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Published: February 10th 2007
Our fist big hill!
Our motley-crew arrive in +35C at a small shrine: one of us with a broken rib, 2 with heat exhaustion, 1 with dehydration and the shits, and 1 with a knackered bike. BRING IT ON!Day 254, 9th February
Savannakhet - THAILAND - Mukdahan - Chanuman
Woke up with a bit of a hangover but still managed to get my stuff packed up by 8am. We went off to the cheapo sandwich café and gorged on greasy egg sandwiches with chill sauce. Man! - I’m really going to have to cut down on my chill intake, it’s getting a bit ridiculous now, I’m putting chills or chill sauce on everything I eat. I’m sure I’m addicted to the stuff, and there must be some internal damage occuring with my guts somewhere! Trouble is, there are chillies everywhere. You don’t even have to by them, they are stacked in bowls on every café table next to bottles of equally tempting chill sauce…
Savannakhet - it’s a lazy place I’ve decided at last. It’s one of those places that can draw you in and a place that you could waste months in just doing nothing at all. It seems the place has infected us all with the laziness-bug because we just don’t feel like doing anything at all. It took us ages to struggle the 100 or so yards along to the ferry ticket office
Mekong Ferry
Just before Stephane cracked his rib getting on the roof. on the banks of the Mekong. It was a combined ferry and immigration office. The customs guy lazily stamped our passports with a dried up lazy rubber-stamp, then we lazily bought our tickets for 10,000 Kip each.
When the ferry arrived we had to physically carry our bikes down loads of steps to the already-packed ferry. Our bikes ended up in a big mangled pile on the flat deck at the front of the boat which left at 11am for the 20-minute crossing. We were now leaving the communist world behind and entering a monarchy. To get a good view, we hauled our bodies onto the empty flat roof of the boat. This involved pausing half way with the bottom of your rib-cage on the edge of the roof and your legs dangling, before the final push onto the roof with your arms. Stephane was last to haul himself on the roof. He jumped from the deck to balance on his ribs ten - CRACK! We all heard it. He’d cracked a rib!
On the Thai side we had to climb up to the immigration office, Stephane refused our help even though he was visibly in pain. The
Lao Passport Stamps
My entry stamp at Lao Bao, and exit stamp from Savannakhet. The other ones are Croatia and Thailand (Mukhdahan). immigration was a doddle, no more visas from now on, whey hey! Anyway, it’s a good job cos I only have 2 blank pages left in my 5-year-old passport. The Thai town of Mukhdahan in which we’d arrived was more developed and very alive. At last….they drive on the ‘proper’ side of the road here. I withdrew 4,000 Baht from an ATM, and then we all went for our celebratory border-crossing beer in a café and ate some food. Except Stephane, who went in search of a pharmacy for a support bandage for his ribs.
After everything was done, we left town in a southerly direction following the Mekong river. We noticed that the roads were quiet and the drivers were courteous with none of the mindless blasting of horns. The roads are perfectly maintained and some of the houses even have lawns and gardens. It reminds me of a mixture of Australian roads, Austrian cleanliness, with an Asian touch. There are patriotic flags everywhere and pictures of the King and his family in most cafes and shops. He is highly regarded by the Thai people. Like in other countries, we had friendly people waving to us most of
Camp Spot
Our first night in Thailand free-camping. No big deal. the way.
We decided to eat a late dinner in a café before finding a spot to camp. The meal was 20 Baht, and it’s a better idea than to get the cookers going. As the sun was setting, we found a spot off to the left of the road with sparse tree cover. It seemed like a red-stone quarry which was unused. As it went dark Rory and I had fun with our Black Widow catapults shooting stones into the trees and scaring birds….
Total Miles: 11402.00 Todays Miles: 35.65 Average speed: 12.0 Time on bike: 2:57
Day 255, 10th February
Chanuman - Khemarat - Nam Thaeng
It was hot last night, my sleeping bag was soaked with sweat and there was dew on the roof of the tent even though I’d left the fly-sheet off. There was a state of confusion over breakfast, I’d packed everything up by the time they decided to have breakfast at the campsite. So, a little frustrated, I set off alone along the road to find food. I found a shop and bought some food to eat outside. I sat comtemplating the joys of being alone, I’ve
Cheesy Stickers
adorn my new journal. done all my cycling before this trip alone, and I kinda miss it. Before I could decide to desert the others, they turned up and we set off again together.
Stephane seems to be coping well with his cracked rib bandaged up, even though he does grimace when he hits a pothole. One problem with Thailand that I’ve noticed is the abundance of yappy mongrels that chase us down the roads. Maybe I’ll get the chance to use my pepper-spray which is attatched to my handlebars? Another thing is the heat, it’s getting hotter by the day and we’re all suffering! The flasks of boiling water that we’ve been used to till now have been thankfully replaced by tons of free ice and cooled water. Amazingly, we haven’t had to buy any water in the last eight months. We’ve got it all free from taps, wells, rivers, and flasks, all un-filtered. Yes, we’ve all had the shits, many times. But, touch-wood, nothing serious just yet….
The roads here are in excellent condition with virtually zero traffic. Today, only one truck passed us, a few private cars, and a few dozen mopeds. The people here smile and laugh at the crazy cyclists who want to cycle through their land in the midday heat. We came to our first hill mid-afternoon and it was a nightmare. The heat made it exhausting. Not only that, but there was the cyclists slow up-hill problem of melting tar on the road. The solution to the sticky black stuff on your tyres is to cycle in dust, but then you start getting thicker and thicker layers on your tyres, and eventually, you have to stop and clean all the shit off - in the baking heat!
Stephane was doing the worst. He was breathless and sweating profusely. He had a velcro body-harness on to fix his broken rib, and had to keep stopping. I’m beginning to think that the dude should not be cycling, he should take a bus to Bangkok, go to hospital, rest or something - certainly not be cycling up hills in plus 30 degrees!
At the end of the day, we ate at a café. This time, two meals each, we were ravenous! Then we set off and found a spot to camp, similar to last nights, but on orange earth, not red. The sun went down, we watched the stars for ages and saw fireflies in the trees which we first thought were UFOs! From Stephane’s tent we hear whinces and groans and he tried to get himself into the most comfy position. I have a new respect for the guy, I’m sure that if any of us had a broken rib, we certainly wouldn’t be cycling - respect!
Total Miles: 11478.78 Todays Miles: 76.78 Average speed: 12.6 Time on bike: 6:03
STOP PRESS: 10th February 2007.
I’ve been surprised by the interest in this Memorablog. Seems like 5-year-old stuff is still interesting to folks. So I looked for a website that specialized in this kind of thing and found there is’nt any out there. So, what did I do? I registered the following:
www.memorablog.com
www.memorablog.org
www.memorablog.net
I don’t want to be in competition with Travelblog who have been great in hosting my memorablog. I just want to set up a site for those one-year-old or older journals that couldn’t be blogged at the time for some reason or another. And for those old prints and slides out there that are crying out to be digitalized and to be shown to the world. This will be a free site, like Travelblog, and I hope to get it up and running by summer time (northern hemisphere). So if you’re interested to be the first to put your former journals on the Memorablog Site, PM me and I’ll put your email address on the mailing list. I guarantee no spam.
Thanks, ANDY (Bikepacker)
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Jackie
non-member comment
Still here
Still enjoying been away to Thailand so not been following. just booked to go back to thailand again in May. am going to enjoy your time there.