants-trail leading right over his pillow... the DEET mosquito spray didn’t do any good either. The next night René becomes "King of Ants".
A pick-up drops us off 5 km out of the ‘backpackers
village’ and I see a small dirt track that leads up the steep hill and curls
itself around the old and high trees of the rain forest. The humidity makes sure
we are soaking in our own clothes after the first 15 minutes walking. I will
definitely watch out where I place my feet, because it’s not unlikely that you
step on a snake that is resting on the small footpath. Luckily for me I am
fourth in line so that reduces the chance that I get bitten. In the distance we
hear the Gibbons making their loud hauling or whistling sound. Our guide tells
us, to be able to the Gibbon we have to stop and be quiet as soon as he stops
‘singing’ because then he is able to hear us. Sound to me lie a children’s
game we played at kindergarten with music and chairs... when the music stops you
have to sit on a chair as soon as possible. After have an hour stopping and
walking over a small dirt track like a video clip of Michael Jackson we see the
Gibbon. The track is leading us steep onto the mountain and its difficult to
stand next to each other, but just as he notices us and swings from branch to
branch to get out of our are I am able to catch him on camera. After walking
through a small river for an hour we stand on top of a 100 m high waterfall. Our
guide tells us we are going down here along the steep waterfall. I think to
myself that if Indiana Jones can do these things I certainly can also. So we
start abseiling from a large slippery boulder and crossing the white water of
the waterfall. Raymond did this ones at a camp in Wales and really ‘walks’
down like our guide. The descent continues over a small mud track (is there a
track?!?) while grasping ourselves to various roots and sliding over boulders
and through mud. Half an hour later we are looking up from the bottom of the
waterfall... could Indiana Jones have done this? Jungle Jack and Jill get
changed for a swim while our guide is preparing a lunch that he bought this
morning at the market. The water is cool and very refreshing while the fishes
try to eat Raymond’s hairs of his leg. During lunch our two additional team
members try to explain the difference between the words ‘monkey’, ’ape’
and ‘primates’. She is a biologist, specilized in "monkey behaviour",
must be very interesting for her to see
these ‘life; ('Makake') monkeys... or must I say ‘apes’?
After lunch it takes another 3 hours hiking, descending
and slipping over rocks in the water before we are back at the guesthouse where
the cool beer tastes very well.
The next two days we cycle to the farthest point in Phuket province, to Kata beach. Every time we get of our bicycle we are all three remembered of the 8-hour hike from Kao Sok, while we walk like cowboys ready for a shooting match in the middle of the road. Kata beach is one of those places that we actually want to avoid, but choosing between Pathong beach and Kata beach this is not a bad decision.
We don’t come
here for the Thai culture, but for five days diving anyway. Kata beach is really
a culture shock in the opposite direction, one-meter beer bellies (the same you
will also find at the Dutch beach in the summer in Zandvoort) and the amount of
tattoos that I stopped counting after 10 in 5 minutes. We sign in at Sea Bees
dive centre (http://www.phuket-scuba.com) and attracted by their very relaxed
boat, the Excalibur II (see their website). One of the most impressive dives we
made was the wreck dive to the ‘King fisher’ an 80m long car ferry that sunk
a couple of years ago (no cars or persons aboard). For us this was the first
time we saw a wreck under water, and had immediately a ‘Titanic’ flash back.
Especially when we swam through a door on the side railing with which the movie
starts. Every evening we tried to eat at ‘Eugene’s’ a small fish
restaurant run by a Swiss where you can eat Sol for only $ 5,-...per kilo, try
to find one in The Netherlands under the $40,-. When we decide to continue
cycling after 5 wonderful days of diving we will miss the good breakfast and the
cold bear at the bar of the Excalibur II from Sea Bees.
08/01/2004 René decides to take a head start and while Raymond and I
pack our stuff with a small hangover of the beers from yesterday evening we
discus where we will see him at a certain crossing after 40km. René knows that there are two steep hills around Pathong
beach and want to take them early on the day. Ray and I follow two hours later,
taking it a bit slower than normal. After the first steep hill we decide we are
ready for an early lunch at the McDonalds in Pathong beach. A couple of
kilometres after we arrive at the second steep hill, which is a bit longer than
the first one. A motorcycle stops next to me and offers me help getting to the
top by taking some luggage, I politely refuse the offer. Raymond has stopped
half way the climb because there on the side of the road lies the cap of René (!!). Ok, various scenarios come to mind... mugging,
accident, exhausting due to the heat or he continued after a short break and
forgot that he put it on the back side of his bicycle. Knowing René we decide the last option was the most logical one.
After 40km we reach the crossing where we would meet him... ok, so we missed him
somewhere along the road. We drink a Coke and continue to the next village 10km
further on where he is waiting for us at the crossing. The road to Krabi is
quiet easy, and we get there within three days, the coast route on Phuket was a
bit heavier than expected.
In Krabi we take a Thai cooking class (http//www.krabidir.com/krthaicookery/),
especially because we want to make those delicious curries we eat here at the
markets from morning till evening. Under the guidens of Ya we really know now
how to burn the mouths of our friends and how to avoid it. René has,
after 1200 km cycling, not yet enough but has to head home from Krabi airport,
with the promise he would cook his curry the day we will arrive in The
Netherlands.
13/01/04 Raymond and I
continue our trop in the direction of Indonesia. Next stop is Trang and it seems
a hot and hilly ride. The next day we decide to stop at noon. Today its so hot
after 12:00 that we decide we want to stop at La Ngu, 45km from Satun. During
lunch (curry) we meet the neighbour of the restaurant owner who speaks very well
English. He tells us that Satun is just another 45m and is a relatively easy
ride. The guesthouse at the crossing of road 416 seems to be too expensive
anyway, so we give it a shot. Not before 4 o’clock of course. In the mean
while Lek tells us about his dream to start a guesthouse next year in Satun and
how far he is with his preparations. At the moment he is maintaining and
repairing bush cutters and has a copy shop in his house in Satun. He invites us
to sleep at his place and to take us by pick-up to Satun. We do accept the
sleeping offer, but really want to cycle to Satun. Luckily after one and half
hour he passes us on the road and to get rid of the heat (wand the two times
125m’s in our legs) we gratefully accept his second offer also. In the evening
he gives us some beers and shows us his first bungalow he built on his land next
to the jungle in the middle of some hills. The fireplace and the location of the
bar is already known and he asks our opinions about the bungalow he build as a
test. We really think it will be a wonderful location to come back in a few
years.
15/01/2004
Raymond makes an emergency
stop. "what?" I ask and he puts his finger on his lips "ssst,
listen", he whispers. From the jungle trees on the right side of the road I
can hear it clearly. Gibbons! Two or three gibbons are talking. Screaming or
whistling would describe it better. Unfortunately I can't see them and we cycle
on. We are looking for a last breakfast and cup of coffee in Thailand, but we
have only three kilometres left before we cross the border with Malaysia. It
happened to us once that we could not change any money at/behind the border, so
just to be save making sure we have a full stomach and enough water when we
cross the border. At least we hope that we can cross this border, because this
crossing is nowhere mentioned. One crossing is over water with a sea ferry the
other lays 180km out of our direction and is a highway. These last kilometres
the road leads us through a national park. When we turn left for our breakfast
at the park headquarters I see a relative large black shadow racing from the
side of the road. Its now my turn to make an emergency stop. "What was that?"
I ask myself. I cycle on and now Raymond gives a yell from behind. He almost ran
over my 'black shadow', a lizard larger than a meter ran almost into Raymond’s
wheel.
We find that there is no
breakfast available at the headquarters, so we continue to the border crossing.
The last two kilometres go up hill and we find a food stall just before the
border.
After a noisy night, behind the copy machines in
Lek’s house, next to the main road to the port we head for Malaysia.