20/04: Home again, this is the end

Well, after a long night in the plain, we arrived in Londen around 7 o'clock. Only had a flight to Brussels at 1 pm. So killing time was the answer. Actually we just waited, ate something, wandered around and waited some more. Then it was finally time to really go back home. A flight of only 45 minutes. It feels like you're just up in the air, or they're already making their descend again. Back in Brussels we got our bikes safe and sound with us: yes! Then, through the gate to meet our families. We all ate together at my parents house and it was a very fun and delicious evening! Now the real life starts again. But we had a fantastic time in Asia and we will have wonderfull memories for the rest of our life!!!!

19/04: Enjoying our last hours at Bkk international airport

What better way to end our time in bkk than with a tuktuk to the airlink city rail station from our guesthouse? 2 big boxes strapped to the back of the tuktuk and off we go...don't think the driver got a lot of goods moving foreingers in his ride cause he was looking at us a bit suspicious...especially cause we were smart enough to negotiate a price before showing him our stuff! hahaha, tuktuk style to you to! Anyway, tipped him a bit at the end & Line gave him her sandals that she didn't need anymore. Then with some help from stationside waiting moto taxi drivers we got our boxes up into the station and on the train. Was around 6pm so it was totally packed with working people going home...not easy, but it all worked out.

Honestly if you land on bkk with your bike packed, just get the airlink rail to any station nearest to your destination and then just get all your gear ready at the station in the centre of bkk and off you go!

Good thing we packed the bikes along the scale to 23kg cause they officially scaled in at the check-in counter on 22,5kg & 23kg. Bulls-eye! So they checked in easily enough, oooeff, at least this time we should make it to our destination with our bikes. At least London, lets hope also brussels ;-) Didn't get any comments on our handluggage either. Other than that our hats (bike helmets) are a somewhat strange fashion accesoire. So the rest of the time before boarding at midnight we get to spend our last bahts & hours strolling the shops and maybe try to "buttgroove" a waiting bench.

18/04: Our last arrival in bangkok!

Flying back to Bangkok from Chiang Mai, what a luxery! :-) We then decided to compensate a bit by taking the express train back into town instead of a taxi. Cheaper & faster, go fot this option if you can. We will now also try and take the train to get to the airport for departure...gonna get fun with those big bike boxes ;-) Made an enroute stop at the bike shop (Bikezone @ Amarin plaza) where we collected our bikes packed in boxes. Then we had to get them back to the guesthouse...We immediatly realised that they wouldn't fit in one taxi together with the two of us, so two taxis. The first box was loaded into a taxi, very tight! Line hopped in & took off to the guesthouse. The bikebox from Ardan was a couple  of centimetes bigger so he had a hard time finding a taxi where it would fit in. The very friendly security guys from the shoppingmall tried to help him by stopping taxis, but they stopped the same model of car everytime, which was to small. Thanks, very kind, but not really helping guys :) So after a while, Ardan just stopped a taxi and put the box in the trunk (instead of in the backseat) and the taxidriver put some ropes around it because the box was sticking out of the trunk for the most part. Arriving at the guesthouse we put the boxes on a scale...: to heavy, SHIT! But no worries, we were still able to take some heavy things out of the boxes and put into our handluggage. Lets hope the scale in the guesthouse is correct, because now they're 23 kg, which is okay. For the rest of the day had a noodlesoups (one of the last :-( ) and wandered around chinatown.

17/04: Last day chiangmai

We have ben here for long enough now...;-) Last day Chiangmai! A bit more pooltime before lunch & some sunday market strolling. Tomorrow early morning we board the plane to Bangkok where we can spend 1 more day before heading back home late on the 19th. It's starting to get really really close now...I don't think it's hitting us yet, but surey some time soon we are gonna get a serious kick...

16/04: same same but different

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Same same: swimmingpool, reading, relaxing.
Different: able to go on the streets without getting wet.

15/04: Swimmingpool!!

As said yesterday, we didn't feel like joining the waterfight yet another day. After breakfast in the guesthouse, we crossed safely to the swimmingpool next door. Not much to say about that other than we swam, read, worked on that tan. For late lunch we went for our usual noodlesoup. We knew there was one right in front of the hotel, so we just walked through the hotel and quickly crossed the street to be safe behind the noodlesoupstand. Once we finished our noodlesoup, we ran back to the otherside and entered the hotel again, all so we wouldn't get wet :-)) To celebrate our victory, we took another dive into the swimmingpool (to get wet ;-) ).
For dinner, we again didn't feel like joining the waterfight, so what to do.... Hm, Ardan must have felt a bit homesick 'cause he really wanted some Pizza...why not Pizzahut pizza then? We are really getting lazier the longer we are off our bike, so we ordered in! Quick online browse to pizzahut.co.th & 40min later our food was delivered at the guesthouse lobby. We could even use their discount  second pizza for half the price and a free applecrumble pie (rather big): yummie!

14/04: Waterfight again!


Changed guesthouse this morning, without getting wet! :-) When we went for lunch we weren't so lucky anymore. Some people saw we were still dry and decided that this couldn't be. Luckely the sun was back, so we quickly went back to our guesthouse and got our buckets. The best place for joining the waterfight if you have a bucket is next to the canal, so we went there, got wet (soaked to be more exact :-) ), and made sure other people got wet also :-) Two days is enough though, so tomorrow we'll go to the pool (also water, but a bit cleaner than the water from the canal). Now we're going to watch a movie and pray that they stop killing cats (karaoke singing, but oh so loud and oh so out of tune! ;) ) around midnight.

13/04: and the water throwing keeps on going

Today the sun decided to take a restday, so it was colder and it was raining all day. So we didn't feel like playing with water. A lot of people did, so we decided to stay in as much as possible. But, you had to get out to get some food. That was risky business :) We got wet! And it was ccccold! Especially when they threw the ice water in this weather! So what we did was: read, play a game, watch a movie, talk about the plans for our house. Tomorrow we'll change back to the previous guesthouse. Let's hope the sun had rested enough so we can use the swimmingpool again :)

12/04: The, really wet, blessing "ceremony" has begun!

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Forget what we said yesterday about getting a bit wet...today the action really begun! Hundreds of people gathering around the old moat with waterguns, buckets, hoses,...anything which is remotely functional as a water propelling device. :-) So the instant we got to where the action was taking place we bought ourselves a couple of buckets with a string attached to it for throwing and fetching it full of water from the ponds/moat/barrels of water scattered around town. After that...we got wet, very wet and had loads of fun! Throw water at everyone to bless them & recieve a blessing in return...pretty basic...for some reason some fill their buckets with icecubes/blocks so the water is freezing cold when it hits you, luckily they don't throw around the ice itself...had a couple of shocks from time to time today ;-) The action is mostly concentrated along The Pae Gate where all passing traffic (cars, moto, taxi, tuktuk,...) gets absolutelly bashed with water from the sides. A lot of blessing a lot of good luck for the new year? Taxi's really get a bashing cause people are 'trapped' inside, but you can throw water inside from everywhere. All this fun is good for us, this way we get to celebrate NY a 3rd time this year after ours & Tet! When we got back to our GH we treated ourselves to some more water in the "spaceshower"...just watch the album.

11/04: It's starting to get a bit wet

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Some more swimming and working on getting rid of that bikertan (together with a lot of sunscreen!). After that we walked around town to a little park where we fed the fish. Crossing the road some guy sitting in a taxi used his watergun on me. All of a sudden it started to rain. So we got wet for the second time today. Luckely it only rained for an hour. We drank a smoothie and after that is was time for the nightmarket again. We treated ourselves with a 30 minutes footmassage for 1.5€ :-p!! For dinner we did some "hapje-tapje" again. I couldn't resist the sushi, so we got us a plate. Ardan thought the wasabi wasn't strong enough, so he smeared a good amount on his sushi. That resulted in me laughing and Ardan crying. Hahaha, after the worst part was over he could laugh to ofcoarse and said that it was good wasabi :-). Some more "hapje-tapje" food until we had enough and we then bought ourselves a beer in the 7eleven. When heading back I got water on me from a girl who was testing her watergun before buying it. Only 50m further we got a lot of water on us from another guy standing next to a waterbarell spraying on everyone and everything that moved. Maybe we should get ourselves some defense weapon... also a watergun or a bucket? :-)

10/04: Sonkran has officially begun

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The Songkran festivities in chiang mai have officially begun. Music, people, street markets, looks & feels very much like a leuvens hapje-tapje or de beleuvenissen. The typical waterfights however have not yet started. This should pick up from tomorrow or the day after. So to take things easy we first enjoyed some more luxury poolside relaxation, covering ourselves with a lot of sunscreen after yesterdays little burn ;-) 6 months in asia, but we still haven't learned our lesson...shissh. Somewhere in the afternoon we headed out into the streets for a noodlesoup lunch followed with terras fruit smoothies while watching the evening street markets come to live. Market got busy pretty soon and there was a bustling crowd...18h sharp the national anthem was blasting out of many speakers and all came to total standstill! Bit like a "mobfreeze" or whatever in europe...except here it happens every day on busy places. See it on Youtube Line & I where actually really caught up in our conversation, remaining totally oblivious to the whole thing until it was nearing the end. Quickly stopped talking and got up too, oeps. Treated ourselves with a healthy sushi dinner, setting us back a whopping 2,5euro for both of us! :-O Damn, it's gonna hurt to be back in Belgium....

09/04: Sizzling beside the pool

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Went to the bakery this morning to get ourselves some croissants and other goodies. After breafast we checked out from our old guesthouse and checked in in the new one. In this guesthouse we could use the swimmingpool from the hotel next door, for a small fee of coarse. But it was worth it. Very very chique swimmingpool. You got a clean towel from the hotel, champoo/soap/conditioner, beautiful outdoor shower, relax-chairs and we had the swimmingpool to ourselves! You should think that you learn by experience, well... we got burned again. It doesn't seem to matter how many times you get sunburn, you allways think that you've put enough sunscreen on. Well, not in this blistering sun! :-) If we go back tomorrow, the sun can only see our backs and we will make sure we'll put enough sunscreen on, or hide from the sun sometimes. In the evening we didn't eat noodlesoup ;-), but rice and toppings which we choose from 15 different bowls/dishes on the street. After that we walked around the saturday-night-market. A lot of people, but it was nice :-)

08/04: Jungle Flight

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Youtube Line zipping away!

So today we got out of bed at around 6am again to go on the early morning Jungle Flight. Jungle flight? Yup, ziplining & abseiling in the forest around Chiang mai...Around...well a good 1h ride out of town, with the end over some really bumpy, up&down curving track into the forest. Finally Line arrived there feeling pretty sick. Just the road or also a bit of fear?

I can conclude jungle flying in a nutshell as great fun! Lucky we took the early morning timeslot, so only the 2 of us & another young couple from norway. They took the longer package, so on the lines itself we were all alone with 2 guides. Boston & Mike. Mike the quite sidekick for hangover-, ex army ranger-, comedian Boston. Real name in thai was something I can't remember but means "With the blessing of buddha" or alike, although if you mis pronounce 1 part of the word in thai it means stupid...too many foreingers kept calling him 'stupid' everyday so he came up with something a bit easier :-)) Now we didn't have to wait long at any platform, had more then enough time to try some different moves while flying or looking out into the forest. Normal group size is 10-12p...wow, that's lots of waiting time...folder claims a 6h activity, if your 2 it takes about a good 1h. 1h zipping, 5h waiting? Take the early slot!

   

Line quickly felt relieved that she didn't get as scared as she feared, probably the really secure feeling she got from all the hooks & safetylines helped a bit...also the lines aren't superfast/megadrops through the forest, more "balanced thrills" ;-) After a good lunch we headed back to town passing some hot springs, unfortunately they boil at around 100°C so forget about some skinnydipping.

Tomorrow change of scenery. We head to another guesthouse with a luxury garden/pool nextdoor, let's hope the good weather stays on so Line can tan the bike shorts of her body before heading back home ;-)

07/04: A train, A bus, no a plane!

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So today we walked to the trainstation to book our trainticket back to Bangkok on the 17th of April. Well... bad luck! Fully booked for the whole day, as were the 15th, 16th & 18th. Damn! So we could take a bus back or a plane. The bus would take 11 hours to get back to Bangkok. Since a bus is not as comfortable as the night train (you never know with those "VIP" buses, sometimes they're really good, sometimes they're crap), we decided to go for the plane. That would cost us 2400baht/person, but we decided that it was worth the comfort. Some more walking around, diving into the swimmingpool to cool down and reading our book brought us back to dinner :-)
We've booked the jungle flight for tomorrow. They'll come and pick us up very early (6.30am) to "fly" through the treetops from the jungle on a zipline... Let's hope I don't pee my pants all too often! ;-)

06/04: just wandering around town

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After a good night sleep we went for breakfast (yes fruitsalad, yoghurt and muesli again, hmmm) and returned back to our guesthouse where we had to change rooms since ours was booked by someone else. After that we went 'guesthouse shopping', because we can only stay in this guesthouse 3 more nights, then all rooms are booked. We booked 3 nights in a guesthouse where we can use the deluxe swimmingpool of the hotel next door. During Songkran (Thai New Year accompanied by a lot of water throwing) we'll stay at yet another guesthouse with their own little swimmingpool. Since we're not at the beach, we'll just dive into the swimmingpool instead of the ocean. There's a lot of sun here, so I might still get rid off that bikertan by laying next to the swimmingpool :-) After booking our guesthouses, we walked around town to visit some more temples. Nice, but it's like visiting a lot of churches... if you've already seen a lot of them, they all look quit the same :-) We are thinking of going on a jungle flight/gibbon experience: very fun activity sooring through treetops if you're not scared of hights. Well, I am (a bit/a lot?, I don't know...), so we don't know yet. But comments on this trip are all very positive so....A dive in the ice cold swimming pool and a read in our books on the rooftop terrace later, it was already time to go for dinner again.

05/05: Cookin' Chiangmai

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Today we booked a day cooking activity at the thai organic farm with the "giftcash" we got. Thank You! The day started bright and early at 8am (since we don't have to get up at 6am to start biking, 8am is early again). First stop was at a fresh market where our guide/cook for the day (Tommy) gave us some explanation on the used thai oils, currys, sauces & very important different types of rice! Won't go into details here, but most of it is straight forward & easy. "Easy" was a word often used by him, and after making some of the popular thai dishes we have to conclude the same. Why should something have to be hard to be good? Welcome to the thai-way ;-)

After that it was a short ride to the 'farm' where the actual cooking was going to take place. Not a real farm, more a large herbs, fruit, veggie & spice garden. Still it was a good setup for cooking & seeing/smelling/tasting the ingredients fresh from the field.

First dishes: Curry. Yellow massaman (normal curry with some extra's: Cinnamon, clove, tamarin pulp) for Ardan & Greencurry for Line. After pounding all the ingredients to a pulp in a mortar, which should be done as powerful as possible to 'break'-out all the flavours. According to tommy, a good wife should make noise from the kitchen...Line was the first of the group to get his 'good wife' label! Second: Soups. Tom Yam & Coconut milk chicken. I decided to make a well chilli'ed Tom Yam to keep it thai for real & got a thumbs up at the end from Tommy...bit too much power for Line though, she rather had the more rich coconut soup. Third: Chicken Cashew & chicken basil stir fried...throw it all in a wok, stir fry...done. Easy, right? Forth: banana in hot coconutmilk, Mango sticky rice. Use lots of coconut milk, palmsugar, always add some salt to make the sweet fuller! Mmmmm. Fifth & last: Pat Thai & spring rolls. At least now we know how to make pat thai, but we still think it's too greasy to be really tasty. It was a very fun and tasty day!

So with a very full stomach we got back late afternoon to have a nap before venturing into town for some strollng & sight seeing. Lots more of that the next days. What other activities?...we'll see...

04/04: Enter Chiangmai baby

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The train to Chiang Mai was perfect again. It was cold again though and we both got off the train with a sore throat. But we really prefer the sleeptrain above any bus!

First glance of Chiang Mai looks good. Although it's Thailands 2nd city, it only has about 500.000 inhabitants & the city itself isn't so busy & hectic as Bangkok by far. We could just be spending our last weeks from our trip here & in the surroundings...weather is fabulous for the time being. Sun is shining hard all day long, but don't know where they got the fact that it should be a bit cooler here? We are totally melting! In the shades it do-able, but out in the open sun you can almost hear yourself sizzling like a crisp slice of bacon. Our GH for the night actually has a small pool, but since it doesn't get any direct sun its a bit of a shock to dive right in ;-). Still a very nice extra in this weather!

Rounded off the day with an evening stroll along the water, eye-shopping on the night market & having another noodlesoup at the local foodcourt with some banana-roti street dessert. We're really going to miss those noudlesoups! For tomorrow we have a cooking class day activity planned on a organic farm little out of town...anxious to see what that's gonna be like!

03/04: & off we are to the north!

It's starting to get a bit ridiculous, we know...first down from the north to the south, then back up all the way to the north...but now that we are not bound to short distance travel by bike we feel the need to compensate? No, we really don't, but spending our last weeks in a flood zone isn't really what we signed up for either.

So we get on a Chiangmai bound train this evening. Another 13h sleeper train ride to look forward to, actually travelling by train in thailand so far has been great, so we are really kinda looking forward to it! Also according to the weather forecast chiangmai should be bathing in sunshine, while being a little cooler then bkk...joepie!

Rest of today we spent playing tetris & cards in Lumpini market together with Toon.

02/04: Some new part of bangkok

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After a good nights sleep in Toon's appartement, from which you have a killer view across the Chao Praya river btw, we walked around a part of bangkok we didn't see before...yes, even after many days in bkk still a lot of ground is not yet known ;-)

Luckily for our photo album Toon spotted a very welcoming sign on some massage salon window...I think something went wrong in translation...they ran out of t's, but still had plenty of f's?? Me lof you long time, 2hours! suddenly gets a whole other dimension. Only that picture makes a 5km walk on the "other" side of the river well worth it!

After that we took some more R&R, reading up in our books and searching the internet for the weather conditions around thailand in order to decide where to spend our last 2weeks...Finally we decided on Chiangmai up north...back north that is, we are really going all over the place now, but rain is just annoying, everything we can to try to avoid it.

01/4: Today is time to leave...back to bkk ;-)

Today & yesterday some boats got out since the wind got a bit less. So after a week here it is time to look for some better scenery. We are a bit lucky, cause now we can also take a boat to Chumpon which is more north than Suratthani & hopefully that way we can prevent getting into the worst flooded areas. In any case, we go straight for Bangkok again. Stay there maybe 2 days again & try to look for the better place to go...no rain is good enough, we don't even ask for sunshine at this time ;-)

Actually now waiting on Koh Phangan pier in the sun...5min ago it was raining though...mother nature is confused.
Line also got hold of some anti-seasick pills, so hopefully this boattrip to the mainland will involve a bit less puking then when we came here :-)

30-31/03: Just waiting it out...

Owke, the plan for some last few weeks of sunshine on an island will not work. That's pretty obvious.

It has been raining almost non stop for about a week now. Boats stopped connecting the island a couple of days ago because there is too much wind, electricity is out, phone/internet too. Stuck on an island. Actually we are in a good spot. High up on the hillside, so no water troubles. The good side of the island too, the other got the storm full blast on the shore and there things aren't so good. A lot of people tried to get of the island the last days, we didn't bother. Starts most didn't get anywhere and where just around a couple 100's waiting around the pier for a boat...then if you get off, you make it to surathani which is now flooded...we rather sit relaxed in a bungalow here than in a flooded large city.

Anyway, we just wait. So far so good.

29/03: another rainy day on koh Phangan

"Op een overstroomd eieieieiland..." (variatie op kinderen voor kinderen-liedje ;-) ).
Yes well, power went out again last evening and we were without power today also. Together with the Belgian couple, a German guy and an Austrian girl we sat on the porch the whole day. We read something, did some sudoku, talked a little, got bored a little. It does make you feel like a group, being stuck together on a rainy island. The German guy even went to the 7eleven and brought us a little gift: ferero rochers! :-) The people who went to the port yesterday and today are still there. Apparently 500 people waiting to catch the boat. We know for at least one girl who has missed her flight back home, think she's not the only one. The guesthouse host thinks that maybe tomorrow there will be boats again. We'll try our luck tomorrow. It's been okay for the last five days in the pooring rain, but it starts to get boring. So we hope that the sun will come out tomorrow, or the day after. If not, at least it's a change of scenery going to Koh Samui :-).

28/03: More & more water, stuck on an island!

Owke, more & more rain is falling out of the sky...it just doesn't seem te stop. Result of this is that several boats are not leaving the shore, electricity goes on & off all of the time, 7eleven needs to barricade the door with sandbags to prevent the shop from flooding...anyway, it's getting everything BUT a nice, sunny, tropical paradise! Hell, if it was all good we would be hiding from the burning sun, now we hide from the rain...patato, patatoe... ;-) So we decided to just stick around until the weather improves (don't feel like puking for hours on the boat leaving the island). Weather is poor everywhere anyway, so we might as well stay here and read our books and do internet stuff here. We met another Belgian couple in the guesthouse. They decided to stay another day (or two) as well, since they didn't feel like going on to the ocean either on the only ferry that did leave today. So we decided to watch a movie together for a change, since we've been reading al day ;-)

27/03: More rain & no power, time on a island can be bliss! Right?

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Today was more of the same as the last days...more rain & lots of it! The extra for today was an additional full day power blackout, luckily 1min after finishing our hot shower ;-) So we read our books some more, played the crazy whack the bunny game, took a nap, read up in our guidebook, drank a beer & stared out into the storm. The sea is also too rough at this time for the boats to go out, so everyone is stuck on this island too...our original plan was leaving tomorrow, but it seems we maybe need to stay on Koh Phangan just a little bit longer. Anyway, wanna see how crazy the game is? See the video

26/03: Ocean dipping in the rain

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Today we were woken again by the heavy rainfall. So we just slept a bit longer (good excuse, not? :-) ). When the rain got a bit less we got up, took a shower and went for breakfast: fruit, muesli, yoghurt. Heaven finally decided to stop crying for a while, so we quickly took a dip in the ocean. No sun, but warm and no rain. All is well ;-)

So we played with the waves, wind & the many beach dogs. Most of these dogs are actually nice & clean, although some are dirty & scruffy, looking more like goats than dogs? It's an island, so breeding option perhaps are limited?? After playing with the real dogs we finished our doggi puzzle that remained from yesterday. Succes at last!

We bought ourselves a little game in the local 7eleven to keep busy, whack the bunny! Couple of buttons that light up in some random sequence you need to push in time. First level is fun, 2nd is impossible. Maybe with some more practice we can get ahead in the game....to be continued. If we remember we'll try to post a video with the oooo so irritating sound. Once your in the game, you just don't care to be honest...:-)

Btw; Tonight is 1/2moon party night, a trance fest somewhere in the jungle, but since we are not cool we're not going :-) Also cause apparantly the music is poor & the crowd are raving idiots.

25/04: Puzzling away while watching the heaven cry

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No alarmclock! Bliss, so we stayed in bed until well over 10am...that has to be one of the max 5x on this trip, but this is partly why we have these last weeks, so we decided to use them. The weather still remains the same and is predicted to stay the same for days on end...woeptiedoe! So we watched the heaven cry it's hart out, dropping thick tears onto the tropical hills, converging into the fast flowing streams & waterfalls. Honestly, the constant sound you hear is of rain drops hitting the metal roofs & the water flowing down towards sea. The best way to spend the day was to start on our puzzle again...the little 3 dogs beat us on the train last time, surely they could not defeat us again? Well, yup, they could! :-) That little (500 pieces, so not sooo little) sweet little doggi puzzle is damn hard work! We ran out of daylight when it was almost finished so we have some work waiting for tomorrow. It will probably rain anyway, so that's another dry hour at least.

24/03: All sins are washed away in paradise!

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After the second time standing on the deck, throwing up, this big muscled guys who looked very tough, came back with a tissue and a bottle of water for me. Wow, how sweet! Tough on the outside, soft on the inside?
When we arrived at Koh Pha-ngan, it was very hot and the sun was shining. Well, that was decieving :-) Once we arrived at our guesthouse (with a really friendly host who is smiling all the time), it started to rain. In between rain showers, we were able to walk to a 7eleven to get something to drink and eat. After that we went back to our guesthouse and sat on our terrace to read something. We were back just in time, because then the sky bursted open!! Tropical rainshower it was! We were still tired from our journey to here, so we slept a couple of hours and then it was time to go for dinner. We just ate our guesthouse: yellow curry with chicken and pineapple and steamed rice. For the rest of the evening we will sit on the porch, drink something, listen to Tracy Chapman (good music taste they have :-) ).

23/03: In search of tropical islands?

First day of really not having a bike anymore & leaving for the islands in the south. Last we checked islands should still be there, palms etc too, only the weather isn't collaborating and seems to have taken a totally out of season break. Showers, clouded & even a potential tropical storm are the forecasts?? Luckily we plan on spending a few days there, so hopefully we can also get some picture perfect days! Anyway, the bus from Bkk to Chumporn was a normal seating, but night, bus so we didn't get a lot of sleep there...had to move seat too, cause the aircon was leaking from the ceiling. Another bad point for bus riding vs biking ;-) After that it was onto a high speed catamaran to get to the islands. Remember the poor weater forecast? Yup, rough sea. Imagine about 100 people in a boat that's beating up & down with maybe 40 of them puking their guts out! :-)) Unfortunately Line was one of them :-( But she decided not to puke in a bag (so others can hear and see you puking), instead she went outside and used the ocean, twice.

22/03: biking around BKK trying to sell our bikes

This morning we went to a bikeshop which Ardan called yesterday, they were maybe interested in buying our bikes....When we got there and said our price (1000€, but negotiable) the guy quickly said that it was way too much. He could only offer us 125€...mmmm, not! Our bikebags alone are worth more than that! Thanked the guy and decided to try 1 more bikeshop. This guy didn't buy second hand bikes, but we could place the bikes in his bikeshop for sale. He would however ask us for 1000baht/bike to clean and check them and when he sells the bikes he would ask 10%. It's quite normal that he wants to have some money for it, but after talking with him for a while, he kinda convinced us that it was better to take them back home. We just wouldn't get the price we wanted here he said. So left the bikes & bags in the shop so they can pack them.

Hopefully we don't need to sent stuff home through the post & we can take all our remaning luggage with us as cabine-luggage...Our bikebags are also getting packed in the bikebox package, so we needed to buy new bags for the remaining weeks of travel. In any case, dragging a bike bag along was not an option. So we set off & finally bought 2 Karana waterproof bags (30l & 40l) which we hope are big enough to get everything home, but not too big since it has to be allowed as handlugage? We'll see...ended the day by booking a bus down south to Koh Phangan where white sands, palms, hammocks & according to the lastest weatherforecast, lots of rain! are awaiting :-( Dry season? Not for now! Hopefully is doesn't last too long, Line wants to work on her tan a bit, time to loose those bikeshirt/sandal marks!

21/03: Free ferry, flat bike-on-train fares & back in bustling bangkok

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So after spending 1 more day in Ayuthaya we headed off to the train station to catch the noon train to Bkk. For some reason the return to the station ferry in ayuthaya is free? Or we just missed the pay-lady...anycase, joepie, free boatride! (60sec only though)
When we then bought our train tickets, we realised there is a flat-fare for the bikes...so far we were in the believe that we payed a %fee based on the distance we travelled...not. It's 90B/bike, always (about 2 euro). Sounds a bit hefty considering our tickets were only 15B/person! Less than 0,5euro for 2h train riding...absurd...enough compensation for the 90B/bike ;-)

Train ride was uneventfully nice, windows down, doorway sitting staring & enjoying the fan come round. Then we had to hit the bangkok roads again! Busy, noisy, smelly & really hot. This time we could really feel the polution in the air while trying to gasp for oxygen in the air. A ride to the Probike shop quickly ended our hopefull "dream" of selling them our bikes, but tomorrow we meet a dutch guy that does biketours in bkk & would like to see them...fingers crossed...Ended the day by meeting another belgian guy who just arrived in bkk from australia, sharing a noodlesoup & beers, 7-11 snack & some travel stories. Only action remaining for today is yet another shower before going to bed.

20/03: Soooooooo hot! Bkk just had to wait 1 more day.

We planned to leave for Bangkok today, but realised just before leaving it was sunday and potentially Probike would be closed. Since our first action in bkk is to go there we decided to stay 1 more day in quick ayuthaya. Certainly a better place to spend some relax time here than bkk...understand? Later when we checked the opening hours of probike we realised they are open every day, dow! No probs, we just gave ourselves 1 more day to do nothing...& man it was needed! After the last days of poor weather, the sunshine has returned full blast. Soaring heat well into the +30°C (probably over +35°C if you ask us). From noon it is basically impossible to do anyhting that can't be done into the shade. If you do step out into the sun it feels as if you are laying on a grill, happily sizzling away..bring on the sauce chef! Then in a blink of an eye you start dripping sweat onto the pavement. Simply ridiculous.
But, no complaints! we are happy the sun is back into thailand (as long as we can shelter from it & don't have to do anything ;-))

19/03: chillin' in a park somewhere in Ayutthaya(+18; 4708km)

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Yesterday we bought a mango and a couple of bananas on the market for our breakfast today. This morning we went to the 7eleven to buy us some youghurt to put on the fruit and some more Ovaltine :-). Maybe they should have named it Ovalline (considering the quantities she drinks or wants to drink of it all day). It was a delicious breakfast and a good start of a very sunny day! Yess, the sun is back!

After that we changed guesthouse, since the owner's brother was having a party with karaoke tonight. No point of sticking around if we want to sleep :-) We know all there is to know of karaoke overload after 5 months across asia & don't need to get up close & personal. We found another nice guesthouse close by, again little bungalows in a garden, dropped off our stuff in our room and set of for a tour around town. We quickly decided that we had seen enough temples and set down in a park to read our books. (the templeitis virus seems to still be lingering in our bloodstream) Some more 7eleven for a drink (no ovaltine, imagine!) and back to our guesthouse. Guess what we had for dinner.... yep, noodlesoup again! For some strange reason we're still not sick of it. We even ate two of them. 25 baht (0.60€) each! It was a very cheap day foodwise, because for lunch we also had a noodlesoup each and a pepsi each. This only costed a total of 45baht! or couple of cents over a euro. Man, buying food is going to hurt when we get back home :-). What better way to end our day with another Ovaltine (which you can also call Ovalardan by the way, since he's always drinking one too) while reading our books some more.

18/03: Guesthouse escape & Ayuthaya temple run (+18; 4690km)

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After our healthy, yoghurt & ovaltine, (real early morning) breakfast in front of the 7-11 we headed to search for a guesthouse to catch up on some sleep before visiting Ayuthaya...found a place with a bed, hot shower & wifi so went for it. After 10min it was clear the wifi & hot water both didn't work. Since this is what we wanted, we decided to leave the place again. The owner obviously didn't like that; understandably, but if the only use of the room is to sit down & check if wifi is working...you can hardly call that usage. In the lobby we then also heard that wifi wasn't working for days, but when asked if they have wifi they obviously say "yes, have!" ;-) Anyway, at some point she even mentioned calling the police to resolve the matter. 1) what matter? 2)It also vanished any doubt we had of maybe staying afterall. So picked up our bags & left. Easily found another GH (checking all requirements on our list) so we showered & took a nap.

Afternoon started with a rice/chicken plate (instead of our usual noodlesoup ;-)), followed with a bikeride through town along the numerous old temple sites. Most of them require to pay a small entrance fee, but we could see all we needed from outside & the one's we did venture into we found nobody/nowhere to pay?? It feels a little bit like Angkor, albeit on a much smaller scale. A bit different & very nice is the fact that the remains are very well integrated into the modern city whereas in Angkor the temples are a good distance out of town. Found thai edamame roadside snack, more 7-11 ovaltine (Line is growing a serious addiction) & a lot of huge chicken worship statues around town?? We also like chicken....but that much to worship it? Line even managed to get the 7-11 ovaltine machine stuck so it kept on sprouting it's brown gold. She didn't opt to resolve the problem by hanging under the tap & trying to outdrink the machine, but yelled to the shop worker about the problem that she professionally solved by shoving her finger into the nozzle. Miraculously when removing the finger, the flow had ceased.

17/03: Freezin' cold in nongkai & yet again a cold sleeper-train to Ayuthaya

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This is supposed to be the hot & dry season in thailand, but today (as the last 2 days) the weather is very different from normal. Even locals are walking around rubbing their arms & pulling up their jackets high around their necks while looking around themselves as if asking what is wrong with mother nature...it was a mere 16°C! Take note, normal temperature this time of year is around 30 (in the shade). Adding continuous drizzling rain all day long, we had the feeling of already being back in Belgium ;-)
At 5pm we went to eat our noodlesoup and set off to the trainstation. In Thailand again, so that means a normal price to take your bike with you on the train (90 baht/bike, ticket +/- 700 baht/person: this is a normal ration :-) ). We bought ourselves a puzzle (500 pieces) so we had something to do on the train. Turned out to be more difficult than we thought. We started to get tired and wanted to go to sleep, but the puzzle wasn't finished yet. So we had to break it up again, shit! Yeah well, that means we'll have something to do on the islands or somewhere were we stay more than one day. So we went to sleep and hoped for once the train would have some delay, otherwise we would arrive in Ayutthaya at 4.30 am. Try and find a guesthouse then! The train did as we hoped and had a delay of almost two hours. Yess, that meant daylight! Breakfast no problem, 'cause 7eleven is open always ;-) We'll catch up on some sleep for a couple of hours and after that we'll go and visit Ayutthaya.

16/03: Changin' our mind. Again you say? (+62; 4672km)

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Woke up this morning and we didn't hear any rain. Yesss! But once we had packed all our bags and were ready to get some breakfast, it started again. Damn! So we put on our raincoats and went looking for something to eat. Yeah well, looks like they like to sleep longer here than they do in the other countries we've been in so far. We are used to find our daily noodlesoup at 6.30 am in the morning. Not in Thailand, or not in Nongkhai that is :) They all just open at 9am. So back to our guesthouse to wait for another hour and then breakfast. We found a good German bakery with cheap pasteries. Accompanied by a hot tea, since it was cold ;)
After that we started biking the road next to the Mekong to the West. Soon I (Line) realised that "it wasn't all that" biking in the rain. After 30 km we stopped at a 7eleven and talked about our plans. We decided that we've biked enough for this trip and that we'll cancel the plan of another 'biking-loop' in Thailand. So what we did was... bike the 30 km back to were we came from. Oops! Yeah well, like Ardan said: better this 30 km again than another 400 km which you don't like! True :) Before we went back to Nongkhai we bought a new Thai simcard.
When we arrived back in Nongkhai, we first went to the trainstation and bought the tickets for the sleeptrain to Ayuthaya tomorrow evening. After that we biked back to the center and looked for a new guesthouse. We found a very cosy one: wooden rooms, very clean, a welcoming hot shower, free breakfast and a very kind and helpfull owner 'Dann' (his name doesn't sound like it, but he is Thai :-) ). For dinner we had another noodlesoup somewhere on the street for 30 baht (0,75€) and.... Khaaw Niauw Mamwang (sticky rice with mango)!!!! Yummie!! I was looking forward to this since we left Thailand more than 3 months ago! It was delicious!

15/03: Back to the beginning, Thailand (+30; 4610km)

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Before being able to leave Laos & get back into thailand where we started our trip a good 4 months ago we had to get our VISA from the thai consulate in Vientiane. Pick-up is between 13-15pm...we had absolutely nothing else to do today so we already went there at 10am. Secretely hoping maybe we could pick ours up anyway since they had already been ready for 4 days....not. Burocracy is the same all over the world...13-15pm only for pick-up. ( we finally got our passports from the same chick at the same desk in the afternoon)

The proces at the thai consulate is a lot like at the butchers in the supermarket, you have to get a ticket with number for pickup/application & it get really busy at the consulate! We waited 2,5h to hand in our application last time so we wanted to get a ticket for pickup at 10am to be the first served at 13pm...not, machine only gives those tickets at 13pm...OK, so camp here till then instead! It was raining terribly anyway outside (imagine? Dry season?? Not today & last night that is)

To our surprise at noon we where kicked out of the consulate cause everybody takes lunch...another hour outside in front of the gate didn't appeal to us so we headed of for some lunch too. When we returned at 12:45 there was at least 100 people lining in front of the gate!! **** Anyway, I (ardan) just waited at the otherside of the street till the door actually opened, then crossed & moved smoothly into the front of the line & through the gate...headed straight to the ticket machine (at double pace vs the others) & got hold of ticket #12. Suckas! ;-) My advice is to get a thai visa somewhere else than Vientiane if possible or pay in a GH to have it done for you. We did get lucky since the tourist visa now is free! (until end march 2011) Tactic to boost tourism since last years riots in bkk that gave tourism a dent.

Once we got hold of our passports we headed straight for the Friendship bridge to cross over into Thailand, Nongkai. It is absolutely possible to bike across (although lots are informed otherwise). We did see a sign that could have indicated it wasn't allowed, but nobody try to stop us...& some had guns, so they would have been succesfull in their attempts. Onc across we were immediatelly greeted by a 7-11 where we bought some tasty snack before getting to Nongkai centre. Nice little bustling riverside town with pleasant market & terrace bars with free&fast wifi (something else than Laos).

We have also decided to keep on the bikes just a bit longer & continue to follow the Mekong to the west. After that we head down through/over the Isaan plateau crossing 2 national parks before catching back up with the railroad to get down to Ayuthaya...besides it will carry us over the 5000km mark. More is more! ;-)

14/03: Bad luck or is that just the way it is?

So today we head back to Vientiane. Not being able to find the "southern" bus station in VangVieng we opted to buy a toerist "VIP" bus back to Vientiane...however just to clarify, there is a southern station & it is a bit further than the shell station on the left side of the Hw. We know since the VIP bus left there too...dow.

Our experience with this busride can be summarized as followed:
1) You pay 25% more for the busticket cause it's "VIP"; Pro=you get picked up at your guesthouse
2) You spend 30min in a cramped, hot minivan going around all the GH's to pick others up...
3) You get dropped off at the "VIP" bus where you wait another hour at least cause they can't find some dudes...(or whatever)
4) Our "VIP" bus has non opening windows & not working AC...woeptiedoe a smelly, sauna busride!
5) It breaks down for an hour while they change something on the engine...interior smelled a bit too much like diesel ;-)
6) You get dropped off at the Northern Busstation (a solid 10km out of town)...pay for another tuktuk into town.

In comparison with the ride up there on the local bus (cheaper, faster, more comfortable) this is worthless. So, if you don't travel with your own means of transport...stick to what the locals use! You need some additional persuasion? We took a couple of busses now, of which 2 'tourist' busses & these where by far the most expensive & the ****** of all.

Luckily our warmshower host took us in again & offered us a bed for the night. Yess! Wanting some more happy-food we headed down the street to the local "KFC" style stand. Chips & really good crisp chicken (better than KFC!) at a ridiculous low price. The place also is really popular with locals that stand in line at all moments of the day for some take-away.

13/03: Still sick in Vang Vieng

Like the title says it: still sick. Got through the night okay, but in the morning it was back. So not much new to say about today either. I slept a lot and read in my book. Ardan did his thing on the computer again. Apart from the occasional visit to the toilet, another relaxing day in Vang Vieng. Tomorrow we'll take the bus to Vientiane again. We will be too late to pick up our visas so we'll stay another night in Vientiane and then we'll cross the border to Thailand.

12/03: Two naked drunks at the door.... Vang Vieng again

Last night was interesting. Seems that I wasn't feeling better yet. Got up a couple of times to go to the toilet. Hopefully today and tomorrows rest will clear me from whatever it is I have. Besides waking up from this, we also were woken up by two idiots, ofcoarse white drunk tourists, who were shouting and banging on every door of every room. So I got up, waited until they banged at our door and quickly opened the door to yell at them 'shut uuuuuup'. They were so surprised to see me, so they just ran off. That's when I saw they were butnaked!! Stupid drunks! Well my action did work, 'cause they stopped banging on doors. Quite funny to see the surprise on their faces when I opened the door. They obviously didn't count on anyone opening the door and seeing them naked. This was yet another time we we're quite proud not being part of the cool tourists ;)
For the rest of the day I slept, went to the toilet and read in my book. Ardan did some interneting. All with a beautiful view on the mountains and (for Ardan) a fruitshake in the hand. Tomorrow is our last day in Vang Vieng. Wonder what we will do ;)

11/03: Another day of relaxing in Vang Vieng

Not much to say about today. We slept longer today (no alarmclock at 6 am since a long time!), read our books, drank a fruitshake, sat at the water and watched the cows come by, read some more. That's about it :)

10/03: Vang Vieng

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Took the bus to Vang Vieng this morning. You can just take the bus in center of town apparently, you don't have to go all the way to the northern busstation. We were, together with one other guy, the only falang on the bus. We expected that there would be more. Maybe because we took a local bus and not a VIP touring bus. It was quite and experience :) The ride itself was okay. No brakedown like in Vietnam. But the bus was loaded! When all the seats were taken, they just put some plastic chairs in the aile where more people can sit. Then they also put a scooter on the bus, also in the aile. No problem! That only created more seats since they ran out of plastic chairs :)
Arriving in Vang Vieng, we knew we had to go to the bridge since we didn't want to stay at the backpackers area. 80.000KIP for a room (10$), which is probably not the cheapest in town. But we get (hopefully) silent nights, a fantastic view on the mountains, free wifi (which doesn't always work ;) ) and the river 20 meters from the guesthouse.
Once we took a shower, we walked a bit around, bought ourselves two new 'old' books, something to drink and headed back to our guesthouse where we read our books on our terras until the sun went down (beautiful sunset over mountain view!). For dinner we headed back to the backpackers area and realised once again that we're sooo not cool ;) All this drunk people, walking in their bikini's and bear chests on the streets (not showing any respect for the locals), hmmm, not our thing :)
If, and we say if, we go tubing, then we'll probably do this in the morning when we hope the 'cool' drunks are still in their beds with a hangover. But still, Vang Vieng looks very nice out of the backpackers area! Very, very nice mountains, quiet, sun, water... We think we will be able to relax here for three days. Maybe rent a motobike to visit the caves, read, watch the sunsets, swim, read some more... Sounds good.
Oh and once again, we locked the door with our key still inside :) It has never been a problem since they always have a second key. Well, this time they couldn't find it. So the girls from the guesthouse started banging on the door and windows, of coarse without any effect. Then they went and got a knife to try and pick the lock. Didn't work either. They went back to the balconydoor to bang on the door again. So Ardan took the knife and picked the lock like a professional, so we got in :) Note to ourselves: make this the last time that you've locked yourself out!! :)

09/03: Getting a Thai visa & relaxin Lao massage style

This time it was Line's turn to get sick again. Throwing up and diarrhea in the middle of the night. Nice... After an 'immodium' and 'motilium', the 'attacks' stopped. Something she ate? We were spared of this things during the most part of our trip, so we have to catch up I guess?

In the morning we set off to the Thai consulate to get our Thai visa. A lot, really a lot of people were waiting the get their visa too. It took us at least 2,5 hours of waiting time. Yeah well, we need the visa (which is still free 'till the end of the month) so we just waited. The time flew by rather quick actually. We started talking to a German guy who had been living in Laos for already 13 years. Once it was our turn to give our filled in papers to the people at the 'visa-desk' (we can pick up the visa tomorrow, but we'll pick it up when we'll get back from Vang Vieng), we headed out for a noodlesoup for Ardan. Line only drank a cola.

Then it was time to threat ourselves with a massage. Ardan got a Lao massage, Line a steamed herbes massage (the same as the Lao massage, but once in a while they put some bags with steamed herbes on your muscles). Only 5$/person for a whole hour! Wauw! Hopefully the herbes gave Line a bit of her strenght back. Tomorrow we'll go to VangVieng and try to find a relaxing place like we did in Kampot, Cambodia. After that it's back to Vientiane to pick up the visa and passport and then cross the border to Thailand again.

08/03: Vientiane trailing & warmshower hospitality (+24; 4580km)

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Curious about the included breakfast in our guesthouse we got up & made our way to the lobby. Turned in our vouchers for toast, an egg, couple slices of cucumber, a slice of pineapple and watermelon & a buffet of crackers with butter, jam & some strange mixed salad. All-in-all a simple, but effective breakfast. Took the time before noon real easy with some reading & figuring out what our plan for the rest of laos & thailand could be. Checked out & took off for a discovery tour through vientiane capital for some bike sightseeing since we had to meet up with a warmshower host only around 5:30pm in the evening. So go&see the vientiane arc de triomphe, national hall, stupa blablabla, statues of probably "important" dudes, mekong river (worksite) promenade & the exterior of some wats...we still haven't recovered completely from our templitis caught on our last day in angkor, cause we got bored real quick ;-) Yet again we realise that we are no cityhoppers...2nd day in the "big" city (which vientiane actually totally isn't, maybe biggest in Laos, but to international levels it remains an overgrown village) and we have no idea what to do around here..?! :-)

Visit museums....just not. Visit wats....*** again a modern looking cement temple in bright colours? (we have simply already seen a lot of them last months). Strolling a promenade? (done that a lot lately). Look at big, unimportant, mostly ugly buildings in anything but awe?...mmm, that's "mildly" amusing to say the least. Sit down and drink a lao beer?...sounds like the best option :-) So a beer & noodlesoup (what else) later we met up with friendly Jeanette (read, we found a real! jeanette for our 'last day of carnival assigment' we got in our diary!) who is working in the vientiane international school and is so kind to host us the next 2 nights before we head off to VangVieng for some days. She has lived in a lot of different countries before & will soon be heading to South America after almost 3y of Laos.

Tomorrow is more practical...get thai visa for next month, get busticket to VV, get a book to read, maybe get a massage? Didin't get these things today since alot was closed due to International Women day, a national holiday in Laos!

07/03: Biking into Vientiane (+69; 4556 km)

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Today was our last day of biking, or biking to get from village A to village B that is. We'll probably bike around town tomorrow also. We hope we won't regret our decission to leave our bikes in Bangkok and doing the rest by public transport, because we were thinking the same thing today: "oh no, look at that guy barganning for a tuk tuk ride, soooo much easier if you have your bike". Once we've found a guesthouse, we took a shower and went looking for something to eat. Well that shower was kinda worthless because we started to sweat with the first step we took outside, like every other white person we saw on the street :) We really start to feel that we're getting into the hottest time of the year! For the rest of the day we were planning what we will do the rest of our time in Laos and Thailand. Keep you posted.

06/03: Again just a little bit more, (oehah, a little bit more)...(+88; 4487km)

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Started one hour later today. We just couldn't get out of bed at 6 'o clock. It turned out to be another very hot day (according to the french couple we met yesterday the temperature is often around 40-45 °C and higher!) and today it was Line who didn't cope to well with the blistering heat. Our first thought was to stop at Thabok after around 55km (we found two guesthouses there) but decided to go on a little further to cut of a few km's from tomorrow's ride to Vientiane. Well that didn't work out as planned. There weren't any guesthouses in the next town, so we had to add another 30 km to the counter to get to Ban Hai. If you're feeling the heat, this is long! We found a hotel just before Ban Hai but wanted to take a look in the town itself since the roadmarks indicated Ban Hai already since Paksane. "This must mean that there are a couple of guesthouses" we thought. Well, we thought wrong. There is only one, without shower (but with A/C, strange ;) ). So we ate another noodlesoup for lunch and headed back (2km) to the hotel we saw first. For the rest of the day we just read in our book/lonely planned, drank a beer and a coke, ate some fruit and escaped from the heat. Rounded the evening with grilled duck, fried rice, more beer & playing cards. Ready for an early night sleep, tomorrow should be our last day of biking. Will hit the 4500km before we enter Vientiane. Maybe a little bit of biking around in Vientiane itself, but that should be it. Line is feeling very happy ;-) Although secretly she will then start to miss the bike....just wait!

05/03: More frozen Deedo's, a pretty misty morning & a french biking couple (+95; 4399km)

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Got up early again this morning to be on our bikes while it is cool, meaning still in the 20°C range...good thing we get up early anyway, cause at a lot of places around 6am speakers start to blast. Music, lyrics, whatever...not to sure if it's just alarmclocks of people that they connect to their (massive) PA systems or something more...doesn't really matter either, you just got to get up it seems. :-)

So we set off in the early morning mist with some good photo opportunities, but kept on pedalling to get plenty of km's before the heat. On this leg of the trip we crossed the path of Benjamin & Emlie, a french couple on a 2y bike trip. (www.&-tour-de-roues.fr) They have just returned to Laos after a brief time back in france and are on their way to Vietnam...they also asked us about Vietnam since they also heard lot of stories from other bikers...we, sadly, had to confirm few of the stories they heard, but also reassured them that it is certainly still nice to go there! After some chit-chat we went our own ways, all the way to Paksan. From time-to-time we stopped for the mandatory frozen deedo's pitstops, adding a new taste to the experience, Melon. 100% chemical flavor but oooooo so good. :-o We are hooked (especially Ardan is).

Paksane is a small strecthed out town with little to see, but it packs a nice market, a couple riverfront restaurants & guesthouses. Everything we need after again 95km on the counter. We do require some other source of energy then noodlesoup for tonight (3 daily noodlesoups for the last 3 days...) so we sat down at a "grilled goat" restaurant for a dish of meat, fresh greens, sticky rice & beer Lao!

Tomorrow is the last stop before getting to Vientiane. Meaning we should hit the 4500km mark & thereby our biking trip km's will come to an end. After Vientiane we think of maybe travelling back to the south of thailand for some island hopping (which we missed in the beginning of the trip due to bad weather) all without bikes...Line has endured enough! ;-) Motorcycle, the dreaded tourist busses, train, plane,...?? Unclear & utterly unimportant. Bike to Vientiane, see from there.

04/03: frozen juices and noodlesoups (+105; 4304 km)

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Today we realised that Laos isn't actually the poorest country of our six country visit. Cambodia is. Or so it appears to us. For example we see a lot more brick houses and electricity (accompanied by fridges and freezers) here than we did in Cambodia. Ardan has a new favorite drink: frozen deedo's (fruitjuice in a plastic cup put in the freezer).
On our ride today we were greeted again by a lot of smiling and 'sabaidee' yelling children and adults. We think that people will look strange at us when we're back in Belgium since we're so used to yelling hello and giving big smiles to totaly strangers. We will also miss the feeling of being 'special'. We drive by and we feel like the pope waving and smiling and saying hello to everyone and everyone to us. Maybe people should smile more en say hello more to strangers in Belgium to. If they can do it here, and in South-France (Bonjours everywhere :) ), why can't we do this in Belgium?? Something to think about, and something to change?
When we went for dinner (for our 3th noodlesoup of the day), we saw a guy defurring a rat at his noodlestand. Have we been eating rat in our noodlesoup thinking it was beef? Yeah well, tasted okay :) Maybe a mix of both? Or is the rat just a speciality reserved for the family?

03/03: Buddha-, Elephant Cave & lots of karst formations (+40; 4199km)

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Our initial plan was to rent a moto for touring around the caves, but our gh-grandma ;-) told us the "main" attraction (Buddha cave) was easily done by bike...so we stuck with our bikes :-)

Leaving Thakaek you immediately get a good view of the rising karst mountains in the east. Quite a view we must say! There are several sights around Thakaek and the first stop was Elephant cave where they worship an elephant shaped stalagtite...something like 10y ago the surrounding village was plaged by sickness (which they believed was because they upset the elephant) so they blew up the front of the cave with Dynamite!? Soon after the village was better, they cleared rubble & started worshipping again...lesson learned: When in doubt & prairs don't work?...Use TNT.

2nd stop Xiang cave/turtle lake...no turtles in sight, cold water & a dark cave...youptiedou...nice views though.
Afterwards it was on to the Buddha cave, a small cave about 20m up high in a cliff-face where in 2004 a local found 300 little bronze buddha statues overlooking the rice paddies below. It soon brought tourist$, worshippers & a good road to the small village...the cave & statues itself...not sooooooo impressive to be honest, hell we don't worship.

Lots of frozen juices (to barely try to keep cool) and chocolat/caramel/wafer cookies we settled down for noodle soup & Lao beer on the Mekong waterfront looking at the sun going down over Thailand. Life is good.

02/03: Following the Mekong again, almost. (+113; 4159km)

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Not made it into Thakaek before 1pm...didn't really get up at 5am either...more like 6am...so we made it to Thakaek at around 2-3pm ;-) Not wanting to trail the Highway 13 we decided on a secondary road more alongside the Mekong. First 10km out of S. it all good, then it turns into a dirt trail for about 5km, then back into a nicely packed dirt rd for 20km. The only thing they 'forgot' to finish on this bit are the bridges!? There is a clean 4m wide dirt packed rd with electricity lines running next to it, but every 5km it ends at a stream...luckily now is dry season & local use the road too so they have made some basic trails/crossings, steep ups&downs to the streams down below, but at least you can get past. Wouldn't try this rd in the wet season though. After that bit it turns back into a paved road in superb condition all the way into Thakaek. S. to Thakaek is around 105km, if you don't want to do this much there are guesthouses at around 58km & 70km. Both looked fairly new.

Noodle soup lunch (and a tasty one to boot!), drinkstops every 15km (**** it's hot!, luckily we can get some #10 Kaka soda's; see pic) & a small sightseeing at Wat Patat...yup, patat was about all what happend till we got to Thakaek. At first sight looks like a more relaxed place than S., cleaner, more "lived" & spiced up with a nice riverfront lined with bars & restaurant. Also met up with 5 other bikers! 1 german guy touring a couple week holiday, who also agreed it was really hot, too hot even. Then we also crossed a couple with their 2 kids that have been riding for about 4 months and will go on for another 3 months. Each had a kid trailing their bike...wouldn't want to drag that up a mountain together with the bags...;-)

Tomorrow we stay here for 1 day. Rent a moto, do a tour of the surronding caves & lakes. After that back on the bike, making our way towards Vientiane.

01/03: Savannakhet outskirts & a sweet bike repair shop (+38; 4046km)

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Spotted a modern equipment looking bikeshop in a street around the plaza in front of the church. Went there first thing this morning 'cause we had some potential fixes on our bikes. They have been really good for 4000km, but after that kind of riding it's pretty normal to have some wear-n-tear. Line had a somewhat loose casette lockring for the last days, but we couldn't find a shop with a lockring socket anywhere in Vietnam. No problem for this shop 'cause they have all the 'modern' tools needed for fixing your euro/US/jap bike. The lockring was tightened quickly & they also had a hollow bottom bracket for a measly 6usd so this part was also quickly replaced on Ardan"s bike. For some reason I just keep wasting (leftside) bottombracket bearings?? Same happens after about 2000km on my mtb & on my roadbike it's more around 4000km. Normal wear or is my left leg motion/strength causing good ol' shimano to fail? Anyway, if you need repair while in Savannakhet, Laos: Holien Bike Center.

Bikes back in shape so we headed to the outskirts toward some lake & stupa. At mid-day it got hot, too hot. Especially for Ardan who just needed to lay down in some drinking hut alongside the lake & just nap, drink, watch the buffalo's a bit till the temperature went down so we could bike back to town. Finished our rest day with some chocolade pudding roll & fruit. Also clearly learned a lesson for the remaining bike days...we have to start early. Really early! Daybreak early to be specific. So the alarm will ring at 5am tomorrow allowing us hopefully to make it to Thakhek before 1pm.

28/02: Attack of the Pukes & first puncture @ the 4000km mark (+38; 4008km)

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After a very long ride yesterday we could use a good night rest. Well.... we didn't get it. Ardan became sick and had to throw up a couple of times during the night. As I don't sleep when Ardan is sick, I didn't sleep very much either. In the morning it was a bit better. We don't really know what it was from, but as I wasn't all that well either, we think it was something we ate yesterday. Not to upset our stomach in the morning we had a very nutricious breakfast (see prove in the picture ;) ).

Luckely we only had 30 km to bike today to get to Savannaketh. There are several guesthouses here, but most of them rank in the categorie of "very basic". Finally we found a good one: Leena's Guesthouse. For anybody looking for a place in Savannakhet this has to be the best value in town. For the rest of the day we didn't do much except some sightseeing and catching up some sleep in the afternoon.

27/02: Sepon to Xeno marathon, crunching k's & burning rubber! (+166km; 3970km)

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Yesterday evening we already figured it had been better to add an extra 30km to the 65km ride to spend the night in Muangphin or even add 40km & spend the night in Xethamouak. From Khe san it is basically downhill all the time until Xethamouak so it would have been an easy 90 or 100km ride...especially making the ride(s) until Savannakhet a bit more balanced. Hell, you can't get everything right, can you?

So today the initial plan was a lazy 30km to Phin or 40km to Xethamouak. All downhill so once there we quickly decided to keep going and hoping to find a guesthouse when we had about 80km orso. Road levels out, but keeps a really little decline almost all the time making it real easy to keep good speed. Take care, this probably slows you down seriously when ridden from Savannakhet to Vietnam! At around 85, 95 & 100 we passed some new looking guesthouses but since we felt strong and had the road in our benefit decided to keep going since we knew there was a guesthouse in Dongkilo (125km). Once there the room & GH restaurant was "expensive" (70.000kip & 30.000kip) so back on the bike...we'll find something in the next town (Donghe(n))...we do, but it's not really nice...keep on biking...:-)...passed maybe 1 or 2 other GH but all in the middle of nowhere & now we have a mission!

Time to shatter the previous day-record of 133km! We target Seno. (thinking it is at 150km based on our map & some roadside sign) Counter then hits 150...no Seno...mmmm, couple km's later we get a new roadside marker...it's gonna be 166km! This certainly shatters the 133 mark ;-). Bottomline, WE ROCK!

Tired & satisfied we check into a GH. Shower, moisturize (a sizzling hot sun all day long) & a bit of rest before getting food. Today was a hard, but do-able, ride. I would not try this in the opposite direction, you'll be battling a constant 0,5-1% incline :-)

Tomorrow leaves us with an easy 30km stroll into Savannakhet (hitting the 4000km mark) where we set up camp for probably 2 days.

26/02: Laos or did we bike into some fairy wonderland? (+65; 3804km)

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We woke up, had two good egg sandwiches each on the road and started to descent to Lao Bao and the border with Laos. We still had to find LAK (Laos Kip) somewhere. Even the bank in Lao Bao didn't want to give us USD or LAK for our VND. "On the border crossing" was their answer. When we arrived there, immediatly we were surrounded by 6 ladies who wanted to change our Dong into Kip. Offcourse at a killer exchange rate ;) They started off with half of what we normally would get for our Dong. After some negotiating we had a better exchange rate, but still it costed us 10 USD. Yeah well, there was no other option, since we needed LAK. Or that's what we thought and these ladies told us. Because at the border crossing, next to the 'visa on arrival - box' you have an ATM and an exchange office. Still not the official rate, but already a lot better than what you get from these kind ladies ;)
So other travellers, if you read this: do NOT change your money with this ladies (unless you want to give them a lot of extra money), do this at the border crossing. Another thing: lonely planet says it will cost you 20USD for a visa on arrival at the Lao Bao crossing. This is nog the case (anymore?). Only Vietnamese get their visa on arrival for 20 USD. All other nationalities have to pay 35 USD or 300.000 LAK. So make sure you have enough money with you. No extra money to get your stamp though, this bordercrossing doesn't look dodgy like some other Laos Borders apparently.

Crossing into Laos we felt very welcome! Like in Cambodia, maybe even a bit more, children come running to the streets screaming their lungs out: "sabaidee, hello, bye", waving like mad and giving you a toothpaste smile! To make it more like a fairy wonderland... It's really hot here, almost no traffic, thousands of butterflies, ladies who are trying to teach you some Lao and a road that almost only goes down (so other way around is a lot up!). We like Laos so far!

Arrived in Sepon (the first real village from the border btw) where you have a lot of choice for guesthouse, probably more than 5. Settled in a room for 50kkip (around 6usd) took a stroll along the market, buy some fruit, some rice take-way for dinner & a couple of Lao Beer. More Lao tomorrow!

25/02: Bike (& Run) to the hills (+63; 3739km)

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First of all maybe correct the feeling described yesterday that Dong Ha is still a bordertown dump...when heading more west actually there was a bit of town that looked fairly nice & enjoyable. As usual the bit closer to the Hw1 doesn't do the town a lot of justice.

So today we biked into the hills. Our last good day of riding in Vietnam, heading west of Hw9 (of which parts used to be in the original Ho Chi Min trail) to Laos. The scenery quickly turns into green fields amongst the upcoming mountains. First bit of the route is ups&downs but nothing to seriously. After about 50km the mountains really kick in & the road goes up & up for the remaining 15km, slowly meandering upwards, deeper into the jungle towards Laos. It's hard work with the blistering hot sun & long 6-8% climbs, but you get rewarding views if you stop from time-to-time (which you need to anyway ;-))

Suddenly Line also had to run to the hills next to the road & camp there for about 20min due to a sudden rush of serious crapper activity. First we tried asking a couple locals if they had a toilet...without succes cause they just laughed and waved at something, somewhere...or if you ask us nothing & nowhere...?? Saved from problems until now, our last vietnamese morning noodle soup certainly won't be a kill-joy? Luckily after feeling pretty bad for 30min Line felt better again & we could continue our climb to Khe San.

Khe San checks all the boxes of a crappy bordertown, although Lao Bao is the real last bordertown that we will pass tomorrow & will probably also score a 100% on the bordertown examination. 1) It has a dodgy market where they don't want to give you back money when you buy something (if you do not have exact change) but they just keep wanting to give you shit you don't need instead so you can spend it all...?? 2) Everybody starts by charging 2x the already inflated white guy price. 3) No bank wants to exchange dongs to usd or Lao kip (other way around is not a problem though). Their pitch is to go to the market and exchange dongs to usd at a rate about 50% down the official rate...pure theft. So it is spending, keeping or burning the money ;-)

Bit of a problem cause we have to get some usd or lao kip to make it west through Laos to the first big city where we can get a visa cash advance...we hoped to exchange our remaining dongs...but that seems to be out of the window...our usd supply is low & some left over thai bahts are maybe only usefull once we get more west, closer to the thai border...mmm, hoping for some white guys leaving Laos with kips at the border so we can change dongs with them...otherwise we'll have to be winging it 'till Savannaket...fingers crossed!

Khe San is a former US base town, famous due to a big assault on it from the VC...although it was only a diversion attack to draw away attention to preperation of the Tet offensive. For this they where smugling big loads of goods down the Hcmn trail running through this area. I can only imagine how challenging the old jungle trail had to have been looking into the surroundings from the road. Anyway, Line now feels really happy we followed the coast instead of the Hcmn highway, all this up & down is just too hard biking :-) So we spend the afternoon napping, tucked away into the shade of our room.

Anyway, we think Laos will be underconnected to the web vs the other countries we've been too (but we hope to be proven mistaken) so maybe news will be bit more slow for the month to come.

24/02: Into the DMZ! (+71; 3676km)

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Following the Hw1 from Hue to Dong Ha is unremarkable, totally unremarkable. On my map this strech of road is even nicknamed "route sans joie", probably cause it leads into the DMZ (demilitarised zone) that seperated North- & South vietnam prior to the war and was very heavily bommed. Since the end of the war it looks like not much "joie" has made it back. No pleasant towns, no nice scenery...totally unremarkable. Luckily 1 little doggi (yet another one) spiced up a coffee pitstop. Line loves the doggi.

Arriving in Dong Ha it is easy to understand why this "city" still has a bordertown feel to it, although it isn't a bordertown for several decades. Some buildings alongside the dusty highway. Most of it looks a bit rundown & edgy, bordertown written all over it, but no border ;-)

We found ourselves a guide + extra moto to ride into the DMZ & visit the Vin Moc tunnels (about 2km of tunnels spread out from 12-23m depth) where at some point a village of 600 was living underground to survive the relentless carpet bombing on this border area. Everything but demilitarised! (Thanks for this months gift guys!) Anyway, our guide 'Bin' actually is a South Viet veteran. He didn't elaborate too much on the matter, but did answer any question we asked him. Not wanting to interrogate him we asked a couple but then let it be. For him it was very clear that the Vietcong won the war...I think for everyone in Vietnam who opposed the VC this is an everyday (painfull?) apparant fact. He told us that still today in the south schools teach english whereas in the north they get chinese & russian. Commi stick to commi, kapi stick to kapi? For him vietnam today was a bit alike china...commi-kapi-1-party government...mmmm