Bangkok
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2007
1
49
55
Trip End
Dec 20, 2008
Bangkok,
Thailand
Friday, May 9, 2008
Weird as hell waking up and going for breakfast this morning. We headed into a 24hr cafe right in the thick of the nightlife scene at 5am. Bikes fully loaded, dressed like cycle pros (sort of). There were some pissed up freaks on their way home, some still in the bars, and some coming into the cafe. It was quite a relief that none of them came and talked to us in a drunken stupor, I don¡¯t think I could have handled it all that well at that hour of the morning.
We had a fair idea from Elke¡¯s research, and speaking to others, that the road to the border was a little rough. I laughed, it was perfect up to the turn off for the airport then fifty meters later, it became narrow and cruddy. Later on, it got worse, turned to dusty compact clay, quite lumpy. We were just starting to get miserable when an old Chinaman cheered us up.
My Now 'Clowns Bike'
He was riding the other way on one of those compact fold-in-half bikes with about 16¡å wheels. He had all the gear though, including a dynamo in the front hub to power his GPS. He was about 60 and only spoke a few words of English but had these ‛business¡¯ size cards printed up with his details, trip outline, and general friendly attitude written all in English. A true Chinese legend. He took photos and videos of us while trucks and taxis roared past stirring up dust, and even gave Elke a hair clip. Sweet! We¡¯ve never seen anything ‛made in China¡¯ before. The gesture along with his constant smile was all gold though.We had lunch at the 2/3rds mark in Sisaphon where the road became like glass. A sheet of near new glistening tar-mac. Soon after we stopped to talk to a couple of German retirees cycling the other way. We were way overdue to meet some more cyclists so 3 in 1 day was a nice compensation.
While having a quick rest on the side of the road i spied a snake in the dry brown grass. I¡¯d seen heaps of ‛baby¡¯ sized snakes squashed on the road before but this one was well over a meter long. Who¡¯s gonna provoke it now that Steve Irwin¡¯s not around? Yep, I am. I grabbed my camera out of my bag but taking my eyes off the snake was the last i saw of it. No photo, no ‛crocodile man¡¯ impersonations
Thai Chi Freaks
. I probably shouldn¡¯t have been down there anyway as Elke pointed out, there¡¯s still loads of uncleared mine fields around this country.The glassy road lasted about 30Km then it was back to the clay. ‶We could do with some rain to keep the dust down¡å commented Elke. Within the hour the skies were growing dark and lightening was flashing not so far away. A little water is nice, but there were plenty of stretches still slippery as hell from yesterdays rain (It¡¯s the start of monsoon season). With the help of Mr Ropey we made it just outside the Cambodian border town of Poipet. Raincoats on, we made it through puddles almost deep enough to float our bikes in, in the crater filled road of the township. This was one untidy place, a disgrace to Cambodia for visitors arriving through the border. It must really suck for those coming here from Thailand ¨C a real leap backwards in creature comforts. By the time we got to the exit gates of Cambodia, the rain was hosing down, a chaotic scene as our last impressions of Cambodia.
A strange set-up these two countries have got here. Between the two borders are a whole host of duty free shops- nothing unusual, but I've never seen a whole bunch of semi decent casinos jammed in between two countries boundaries before.
How pleasant it was arriving in Thailand. Smooth roads, roadsigns, general tidiness everywhere
Thai Hot rod
. But I've been through enough of these now to know that each country (bar Cambodia) usually makes border areas or airport access pretty impressive. We'll see if they keep it up. From what i can see, i think they will, for a really solid example; 3 small pots of ice cream here is less than a dollar. Oh sweet heavenly ice cream lord.28-04-08 85 Kms to Sanam Chaikhet
We had a lazy start today, a bit behind the programme. We found a Vietnamese restaurant for breakfast but they didn¡¯t serve rice or noodles. Fucm. I¡¯ve done my time being around those scabby bastards anyway.
We then bought a Thailand road map from the 3rd bookstore we tried. It seemed like we¡¯d been facking around in Aranya Prathet all morning. We had been. It was pretty close to 11am by the time we seriously started riding. The last few riding days we¡¯d done, we would have smashed out a hundy by now.
We went on to do not even a hundy today. A head wind made the effort doubly hard, and the scenery between towns was pretty facking boring, so although the road was in such a good condition compared to yesterdays rough ride, it was a pretty uninteresting ride.
I invested in a kickstand for the first time
As the afternoon went on, again the sky grew darker, this time the monsoon rain was accompanied by a strong as hell head wind. No fun today so we started asking around for hotels and called it quits when we found this resort style thing. We got a bungalow on the edge of this huge man made lake thing. Pretty cheesy actually, we wondered if the 500 Baht price tag, over double what we paid last night, was for renting the room for an hour or for the whole night. The old lady on reception had no English so we played charades for about 10 mins trying to ask the price and what we got for our money.After we moved in we found what we got for our money ¨C a life sized wall poster of a naked couple getting busy on a beach. Cheese on toast with extra cheese and parmasen on top of that.
29-04-08 176 Kms to Bangkok.
We¡¯d planned on taking it nice and easy today too, getting at least close to Bangkok so we could split tomorrow up into arriving on the outskirts, then negotiating the city streets and find a descent budget hotel in the ‛lively¡¯ backpacker district of Khao San Rd.
An early start coupled with the wind blowing us along instead of hindering us gave us an easy 120 Kms under our belt by the time our bellies started yelling out for more fuel
Bangkok Nightscene
.The call actually came from Elke that we should push on, ‛all the way¡¯. All the way it was. We washed up somewhere in greater Bangkok by 4 pm giving us a couple of much needed hours to find our way down to Khao San Rd.
We arrived there just on dark, pretty much soaked thanks to our 3rd consecutive daily monsoon dosage. It wasn¡¯t the coolest image to have rolling into a side street crammed with tourists and associated hotels, restaurants and cafes etc.
Cold and soggy, Elke minded the bikes while i checked out the first half dozen hotels, reporting back each time that they¡¯re either full, have no bicycle parking, or ‶the place is a shit hole¡å. One time i came out, she¡¯d struck up a conversation with one of her fellow countrymen who had just bought himself a bike and was gonna head off north in a big 3 month loop around S.E. Asia, with his backpack on his back, and a small bag on his rear rack with over 20 books in it. Hmmmmm. We had to move on but arranged to meet up with him in his hotel restaurant for a stern talking to later on.
Just as we were about to make a move, two more cycle dudes turned up. They had a reservation (for bicycle parking, apparently) in the hotel that had just told me ‶no bikes¡å. We looked at each other quizzically and tried to work out where we¡¯d seen each other before. He looked familiar but i could have spent hours working it out. So after another minute of pondering, he told me the answer; he was the (French, i thought) dude trying to get his girlfriends bike fixed when i walked out of the bike shop in Hue to find that Viet bitch trying to steal my lunch bag off my handle bars. We sniggered at our initial meeting circumstances but moved on rather rapidly to fill each other in on our journey since
New SPD (clip in pedals)
. They were also both Belgian (France Belgium Same Same but different) so now our dinner table for tonight consists of 4 Belgies and 1 Kiwi.We almost decided on one of the shit-hole hotels but tried out ‛one more¡¯. Not cheap but what a sweet deal ¨C a proper lock-up room for our bikes, air conditioning, and a room on the ground floor ¨C no stairs to hobble up after a hard 3 days ride. Four Sons Village ¨C you rock!
The dinner went fine, dirt cheap street stall food, absolutely delicious spicy curries washed down with a couple of beers later on in a busy as hell, yet fairly quiet bar. Cool Belgians, they all spoke perfect English for my thicko benefit, but the real winner of the evening was Marro. What an education he got on cycle touring. We convinced him that riding with a back-pack on your back aint the way to go and that carrying 20 plus books is like out nerding even the most astute of college library nerds. He postponed his departure date for a day or two until he ‛gets with the programme¡¯ and follows some of our recommendations.
30-04 to 10-05 2008 Bangkok.
My bike¡¯s been deteriorating quite a lot lately. The chain has stretched so much it¡¯s worn the rear sprocket a fair bit
Our Local Street Stall
. 16,000Kms has almost worn the leather cover off my ‛Biolink¡¯ gel saddle. The left pedal started to seize and roll under my foot about 70Kms from Bangkok yesterday. I hoped it would limp to Bangkok without jamming up completely. It got there. The chunky treaded front tyre which i¡¯d bought in Laos was inefficient and had to go. Our guide books had mentioned a couple of descent bike shops in Bangkok which we tracked down. I was going on a shopping extravaganza.There was some flash new bikes there, trendy aluminium framed jobs all glossy and new with shiny black clean tyres and quick-fire 24 speed gear changers. Elke had decided she was enjoying riding by now, even with superbastard cracking the whip hourly. While superbasted was pondering over whether to buy two tyres (with racey red sidewalls) or just one in Sports Cycles, she¡¯d got talking to the English speaking salesman. He¡¯d pointed out to her that the reason she¡¯d been getting such bad neck pain lately was because of the length of the frame on her existing bike. I¡¯d had it adjusted as best as i could but those handle bars were on a one piece head-set and couldn¡¯t be adjusted anymore. It was a long bike in proportion to the rest of the size of it.
Elke was toying with the Idea of upgrading and i was in a head spin over the selection of stuff here so we went on to another bike shop called Pro-Bike. Took us facking ages to find this one and when we got there it was dead expensive
Wat Phra Keao
. However they had Shimano SPD (clip-in) pedals which i needed full stop. 2700 Baht came down to 2000 after asking for a discount. We needed to go think with a clear head about what we really needed to buy but instead we went to a bar and got pissed.
The next day we went back to Sports Cycles. I bought a whole lot of shat for my bike, Elke ordered up a new ‛Merida¡¯ or something for herself, with adjustable head-set, 700c wheels, and we gave the sales man a whole list of bolt-on toys for Elke to play with while riding along (bell, trip computer, bar ends, map holder, handlebar bag etc).
Hugh, the American war vet I¡¯d met in Hue had given me the name of one of his mates who owned a couple of bars in an area of Bangkok famous for it¡¯s sex shows. Cool. We went along in an air conditioned Taxi (when you get a driver to put the meter on you know you¡¯re not getting ripped, unlike the sucker tourists which use tuk-tuks). Arriving at Patpong-1 we had to push past a whole of bunch of touts trying to get us into ‛Super Pusseys¡¯, and find a joint called ‛Goldfingers¡¯. ‶Why did you call it Goldfingers¡å? I asked Randy. Randy,Hugh¡¯s mate and the owner of this dimly lit bar (a large room with seats around the edge facing a dozen scantily clad girls gently undulating around poles on a central stage) gives instructions to one of his barmen, who lifts up a massive wood-carving the size of his chest, a fist with the ‛up yours¡¯ finger fully erect. ‶That¡¯s the goldfinger that¡¯s been in this bar for the twenty years that I've owned it¡å He said, then added ‶Over the years I¡¯ve seen that finger disappear, she took the whole thing in, and she wasn¡¯t a Thai girl either, some over eager traveler¡å. Well, I didn¡¯t quite know what to say to that so i just said ‶You sound like the kind of bloke that can tell me where we can go to see a good ‛ping-pong¡¯ show¡å
Wat Phra Keao
. I explained my rather expensive delemah in Amsterdam (a whole sex show without a single ping-pong ball being fired by any means) so after a couple of beers Randy had one of his ‛assistants¡¯ lead us up to a ‛second floor¡¯ bar. Free entry and the drinks prices weren¡¯t all that bad either. Similar set up to downstairs but way bigger, louder music and flashing lights. Oh year, and the girls on stage weren¡¯t doing what the ones downstairs were doing either. Some girl was walking around playing a game of ‛pick-up-hoops¡¯. The ‛pick-up-hook¡¯ wasn¡¯t being held in her hand. Nor was a pen being used to write something on a piece of paper for some other tourist on the other side of the stage. A bunch of balloons were being popped, one by one, by darts being fired at them. Not too sure how that worked. Something to do with a naked lady laying on her back in front of them. What a crazy place! Why don¡¯t girls get into a bit of this leisure activity back home? Crazy enough? Fack no! Next thing I¡¯m getting handed a ping-pong bat without a table tennis net in sight. I may be young, but naive i aint. I know what this is for so i shuffle over to a bar stool where Elke¡¯s out of swinging range. She reckons she¡¯s never seen me so happy, like a kid with a new toy. I replaced my excitement with concentration as i prepared myself for the big match, a few warm-up stretches and a couple of practice swings. The flashing lights made it hard to focus on the job in hand, kind of a strobe effect allowing me to see half the trajectory but guessing the other half
Wat Phra Keao
. That explained the 3 or 4 that i missed but the rest... With no net to hit it back over i treated it more as a game of cricket, smashing some clean across the stage into the audience on the other side, some up into the lighting rigging one towards security guards on the door, and then got the bat confiscated when i fired one back close enough to be ‛caught and bowled¡¯. Good times. Sorry boys, i only managed to pick one ball up off the floor for souvenir purposes before the floor sweeper came along and got the rest. I did however get hit in the foot by a banana flying from the stage a minute or two later but thats no kinda souvenir for any one.We finished the night off with a few drinks across the road at Randy's other bar, ‛Superstars¡¯, a shitload of girls crammed on stage, again wearing swim wear. Even though they had some good rock music playing we didn¡¯t stay too long, there¡¯s only so much excitement one can endure in ‛One Night in Bangkok¡¯.
Bicycle maintenance day today. After breaky Elke started cleaning hers. Mine took a little longer as it was dirtier. And i got heavily involved in a few cold bottle of beers to try and counteract the extreme heat. We only had one of the locals inquire as to what we were cleaning them for, and when the word got around that one of them was for sale, we had people coming along every half hour or so, test riding it. It cost Elke US$142 about 6 weeks ago but had over 2000Kms on the clock. So Elke was really hoping for about $30.
She¡¯d popped down the road somewhere to see some other returning / departing cycle tourists equipment for sale and when she returned, her bike was gone. Someone rode it away before 2Pm for 2500 Baht which weighs in at $80. Because it looked so good compared to all the other shat heaps of bikes we see around this area, and because it sold so quickly, we feel we could have got a little more for it but it was a deal where both parties were happy chappies
Me @ Wat Phra Keao
.My day wasn¡¯t going so well however. I snapped both my tyre levers trying to get this cheapo chunky tyre off my front rim. Some bored local dude came along trying to be helpful but in his attempt to lever it off with a square - shanked philips screwdriver, snapped the valve off my inner tube and mutilated the edge of my alloy rim. I had to sand it smooth again then i think the beers were really starting to kick in as i cut the wrong end off my new chain. Damn! Oh well, i¡¯ll grab another one tomorrow when we go to pick up Elke¡¯s shiny new machine. Time to call it quits for the day.
We headed by boat into a central shopping area called Chid Lom to meet one of Elke's friends and had a few beers. When she had to go home, we went to the Bangkok division of the ‛Hard Rock Cafe¡¯ for a couple, just to say we¡¯ve been there. I¡¯m a bit dubious about these places anyway. Although i love hard rock music, these guys frequently play ‛soft rock¡¯ and charge like a wounded bull.
We walked in and asked for a table for two and the waitress showed us a whole lot of places that we couldn¡¯t sit or didn¡¯t want to sit. I took it upon myself to find two sets at the bar with a good view of the live band, who were really going off with some improvised lead break, and cast my eye over the menu. At the bar in our hotel, we¡¯d been getting 650ml bottles of Chang, a local beer, for 50 Baht. These guys were selling a 300ml bottle of it for 135Baht. ‶We¡¯ll have one and then we¡¯re out of here¡å I said, not wanting to waste my unassisted effort of claiming the two bar seats. Elke sat this round out and went to the toilet. I got the beer, the bill, then put my 140 baht in the leather bill folder and handed it over expecting my 5 Baht change. It came back with 140 change. Sweet, they¡¯ve facked up i thought, shoving the money back into my pocket
Wat Phra Keao
. I looked at the bill again to see if they¡¯d given me the drink i¡¯d ordered. Oooh! The dirty bastards! They'd wacked on a 7.5% ‛make us happy¡¯ or something charge, then a 10% ‛piss you off¡¯ tax charge amounting to 158 Baht. Cants. I really like to be told how much the beer is and then pay that much, not have someone say ‶didn¡¯t you read the fine print? You owe us more money.¡å Once again, it¡¯s a principles thing here. Elke came back from the loo and i explained the situation. ‶They¡¯ve taken rock¡¯n¡¯roll and used it to fack me over.¡å By now they could see i was bothered about the bill and i could see them out the corner of my eye passing the word around to each other. ‶There¡¯s not a facking thing i can do about this so i¡¯m gonna make it really difficult for them to get their money¡å. After explaining the principal of telling someone the price to charge, and not hiding surcharges from the customer, the fact that they¡¯re the only pricks in Thailand doing this, and that they should get their menu changed, they suggested they should call the police. ‶Yes, please do¡å i said, ‶so we can tell them what a pack of cants you are¡å. ‶Ok, wait here¡å (by now we¡¯re outside the front door) the manager said. Elke grabbed the money out of my hand and threw it on the ground in front of them and said ‶We¡¯re not waiting, lets go¡å. They chased us down they road a bit, about half a dozen of them and the ugly lady-boy manager trying to tell us that they are the police
Wat Phra Keao
. It was starting to get a little scary by now so i gave them the other twenty baht which i clearly didn¡¯t owe them and told them that every other Thai person we¡¯ve met have been really good people but they were the biggest wankers we¡¯d ever seen.Back in the bike shop the following day, i got the urge to buy a second red-walled tyre along with the tube and second new chain in two days. Gees i felt like a cock telling the sales guy that the other chain was fine, i just cut the wrong end off.
Elke had a rear rack fitted but hadn¡¯t decided on her new panniers. Deluxe waterproof ones for 3000 Baht or the standard ones for 1300. In the end she went for the shiny waterproof ones. She now has a bike and rear panniers that make me jealous. If only they were slightly ‛same same but different¡¯, maybe i could switch them over in the middle of the night while she¡¯s asleep. With my bike still missing a chain, pedals and a tyre, we had one bike between us. I was not gonna let Elke double me home on the back through the thick Bangkok traffic on a bike she¡¯d ridden up and down the footpath twice on. So i did the pedaling (while she sat side saddle on the back), clicking through the rapid fire gears, they work great and are a real treat for hands after a sticky throttle type gear shifter.
I got home and finished off my bike, putting the second red-walled tyre on it and, what i thought would be a good idea, a new white leather gel seat. Elke now calls it a clowns bike and i cant really argue with her over that one, it looks ridiculous, the only happy thought i can get is that it will be hidden by my ass but only while riding.
Topping every night off with a few beers and a stroll down Khao San road, to look at all the alternatives, freaks and plain weirdos (all western travelers), we¡¯ve been finding it harder and harder to get out of bed in the mornings
Wat Phra Keao
. So we made a real effort to do so the morning after we got our bikes sorted. Off to see some Buddhist temple complexes, or Wats as they¡¯re called here. Talk about architecture, these things are facking amazing, the intricate detailing that has gone into them. Some of them covered in millions of pieces of tiny mirror or coloured glass, similar to the Persian Mosques in Iran. I walked around three such Wats taking photos about every 10 seconds, everywhere i looked there was a photo to be taken. First was Wat Phra Kaeo which had some sort of emerald Buddha inside it that we weren¡¯t allowed to photograph.
Next was Wat Pho. What for? It has an enormous reclining Buddha, I think its about 50m long but really hard to get a good photo of as the old boy¡¯s jammed between two rows of pillars. Similarly, i walked around the 20 Acres of surrounding courtyard snapping up as many pics as my imagination would allow.
Last on the short list of 3, we crossed the Chao Phraya River to scale the rather steep stairs of Wat Arun, kind of a spier shaped temple that you can climb up and admire city views from, which i did of course. We washed that day¡¯s sightseeing down with a few coldies and some ice cream.
Well, its strange how one paints a picture of a city, based on information gathered from various sources, has a pre-conceived idea of what it¡¯s gonna be like before they actually get there
Wat Phra Keao
. The painting on the back side of my brain was of a place in shambles, another Mumbai, the roads gridlocked with traffic, tuk tuk drivers virtually pushing you into their machines and hi-jacking your journey to a silk or gem shop. I thought there¡¯d be dudes dressed as ladies everywhere, homosexual western sex tourists grabbing them by the stalk and leading them back to their hotels, dirty old men, sex tourists and so forth with a few local prostitutes hanging off each one of them.There¡¯s only a hint of my expectations visible to the areas I've explored. The roads are busy but are in good order, flowing traffic, and people obeying the rules. The tuk tuk drivers are definitely there in abundance ‶Hello tuktuk¡å is all you hear walking down the road if you¡¯re ‛Farang¡¯ (foreign). We¡¯ve uncovered the reason for this though, they know they can charge (and get) well over twice the going rate for a ride if you¡¯re unwary (a sucker dong).
I¡¯ve seen a couple of those lady-boys, or transvestites as they¡¯re known back home. One of them was a tour guide in one of the temples we visited. They¡¯re normal here, no one even batters an eyelid at them. But it does leave me damn curious how i can hear so many other travelers (and one good mate who shall remain anonymous)(you know who you are you dirty little fakkar) that tell stories of someone they know (or so they say) that ‛accidentally¡¯ took one home by ‛mistake¡¯, and when they found out they ‛got rid of them¡¯ (or went along with it) when they are clearly scarce in the places we been hanging out at. I¡¯ve even seen on the news this week that Ronaldo, the Brazilian football star, fell to the same plight.
The only thing that¡¯s been remotely in line with what i expected is the number of old men hangin with pretty gorgeous young Thai women. I¡¯ve seen enough of this sort of pairing off to start to notice a pattern here. The blokes with these sexy little Thai girls seem to be either old, fat, ugly, or undesirable to women in our society in someway or another, the ones ‛left on the shelf,¡¯ a lot like myself. There¡¯s hope for me yet!
Comments
it exsites me to watch you in secret .....
Good on ya graham I went 75 km and had to stop 2 k's from home for a rest I was that fuged.I've been following your trip for the last copple of mounths and it shore beats being stuck whith 2 kids in brisbane . se you in oz eric.