Mekong River - Nakhon Phanom to ???

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  Mekong River, Thailand
Sunday, November 13, 2005

I have been looking forward to hitting the Mekong River for weeks and it has lived up to all expectations. I traveled for about 500km along a road that runs beside it on the Thialand side and have seen some of the best scenery on my trip so far. Looking across the river to Loas just wants me to spend a lot of time there as well, lots of mountain ranges and it is not as developed as Thialand so it should be a good adventure, particularly on the bike.

There are a number of towns along the river ranging from small cities to tiny towns and I have had some great places to stay, for a couple of days I stayed in a hut about 10 meters from the river with a nice balcony with hammock, needless to say that I spent some good hours laying in the hammock and reading while watching the world pass by. I have also had some of the best food while I have been out this way as well, they plant a lot of fields that are right beside the river where the soil seems to be rich and the vegetables have so much taste, and I don't even like vegetables

First view of the Mekong River

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I am meeting a very interesting range of people along the river as well, from farmers to Loas people that come over to work, to Mafia members that seem to be running the import business into Thailand from Loas, although I thought it was best not to ask them too much about there business.

I got called over by a couple of guys last night and they invited to me to drink a few beers with them, and who was I to turn down a few free beers, anyway they turned out to be local police, one of them used to be an ex-army man that some years ago was fighting in Cambodia. We got to chatting in a mixture of broken Thai/English and he tells me that he was released from the army because he stepped on a land mine, then he starts taking his shoe off and rolling his trouser leg up. I am not sure if he was a bit drunk or crazy but as he is showing me his half foot with only two toes and scared tissue up his leg, he kept making 'BooooM' (imitating the explosion) noises and then laughing like it was the funniest thing that has ever happened. At this time I am feeling a bit uncomfortable because I don't know whether to laugh along with him or just looked shocked. So I quickly finished my beer, made an excuse that I had to meet a friend for dinner, turned down his offer to go to a girlie bar and made a quick escape. At least I have a name to give the police if I get pulled over for riding without a helmet, crazy hop-a-long Bob (I got a ticket the other day, 200 baht (3 pounds)).

I have followed the river now for as far as it runs in Thailand, the next plan is to ride along the border up to the Golden triangle (where Loas/Thailand and Burma meet), also famous for the amount of Opium that used to be grown in this area. Lots of mountains and small villages to be seen.

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Guest House on the Mekong River	Mekong at Sunset.	Mekong River	Sand Island in Mekong River
Water Fall feeding the river

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