Mutt Mee for me ........
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
141
230
Trip End
May 27, 2010
Udon Thani,
Thailand
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Kings Hotel, Udon Thani, Thailand (190 baht)
Warm & sweaty
Nong Khai - Udon Thani (60kms)
So, from Vientiane we cycled the 30 kms from Loas' capital city to The Friendship Bridge (which, despite its size, we somehow managed to miss initially) where we were given our 15 day visa on arrival. Despite the 'no bicycles' sign we were ushered to cycle across the bridge that spans the mighty Mekong river. Ten minutes later we were in Thailand, again, and found ourselves at the delightful Mutt Mee Guest House (http://www.mutmee.com/). Had it not been for the fact we only had a 15 day visa we would definitely have stayed longer. There's loads going on here, but at the same time it's a really relaxing place to just be. If you are looking to come to Thailand and, do some voluntary work, you could do worse than come here and get involved in 2 projects. One involves helping out with children at a local project (sorry, I didn't make a note of the name of the project but I'm sure if you mailed Mutt Mee they would give you details) and the other is visiting Hmong refugees in a detention centre close by (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/01/15/opinion/opinion_30093248.php).
We discovered that the 15 day visa on entry is not extendable, pain, and also that there is still the remnants of trouble going on in the south, so the decision was made for us, we would cycle to Bangkok (about a week) and then take a train or bus to the Malaysian border. It's even more annoying when we found out that Thailand are currently giving away 2 month (multiple entry) visas free, which we could have got in Vientiane, and these you can extend, which would at least have given us more options. Hey ho, we learn these things as we go along. The train goes directly to the north east border point of Sungai Kulok where we can cross the border to Malaysia, from there it's not very far to take a ferry to The Perhentian islands. There are 2 islands, Besar (big) and Kecil (small), we're going for Kecil on the recommendation of Paul & Yvonne who were here 2 years ago. There aren't any roads on the islands so we may try and leave the bikes on the mainland somewhere.
So I took advantage of the free wifi in the lovely garden at Mutt Mee to get my photos on Facebook and to catch up on mail etc. Despite the short distance from Nong Khai to Udon Thani we decided we would be up and away early this morning, just in case it was scorching hot again. At 5.30, when the alarm went off, it was raining so hard we could hardly hear ourselves think, so we turned over and waited for it to stop. Eventually we were on the road, it rained for the first half an hour then it was perfect cycling weather, cloudy and warm. Despite our late start we were in our hotel by 11am wondering what the hell we were going to do with the rest of our Sunday in good ole Udon Thani. It's almost 6pm now and it hasn't seemed like an overly long day, we've both been reading and I must admit, we had a little nap.
While we were in Vientiane we discovered that people are using more and more interesting ways of getting around. We saw an advertisement for a boat (a Laos-type junk) that 3 women were selling (yes, 3 women in a boat) having sailed it down the Mekong. THAT would have been interesting, we thought. Also, a couple who were touring Laos in a tuk tuk! (www ) which we thought might be novel but not very safe, our suspicions were confirmed when one of the pair mentioned that someone had borrowed the tuk tuk from them and ended up in hospital with some horrible injuries. Still, you've got to hand it to them, a novel way to travel. We also met the lovely Felix from Germany, travelling on his bicycle. He had arrived on the early morning bus and was waiting for his room to be cleaned and we were having breakfast and getting ready to leave, but not before we could swap cycling info and emails. While we were talking a very tall German guy came out of our guest house and the first thing that came out of his mouth was some derogatory comment about the amount of stuff he was carrying, proceeded to talk in German (despite Felix asking him to speak English because of us) and to tell us all about HIS travels on HIS bike. The general theme of his diatribe was 'don't do it your way, do it my way', we all agreed he was a complete tosser!
Laters
