Having spent 2 months traveling through Thailand, it seems like a good idea to summarise that part of our trip, now we've left the country and are getting ready for the next leg of our journey.
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| First stop: Koh Lipe! |
The Thailand tour started very relax without cycling of course, with more than 2 fantastic weeks in Koh Lipe. Still one of my favourite idyllic islands, despite increasing tourism, and despite the impact the tourism has on the original inhabitants and on the environment. Or maybe it was not that really busy - it did not look like the island had filled up for the new year period, and we were indeed told by locals that it was not as busy as usual in that period. A bit of an indication for the rest of Thailand too I think. Wherever we went, and especially if we got into more touristy areas, it gave the feeling there were far less visitors than one would expect, with still a lot of vacancies in hotels and most restaurants absolutely not full. Is it because so many things happened in Thailand in recent years, is it because of countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos that are now attracting more tourists? No idea, but something seems to be going on.
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| Plenty of beach time in the south of Thailand, and happy with our newly invented daily travel habit: Italian style fresh coffee each morning at a beautiful location |
We then left Koh Lipe late December and continued cycling north again. The first days after we left were fantastic, we were so happy to be on the bike but mostly, so enthusiastic about cycling in Thailand. Beautiful scenery, friendly people, easy traffic, great food... The only surprise was the weather. Even while in Koh Lipe, we had rainy days, cloudy skies, choppy sea, not normal for the time of the year. This continued once we were on the mainland, and even got worse and worse. At some point we even had full days of rain, and had to take a rest day because of the endless downpours. We witnessed the consequences of that torrential rain firsthand: when we cycled through Ban Saphan, we had to get a ride on a pickup truck through the flooded streets, and saw the destruction of bridges, houses, roads, the damage done by the water and the mud, even the flooded hospital. It's only then that we realised that we had been in the "eye of the storm" and it was very awkward to ride through that heavily affected area...
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| The flooded streets of Bang Saphan Yai. The water had been much higher than this before we came through. Surely, if we would have left earlier, we would not have been able to get through. |
Throughout our trip in Thailand we had to change our plans a few times. Sometimes mini changes: a route that did not work out because it was impossible to cycle, roads which were not what they seemed, and of course some bridges which were washed away. But we also had to change our mind on a bigger scale. We changed our initial thought, to cross into Myanmar from Ranong, because it was not what we expected: you're normally not allowed to travel north independently from Kawthaung, and even if you can sneak through the road sounded very unwelcoming for cycling. So we decided not to try it. Looking back at it, we're really happy we didn't, because that same bad rain storm moved over southern Myanmar too - and infrastructure there is much less than it is in Thailand so the impact was possibly even worse.
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| We stumbled upon some "roads" that made us turn back... |
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| Or worse, change of plans due to the floods... |
We then planned to ride north through Thailand, visit our friends Ron and Martha in Sam Roi Yot, and eventually cross into Myanmar from Kanchanaburi. We also had to change this plan, as the border crossing in the Kanchanaburi area requires a visa arranged at the embassy (not an eVisa), which we did not have (and we didn't want to travel to Bangkok for that). Also we had heard reports of the terrible road, once across the border... So, as we had expected from the beginning, when bike touring you should be ready to change your plans if needed; we changed them again. Further north through Thailand, and then direction east once we got to Sukhothai to follow the Mekong and finish in Nong Khai. And yes, we actually did this!
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| We saw Myanmar only at the other side of the river... |
The roads in Thailand were generally good to cycle on. As in most places, roads have numbers, here ranging from 1 to 4 digits. The more digits, the smaller the road - mostly. So we did our best to find those 4-digit roads, rural roads, which were very often really nice: decent to excellent quality roads (of course we had our share of potholes and gravel!), very light traffic, pleasant scenery and we hardly ever had to ride on the national highways. The scenery is mostly (very) nice, although less cycling through real nature than I had expected. There is a lot of nature in Thailand, with plenty of national parks, and often you can also see these nature areas in the distance, but most of the time you're cycling through agricultural areas. Probably the best part of the ride was the Mekong river or maybe the west Thailand part, the least interesting part was between Chumphon and Cha-am. All along Thailand we saw miles and miles (and miles) of palm, rubber, sugarcane, cassava, tobacco, fruit of all kinds, rice, ... In many places these were relatively small patches of crops, sometimes even really fragmented, other areas had very little variation - we got to call these "agricultural deserts".
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| Road 3049 (becoming 1272 afterwards), a great alternative to road 101 for cycling. We saw around 10 cars in more than 20km of cycling! |
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| So hard to catch the beauty of this place with pictures... |
We met lots and lots of friendly people. Thai people are known to be nice and friendly, and they certainly are for cyclists. The beautiful smiles, enthusiastic "hello's", shy giggles, ... have been wonderful. When on the road it seems there are some areas were people are really friendly, and sometimes for a while, for some reason, people seem less friendly. Not necessarily unfriendly, just not smiling and waving that much. Oh yes, there are many looks saying "what are these crazy cyclists doing here???" and even total disbelief written in their looks - maybe not that surprising (...), although I did not really expect that in Thailand anymore.
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| Beach kids having lots of fun |
We thought we would meet other tour bikers regularly, but we have seen surprisingly few. In fact - and this is really not exaggerated - we saw more in the few hours we were in Vientiane yesterday, than we have seen since we left home in KL. We spoke to 2 biking couples (Alex and Nin, Serafin and Marleen) and 1 guy alone (Bas) in the entire period. We saw a few more, mostly lightly packed, between Chumphon and Hua Hin. I assume these were mostly people cycling from Bangkok to Phuket or so, this is one of the most regular routes in Thailand, which people do in 2 or 3 weeks. But still, maybe we saw 5 or 6 like that, all going in the opposite direction.
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| One of the many stunning sunsets, this one over the mighty Mekong in Chiang Khan |
It was great to experience Thailand in a different way than we had before. Considering that we had lived in Khon Kaen for 2.5 years and traveled through Thailand many times, it was still very different from what we knew and surprising in many ways. Places like Photharam, Kamphaeng Phet and Chiang Khan are good examples of this, all completely unknown to us before, but places we loved and would happily return to. The entire west side between Kanchanaburi and Kamphaeng Phet was another positive surprise, with all the national parks, unspoilt areas, authentic people and little or no tourism. We often had long rides with no guesthouses or hotels at all, something we would not have expected. The places we stayed at were also varying in quality and price; some really nice rooms at cheap prices and dodgy more expensive ones, and all the rest in between.
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| Kamphaeng Phet, one of the nice surprises on this trip, with its beautiful historical park and also the town itself |
We did not camp as much as we had thought. First of all, we did not camp "wild". We also did not stay in temples, which we thought we would do left and right. The temples (wats) were actually often less attractive and inspiring than we remembered, or maybe it was partially related to some of the areas we rode through. The monks we saw were often not interested, just minding their own business (mostly on their smart phone), and there were not that many to start with. Is Buddhism in Thailand on the decline, or is it just because we were not in the right places? Or is it us, not in the right mindset? Not sure, but in any case it inspired and attracted us less than we expected.
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| Our campsite in Khlong Lan national park, won-der-ful!!! |
All together we camped 8 nights. The top camping was definitely in national parks, like Erawan and Khlong Lan; in these places you could stay for days and enjoy the atmosphere and the surroundings. The one place where we did not stay, but which looked super attractive, is Si Phangnga national park. The one place we did stay, which was a top location but other than that a bad experience, was Krasiao Resort... We're very happy we carry the tent however, because it always gives us an "emergency" solution if needed. When we're in doubt whether to continue for the day or not, it's easy to go on, knowing that if needed you can just find a place for the night...
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| Camping in Erawan national park |
Now, I've already written half a book and not even mentioned the food!!! First of all: food everywhere! We have not been hungry in Thailand 😀 In the small villages and towns you will often not find more than simple Thai food: kway teow noodle soup, fried rice, rice with basil chicken, and of course the ever delicious som tam (papaya salad). Usually nice food, and cheap, mostly less than 1 Euro pp. But of course we have also enjoyed some other, delicious Thai food in many occasions; oh, that kaeng massaman in Nong Khai, hmmmm. It's one of the great things about Thailand: you can have a 30 Baht roadside meal, or a 400 Baht good restaurant meal, and both will be nice in their own different way. Another nice thing in Thailand nowadays, is that there is good coffee in many places, and lots of road side tea and coffee stalls selling great ice tea (cha yen). Often a welcome stop to cool down, and slurp a great ice cold tea...
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| A yummy reward after a long and hot day cycling: coconut and durian ice cream in a coconut shell with fresh coconut flakes in it. Delicious!!! |
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| I still don't know what it was called, this was our lunch and it was yummy! |
Budget wise, the restaurant choice makes a big difference however. So we mostly had those simpler meals, from time to time splurging on a great Thai meal. We hardly had any western food and are not craving for it at all, just pizza (twice) and 1 steak. I know, totally not carbon footprint friendly; it was only once though... All together, we have been able to travel for an average cost of slightly below 1000 Euro per month, for the two of us combined! While we had hoped this would be possible, I would not have thought that it actually was, and that even slightly less was comfortably possible.
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| Ice tea and ice dessert, irresistible! |
And I guess that's it more or less. We definitely enjoyed Thailand a lot, it was nice to spend the entire 2 months of our Thai visa (with 1 day to spare), it was a positive surprise in many ways, and with very little negative experiences. We're still enjoying the cycling a lot as well, and are surprised about the distance we have covered so far: more than 3,800km!!! It was also a great feeling yesterday however, to cross that Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai towards Laos, get that next visa stamped in the passport, and start the next part of the journey: 1 month in Laos. Somehow it seems like we will do less mileage and explore more, but let's see in the weeks to come...
