Coming home

When I started this trip in August 2012 I was never planning on going back home at any point. But things change, last summer I went back and soon it’s time to go back again. My sister is getting married this summer and even if I told her I wasn't sure I’ll be home then, there was no doubt in my mind that I would be back for it. You’re one of the most important people in my life and I wouldn't miss it for the world… 

See you soon sis =)

Island Life

The night ferry from Chumphon to Ko Tao was really comfortable but too short, arriving on Ko Tao at 4:30 in the morning. I was still tired and slept for a while on a bench outside the hostel waiting for them to open for the day. It felt great to be on the island and also that I reunited with Brett who I met in Bangkok and travelled up north with. After settling in we explored some of Ko Tao’s nice beaches. I arrived on the 13:th and on the neighboring island Ko Phangnan there was the famous Full Moon Party the next day. We hadn’t planned on going there but after we saw a sign with boat ticket to Ko Phangan for 300 bath we just said, why not.

Luckily we could leave our stuff at the hostel and just get over there for the night. So the next day we got on the boat and arrived to the busy Haad Rin beach. The beach party was a lot of fun full of happy dancing people all night until the next morning. Brett and I made it back to the boat and headed back to Ko Tao again.

Ko Tao is a lot smaller but really nice with many smaller quieter beaches with some great snorkeling spots. The way to get around is definitely with motorbikes so you can find the beaches with less people. The main thing about Ko Tao is diving and the island is filled with dive schools, and now in the low season it was possible to find a good deal on a course. I found one I liked and paid 7500 bath (170EUR) for the course. It was an amazing feeling the first time you go down and breathe under water. Diving was a great experienced and I enjoyed every moment of it.

After the dive course was over and Brett left to go down to Malaysia I felt I was time for me to move on as well. I was considering going straight to the mainland and start riding south. I decided instead to go back to Ko Phangnan to see more of the island then just the full moon party. I thought for a while I wouldn’t be able to go there since the two first boat companies I talked to me wouldn’t take the bicycle on the boat. Luckily the last company would and I could place it in the back on the boat.

Being here in the low season and when the full moon in over has its perks and accommodation is really cheap. I found a really nice and social hostel with aircon and swimming pool for just 100 bath. There’s a lot of parties on this island and most stick to the moon theme. The second day I was there was the Half Moon Party. After a fun pre party with a friend I met up in Chiang Mai we hit the party full of body paint and joined the rest of the glowing people dancing to the trance music.

The next couple of days in Ko Phangan I took it very slow and visited some beaches and just relaxed. Then one day we got the news of the military coup and there was a nationwide curfew from 10 pm to 5 am. So places closed much earlier than usually and the hostel I was staying at got shut down by the police one night when they played music and served drinks. And the island died off even more after the half-moon party was over and not much was going on in the hostel.

So I decided to leave the island and will be getting on a night ferry to Surat Thani tonight and then ride down to Krabi next. I have had a great time here on the island and met a lot of great people, but it also feels like I’ve seen it and it’s time to move on again.

On my way south

Riding a bicycle in and around Bangkok is not something I would recommend anyone. Even though I rode 90 km it still felt like I hadn’t left Bangkok, there’s so much traffic and I was just looking forward to get away from that. And it was much better day two when I found some nice small roads to follow close to the sea. For a long while the road went through massive salt fields, and it was really interesting and nice to see the work going on in the fields.

After a beautiful bike ride I stopped for the night in the very touristy town of Cha-am. It’s definitely not a place for me with hotels everywhere, a not very nice beach full of beach chairs, boats and jet ski’s driving around. So I just stayed the one night and save the days on the beach for when I get to the islands. I continued south from Cha-am and passed through Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. It was a beautiful place to ride through and I took my time that day since I planned to stop at a place in the park for the night. But around there where only fancy hotels and resorts, so I continued on hoping to find something further on. After a calm day the wind picked up in the afternoon and on course that meant head wind. Tired and hungry I was glad to see a sign for camping at a beach I passed by. It was a beautiful place still within the national park and I could set up my tent right next to the beach.

What I hadn’t planned with was how hot it would be sleeping in the tent. And it was like a sauna in there and no way that I would get any sleep, even though I opened everything up. The wind I was struggling with before had completely stopped. So I covered myself in mosquito repellent and lay my mattress on a bench right next to the beach. A beautiful place but I didn't sleep much.

But it was all worth it when the first thing I say when I opened my eyes in the morning was this amazing sunrise.

After a bad night I only did 50 km to the next town and had a great afternoon nap for a couple of hours. Today I was feeling on top again and pushed on for 110 km. In the evening I had to stop and get away from the rain. It was raining a lot, but after one hour it stopped and I was back on the road again. And riding after heavy rain is just great, the air is so fresh and after days and days of extreme heat I really enjoyed riding this afternoon.

Tomorrow I’ll be riding down to Chumphon and get on a ferry to Ko Tao. I’m really looking forward to get back to an island and we’ll see how long I’ll spend there before getting back to the mainland and continue riding south.

On vacation up north

Last Thursday Brett who also was staying with the same couchsurfer in Bangkok and I got on the night train to Chiand Mai. I felt good to take a little break from cycling and live the life of a backpacker for a while. I really wanted to see north of Thailand, but it felt a bit to far to ride my bike up there and back again. Also really nice to have a travel companion that I got along with very well.

The train ride was nice but I didn't have that much sleep until we woke up in Chiang Mai at just after 4 in the morning. I was nice to arrive early in the morning when the air was a little cooler compared to a very hot Bangkok. And we were lucky to be able to check in early in the morning at the hostel and had a few more hours of sleep.

We realized that there isn’t that much to see in town unless you love temples, bit I feel I’ve seen enough of them. But we met some really nice people and got a taste of the nightlife in Chiang Mai. After two nights in Chiang Mai Brett and I rented scooters for a couple of days and rode to the small town of Pai. It was an amazing ride on the winding roads in the mountains and a lot easier that to have to cycle up there :-p But the best thing about bicycles is that you never run out of petrol. Unfortunately scooters do and I learned that the hard way. Luckily it happened during a downhill and I only had to push my bike about 200 meters until I could fill up from one of many places that sells petrol out of a barrel with a hand pump.

From Pai we also went on a day trip to some caves. We had company with Veronica from Norway and had a great day. The ride there was absolutely amazing on perfect roads up and down the hills. The cave was really nice and we went into the cave on a bamboo raft. After the cave we got back to Pai just in time to see the sunset at the Pai canyon witch was a perfect end to a great day trip.

We stayed at a place called Darlings resort witch was run by a super nice lady who is called darling and also call everyone else darling. From there we had a short walk down a hill and over a bamboo bridge to the center of the little town with some good restaurants and a pretty good and chilled out night life.

We rented our bikes for four days and had to get back to Chiang Mai to return them. If not, then I have a feeling I might have gotten stuck in Pai for longer. The ride back was as good as before and we didn’t have any incidents with the bikes. We were of course careful since we had seen so many people with bandages and hear many stories about people having accidents with the bikes.

Before Leaving Pai we stopped by a elephant camp where we got to pet and feed the elephants. And when getting so close you realize how big and those animals really are.

Even though Pai was great it also felt good to be back at our hostel in Chiang Mai again. We met up with people we met there before and people from Pai and we didn’t get to bed that night until the sun was back up again. The rest of the time in Chiang Mai we just relaxed, explored a little around the city, chilled out by the pool and drank as many fruit shakes as we could.

After a great time up north it was eventually time to get on another night train back to Bangkok and back to the bicycle again. With a new rear tire and new pedals (second pair that broke) I’m ready to ride out of Bangkok and go south. And I can’t wait to get back to the sea again..

Another New Year, Island life and a surprise

One of the reasons why I went through the south part of Cambodia a little fast in the end was to make into Thailand for the New Year’s celebrations. Songkran as they call it lasts for a few days and during those days there is a lot of fun things going on in the country especially the water fights. It didn’t take long after crossing the border until I had the first bucket of water thrown over me by a happy kid standing by the side of the road. And so it continued for the rest of the ride to the city Trat. I did fight back as good as I could but once I reached the city I was completely drenched with water and with chalk in my face. Likely all of my bags are waterproof so there was no problem.

In the city of Trat the main street was filled with happy celebrating people on slow moving trucks throwing water at everyone. And of course extra fun to get to empty a bucket of ice cold water on that foreigner riding by on the bicycle.

The next day I had dried up and started early before the water fights had started. And I made it almost completely dry to the ferry port. I was heading out to the island Koh Chang for a few days break on some nice beaches. And once I was on the island I understood what the girl at the guesthouse in Trat meant when she said Koh Chang wasn’t a good place to ride a bike. Because on my ride to the south part of the island where I would stay where probably the steepest roads I’ve ever cycled on. And in this humid hot weather it was really hard going slowly up hills after hills. At some points I actually had to get off and push the bike 

which I think has just happened once before. And on top of that I had an flat tire just 2 km from the hostel.

So I was tired and again drenched in water from the water fights once I arrived at the hostel.

It was a really nice place and at a little quieter part of the island away from the most crowded beaches. And after that tough day the next day I just did nothing and was lying on the beach and swimming in the nice warm sea. It was the last day of Songkran and even though it was a lot of fun it still felt kind of nice that is was over and you could walk around without getting completely wet. After a day at the beach doing nothing I felt I wanted to do something the next day and me and some others from the hostel went out on an all-day snorkeling trip off the coast of the island. Unfortunately there’s a lot of tourist in the good snorkeling spots, but when we swam a little further we got away from the crowds and it was really nice. It was a good day and I met some really nice people on the boat.

And speaking of meeting nice people, at the some hostel I was staying at two people I had met on this trip twice before had turned up. André and Karla was staying at the hostel, the cycling couple from Brazil who I had met before first in Vietnam and then again in Cambodia. It was such a nice surprise and coincidence that we would happen to stay at the same place at the same time, and this time we had some more time to spend together since the last two times we crossed paths going in the opposite directions.

I stayed a total of five days on the island and had a really nice relaxing time, made many new friends met old ones and have some great memories from that place. But eventually it’s always time to move on and on the way back to the ferry I didn’t want to go through the tortures hills again, once was more than enough. So I put the bike on a taxi who had to struggle itself to get up those hills back to the ferry port. But once back on the mainland the roads were flat again and I set my sight on Bangkok. It was hotter back on the mainland then on the island and I missed the nice sea breeze when cycling under the burning sun. But for the most part the wind was in my back and I did around 100 km each day stopping in Chanthaburi, Rayong and Chon Buri before the last ride into the capital.

And riding a bicycle through Bangkok is not something I would recommend anyone to do. At first it was okay with wide roads and not to bad traffic. But once I got closer to the center the traffic became really bad with a lot of traffic jams. But the good thing about being on a bicycle is that is easy to ride through a traffic jam, and I was going through the middle of the traffic, on the side and even on the sidewalk. Eventually I made it to where I was staying, a little north of the center. My host Toom is an amazing couchsurfer and just loves hosting a lot of people. This first night we were 6 people staying here.

I will take a little break from cycling now and have decided to go up to the north of Thailand. The train ticket to Chiang Mai is booked for Thursday and it feels good to take a little break from cycling and travel like a backpacker..

Second tour in Cambodia

After going being in Vietnam for the second time it was now time to head back to Cambodia also for the second time. Last time I entered Cambodia I already had the visa in my passport but this time I had to apply at the border. I had heard stories about how corrupt it is and how they try to get more money out of you. And knowing that it should cost 20$ I refused to pay the 25$ that the border police asked for. I was there with a couple from England and finally they said they would give us a “special” price of 22$. We still demanded that it should be 20$, but gave in after he said we could stand on the side and wait for a couple of hours. Maybe with a little more patience we could have gotten it for 20$, but paid the extra 2$ bribe and moved on.

The first stop was the small Kep just about 30 km from the border. It was a really small and quit place and I didn’t do much there except lying in a hammock by the sea. The place is famous for its crabs and have a “crab market” next to some nice restaurant. But I wouldn’t call much of a crab market since there where barely any crabs there, just a small market for tourists. I met a Belgium guy in Kep wo was riding bike from Phnom Penh and we decided to ride together to Kampot.

It was a short ride and Antoine and I stopped by a little cave on the way there. Not muck to see if you’ve seen a couple of caves but still kind of nice. After the visit to the cave we rode into the little town of Kampot. I made reservation at a place called The Magic Sponge and I have to say it was one of the nicer hostels I’ve been at. For 3$ I got a big bed on the top floor with a view of the Bakor mountain from my bed.

I met a lot of nice people during the days I spent in Kampot. I didn’t really do much there, but it’s one of those relaxed placed where there no need to do anything and still enjoy it. I also met some other cyclist while I was there and two Canadian guys was supposed ride with Antoine and I from Kampot but after a fun last night one of the guy’s weren’t really ready in the morning. So the two of us started cycling and met two other cyclists along the way. A couple from France, and yet again I was surrounded by French speaking people. Felt like most people I met in Kampot spoke French. And not just the French people, also the French-Canadian’s and French speaking Belgians.

We didn’t cycle together for long and at once intersection we all split up. Antoine rode south to Sihanoutville, the couple stayed in the little town at the intersection and I rode north-west towards Koh Kong and Thailand. I’ve decided to skip Sihanoutville and the island off the coast since I felt I’ve been enough in Cambodia and wanted to move on. Also wanted to be in Thailand for the Thai New Year aka Waterfestival.

The road to the border town Koh Kong was really nice and I stopped in two small places before getting here. The first stop was in the mall town of Ambel, wasn’t anything to do there but I really like the genuine markets in there tows where there’s no tourists and I can just walk in the market maze and look around. And of course get my daily dose of delicious mangoes.

The road from Ambel to Koh Kong goes through Boutum Sakor National Park and is a little hilly. So far Cambodia had been very flat and now I got to feel how it was to go uphill in this heat. I was sweating like never before but still enjoyed the surroundings with forest and green hills. Once out of the forest I was back at by the sea and in Koh Kong. I had a day on rest here and rode around the area a little to the mangrove forest and along the sea side. Tomorrow I’m leaving Cambodia for the second time and heading into Thailand. I’ve had a great time here but also feel excited to move on into Thailand and experience it on the bike..