South East Asia on Motorbikes

[MAX]

South East Asia on Motorbikes

5 Countries, 5 Months, 15.000km - a ride report

by Theresa and Max

Hello Motorbiking community, we are Max and Theresa, a young german couple (23 & 20). We have spent the past six months travelling Southeast Asia on motorbikes. It has been the trip of a lifetime, so many incredible things we´ve seen and done.
Finding the perfect little tropical island in Malaysia, riding the Mae Hong Son loop in Thailand, fighting the rainseasonstorms and discovering ancient tombs in Laos, getting chased by cops in Cambodia, climbing an active vulcano and finding the perfect wave in Indonesia...
And it wouldn´t have been possible without the help of the online motorbiking community. Therefore, we want to give something back, and write this ride report.

It would be way to much to put it in one post, so we´re going to make 5 posts out of it:

1. Introduction / Preparation - Done
2. Malaysia - Done, see below
3. Thailand - Done, see below
4. Laos - yet to do, probably june 2013
5. Cambodia
6. Bali, Lombok
7. Sumbawa, Flores, Rinja



Introduction / Preparation

I (Max) have been on a round the world trip in 2008/2009, and ever since dreamt of going on the road again. The last trip ended in Bali, where I back then tought myself how to ride a motorbike. I loved the landscape, the culture, the climate, the incredible nice people... and I knew I wanted to come back. Another country I was fascinated about is Nepal, and ever since I started studying in 2009, I had the idea of riding on a motorbike from Bali to Nepal. Research on the forums showed this to be impossible, and soon a new plan developed: To ride from Malaysia to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and then explore the islands of Indonesia, all on a motorbike.

Intitally I wanted to do this on my own, but when my girlfriend Theresa decided to quit her education as a cook in Januar 2012 and planned to begin studying in fall 2012, the opportunity to do this together posed itself. When I asked her, she wanted some time to think about it - and then said yes, two months before the date I intended to leave.

There were so many things left to do, we had to find out where to buy the bikes, which border we could cross with the bikes and which not, what documents we needed (lots), what vaccinations were required (none), and which insurance company would rip us the least of.
Theresa had never been riding a motorbike before and started her driving lessons right away, she got her official driving license five days prior to our departure day.


Bikes

One of the biggest questions was where to get a bike from.
We never really looked into shipping a bike from Germany, just shipping it one way would have required a big part of our budget. Therefore, the big question for us was to rent or buy - and where exactly to do it.

Renting would have had the big advantage of getting the bike right away, and not worrying about how and where to sell the bike in the end. Unfortunately, it turned out to be impossible to take a rented bike across international borders. As we didn´t want to get a new bike in each country we were going to visit, the only option left was to go and buy a motorbike.

Fortunately, we found a german couple who had done a similar trip on scooters just one year before, they had written an excellent post about where to buy bikes from on their website. (Smashwords — Buying and Riding a Motorcycle in South East Asia — A book by Sherrie McCarthy)

They recommended Malaysia, and so we went ahead and booked flight tickets to Kuala Lumpur. (They switched their blog post into an buyable e-paper, so I won´t go into detail and spoil the information)

Still, the question remained where exactly to buy the bike, and first of all, what specific bike to get.
I was hoping we could buy a honda tiger, the exact same bike I had had three years ago when I visited Bali.
Unfortuately, it turned out to be only sold in indonesia.

Malaysia is a pretty developed country, and we soon realized we had a wide range of bikes to choose from.
Our total bike budget was about 5000€. We never considered riding 2-up, which left us with two options - to buy used bikes in the 250-500cc range, or to buy new bikes in the 150-250cc range.

Coming from germany, a country where motorbikes usually are 500 - 1xxx cc, it was natural to look into the bigger, used bikes. They would provide more power, their bigger tires would be good on dirt roads in laos, and of course a bigger bike also meant more safety - in most parts of SEA small yields to big. But it also meant added fuel and maintenance costs, and buying a used bike of course also increased the likelikhood of breaking down somewhere, With no spare parts available for the big bike. Most of all, it also meant sticking out of the other motorbikers: In most parts of South East Asia, a big bike is considered a toy for the riches, whereas a smaller bike blends in among the local bikers anywhere and usually makes for a warm welcome.
We also assumed a smaller bike would get us less attention from corrupt cops in Cambodia, an assumption that proved to be completely wrong.

We ended up looking at three bikes: a Honda CBR 150 with 24hp, a Yamaha FZ 150i with 18hp, and a Kawasaki KLX with 11 hp.
The horsepower sounds incredible low for European standards, but the thing to always keep in mind is that traffic in Southeast asia differs fundamentally from Europe; most "motorbikes" are tiny scooters that do 40-80 km/h, most cars are rusty and old, and don´t even get me started on the big old trucks that crawl up the mountain roads, loaded five meters high, going 10km/h - and proudly sporting a "100 Horse Powers" plate in the front.
The average speed on a main road is about 70km/h, on vulcaneous Indonesia it sometimes went below 40km/h.
The Honda was too munch of a sportbike in regard of frame and suspension, and the Kawasaki lacked the speed we were going to need driving long distances, so we ended up settling for the FZ: It had, compared to the other bikes, the biggest frame, a really good suspension, and the 18hp ment it could go 130km/h, which (apart from malaysia) meant we usually were the fastest on the road.

Our beloved bikes, can you guess why we blinded the headlights?

As Malaysia is part of the ASEAN, buying the bike there enabled us to take it across most international boarders without a carnet de passage, only Indonesia was off limits, but more of this later.



Safety

Being german, we also were pretty concerned about safety, especially after I had read up that the chance to die on a motorbike in Malaysia or Thailand is almost nine times as high as back home in Germany.
We were looking into proper motorbiking gear, but a leather vest would just have been to hot in the sometimes 40+ degrees of SE Asia. Patrick and Sherry did it in a full leather suit, to this day I can´t believe how they didn´t die from heatstroke So I (Max) settled for a Alpinestars motocross vest, some summer gloves and an Uvex motocross helmet we got for a bargain price. Theresa got the same helmet and gloves, but instead chose a proper (summer)biking jacket. Initially we had no leg protection, we were riding the first 2000km in shorts and hiking boots. The boots stayed, we got some additional leg protection at the end of the Malaysia trip though.

Somewhere deep in Laos

On top of that, We got eight vaccinations to cover for almost any disease that could strike us.

Thanks
To end this section, we would like to say thanks to all the people that made this possible, especially:

Antusiang, Zul, and the MBC crew ( Malaysian Bikers Community 2012 - Index ): for helping us at the start and end of our mainlandtrip, and for the incredible warm welcome.
The guys at HUBB and Ride Asia( The HUBB ) ( Ride Asia Motorcycle Forum ): HUBB for initial research and motivation, Ride Asia for all the information regarding border crossings in SE Asia.
Patrick and Sherry: They did a similar trip a few months before us on scooters, although we never met them, their "where to buy a motorbike in SE Asia" post was extremely helpful

Special thanks to:
Mohdi Ibrahim: for all the information and help - and for being a great friend.

 

[nikhuzlan]

NICE. Look forward to more of your stories.

 

[Loop]

Great pics and reporting.

 

[Lone Rider]

This looks to be a very interesting trip report judging from the pictures shown in the Introduction - look forward to part 2 through 5.

 

[yychow0812]

Subscribed!

 

[Ally]

Great stuff!!

Welcome to RideAsia forum to you both.

Thanks for taking the time to compile & share this trip report with us here

Ally

 

[Captain_Slash]

Awesome photos to get this one going, looking forward to seeing more

 

[Just Bob]

"Our beloved bikes, can you guess why we blinded the headlights?"

Why?

And great pics. Looks like the trip of a lifetime!

 

[yychow0812]

I could be wrong but I think it's not allowed to drive with headlights on during the day in Malaysia

 

[KTMphil]

Inspiring report, very different to what most of us have done recently, thanks for taking the time to do this, really enjoyed it.


This photo is amazing

 

[nikhuzlan]

The covered headlights must be for Cambodia,

 

[MAX]

Part II - Malaysia

thank you
and yes, you got it right, we blinded them because we went to cambodia.
it´s about time for:



Part II: Malaysia


We left Germany on a rainy, cold day on a plane to Malaysia. Our first destination was Kuala Lumpur where we were going to buy the bikes.
The big city surprised us, it felt foreign and yet strangely familiar.
It is a city of wide contrast, with an inner city full of high rises, flashy cars, wide streets and a monorail that is actually fast and clean. Walk one street further thou, and just around the corner from the glitzy shopping world you´ll find people living in run down buildings, trying to make an income from street selling.

Our first lunch in KL

Nobody likes to walk, guess why?

The monorail



Many things surprised us: We knew it would be hot, but THAT hot? Coming from winter-cold Germany, 37 degrees in the shade was a tough thing to get used to. We were also surprised how green the city is - trees, ferns, orchids, ... green everywhere, growing out of every backyard and hole in the pavement.
Most of all, we were surprised how nice and friendly the people were to us. Starting in KL, for the whole time of being in Malaysia, I can´t recall anyone being rude to us, we were always greeted with a smile, people were warm and open minded. The happiness was contagious, after some time it just became natural to greet everybody with a smile. I actually ended up getting kind of upset every time I saw a Westerner with his daily grumpy face among all the smiling Asians.
Another interesting thing about Malaysia is the different origin of the people. There are native Malayans, Chinese and Indians. And they all seem to have some little resentments against each other: The Malayans talk about the greedy Chinese, the Chinese tell of the lazy Malayans, and nobody seems to like the Indians too much. But it´s all told with a smile and a winking eye, they seem to get along pretty fine.
With Malaysia being an Islamic country, we were also curious how much this would affect us, how "different" it would be.
Again, we were surprised: Of all the three different peoples living in the country, only the Malayans are Islamic, and they turned out to be the most open minded and friendly people. People seemed to be proud of their diversity, while some expressed concerns regarding the rising radicalization of Islam. Anyway, we really enjoyed how peaceful people were living no matter their religion.

Buying the Bikes

We planned to spend as little time in Kuala Lumpur as possible. We wanted to get the bikes and then leave for the country. Again we could profit from Patrick and Sherry's trip some months earlier, they had written about the dealer where they had bought their scooters. Still in Germany, I mailed the dealer got into contact with Calvin, their sales rep.
Back then he seemed to be a nice guy, and when we met him in person, he was eager and helpful to help us choose the bike.I took the bike we wanted, the Yamaha FZi, for a spin, and liked how fast the small engine could bring the bike up to speed.
We decided to go ahead and buy two FZs, Theresa was going for a blue one, I ordered a black one.
We sat down with Calvin to sign the deal.
When I asked him to give me a good price, he first was surprised to see an Westerner trying to bargain, then agreed to give us 10% discount. He even offered to put his address on the registration form, and was helpful in every way.
Oddly, he started telling us about Patrick and Sherry, boasting how they "accepted the first price I told them, and afterwards even wanted to take a photo with me". I had a weird feeling, why would he talk bad about the only other Western customers he had had? But it wasn't until three months later that I got really angry at him (see part IV)
He told us he would have the bikes ready in a day, and together we went to an ATM to take out the money we needed - only to realize our German bank had set an unchangeable daily limit on our cards! Of all the things we had planned back in Germany, this was the one thing we had completely forgotten about.
We called the bank in Germany to take care of the problem, but the best solution that customer support offered us was to "come to the nearest branch here in Germany, there is no limit if you take money out at a counter"
...
We wagered our options for a few hours, then decided the best solution was to take out the daily limit each day and wait until we would have enough money. Unfortunately, this meant storing all the money in our hotel room, and waiting four extra days until we had all the money we needed.
On a plus side, this left us more time to explore the city. The highlight was the botanic garden: It had beautiful flowers, cheesy fake statues and one definite highlight: a plastic replica of Stonehenge. And yes, people were taking wedding photos there.

With only one day to go before we could pick up the motorbikes, I suddenly got cold feet. How would we find our way out of the seven million people city? How would Theresa handle biking? Her first time without a driving school teacher, on a bike she had never ridden before, driving on the "wrong side of the road"?
I was worried, and decided to ask on the "Malaysian bikers community" forum if someone would be able to guide us out of the city.
I didn't have high hopes, the people had been nice to us before, but answering online questions and actually skipping work to meet us and help us is something quite different.
But then something amazing happened: I had posted in the evening, just hours before we were going to pick up the bikes and left a telephone number to contact me. And within one hour, three different people contacted me, offering their help!

The next morning we went to pick up the bikes, and boy, we were excited. People in KL are used to foreigners and usually pay little attention to strangers, but the second we left the hostel, carrying our backpacks, motocross helmets and all the gear we had, we could feel people staring at us from all directions. It was a friendly stare thou, a stare that would follow us for the next five months throughout Southeast Asia, often leading to interesting conversations and sometimes opening doors for us.

We took the monorail to the shop, paid the last installment for the bikes, and with perfect timing Antusiang and his friend (the guys from the MBC forum) arrived to pick us up. They were going to lead us out of the city, towards the old mountain road.

Paying for the bikes- each note is worth about 10 US Dollars

We put on our gear and started the bikes for the first time.
it was a magical moment - a little crowd had assembled, pedestrians, shoppers, even the mechanics of the bike shops had stopped working and watched as we got on the bikes and followed Antusiang and his mate out onto the road. Years of dreaming, months of preparation had finally come to an end, our trip was live.


The first day riding was amazing. Antusiang and his friend dropped us at the start of the old mountain road out of the city. It was just perfect: The sun was shining, we had a blue sky, the road was old and narrow but in still decent shape, almost no traffic, and lots of bends in the middle of the rain forest.

We didn't really have a destination, we knew we wanted to get to the east coast, but it didn't matter when we would get there, we had five months before us...

Theresa's bike

We stopped for the night at a little homestay in the country. We shared the house with the friendly Muslim owner and his family. We had a private room, but it was a wooden house with lots of openings and clearings, it felt like we all shared one room. We also made our first contact with the "mandi", the Asian version of a shower: You take a bucket, dip it into a lager basin of water, and then empty the bucket over you. After some time we got used to it, but at least in this case we really preferred the European version...
When I asked the owner about his job, he told me "fishing" and showed me the fishponds behind his house. So next morning I asked him about the catch of last night, and laughing he said "none". I didn't understand, so he explained the probably most relaxed job in the world to me:

He kept fish in two ponds. Every night people from all around would show up and pay an entry fee. But they didn't go fishing to eat it or sell the fish! Everyone had five hours to catch the biggest fish he could get. In the end he would bring the fish to the owner of the pond, who put the fish on a scale. The fishers got money according to the weight of their biggest fish: If it was heavy enough, it was worth more than their entry fee, and they went home with profit. If it was worth less, the owner of the pond would be making profit. Afterwards the fish got thrown back into the pond, to be caught again some day, some fish had more than ten hook marks.
It was all just game...

The fish Ponds

Wild buffaloes

a guest house




The next day we visited a nearby elephant sanctuary.

We then left for the east cost, it was already 3:30pm, but we still had hopes of driving the remaining 250 km to the coast. Unfortunately, suddenly the traffic became really dense and slow, and some raindrops started falling. We pulled over and put on our raincoats, and within seconds it started pouring down like no tomorrow. A fully grown rainstorm developed, the tin roof of our shelter got slowly town apart.

the roof of the nieghbour building started to break and fly away

We waited some time, then got back on the bikes as the rain had weakened.

Unfortunately it didn't take long until it got even worse. we pulled over again and were invited by a family to have dinner with them. We tried to pay them for it, but they refused... so incredibly nice people!

By now it was already 6:30 and we had no hopes left of getting to the east coast, so we asked for the nearest homestay and went there. A third time the rain got even worse, we pulled over, but it just wouldn't stop, so we started again, this time in full night, raining so hard I had to open my helmet just to see the road. The raincoat kept me dry though - that is until a minibus overtook me at like 110 km/h, splashing up water from a puddle on the street so hard it hit me everywhere. I swallowed a good amount, it ran down the inside of my helmet into my clothes... good times!
Fortunately, we made it to the hotel not long after, COMPLETELY wet though.
I had a lot of respect for Theresa, this being her second day on a motorbike, she made it trough all of it with ease, not even complaining once.

We found the "homestay", which actually was a little roadside hotel. The owner looked at us bewildered - we were the first Westerners to ever show up. But again people were so friendly to us, we got the best little hut they had.

It was rather run down, but it was dry, and that was all we needed...

The next day we left again for the east coast, and this time we actually got there. We went to "Cherating beach", which may be a busy little backpacker town in the dry season, but the rain season had just started, and most accommodations were almost empty. The town had a relaxed, happy feeling to it.
We found us a nice little hut close to the beach.

The view from the front porch

We made contact with our first big lizard:

I couldn't stop watching them, Theresa was more interested in the thousands of geckos in and outside our hut.



It was here we met Mohdi for the first time. He had seen us post online, and sent me a message asking if we could meet him. We sure did, and he showed up on his brand new yellow Kawasaki.

He invited us to have a traditional lunch with him, we were taught how to eat with our hands. Unfortunately I am left handed, and for some reason the Asians don't ever eat with their left hand, so the whole little restaurant was giggling when they saw me do it...
Mohdi had traveled a fair bit of Asia himself and was able to give us lots of helpful information, we held contact to him during the whole trip. In the end we really could call him a friend, without his help some things would have been fundamentally different. (see part V)

(his bike is the yellow one)


It was great to relax by the sea, make new friends, meet locals, unwind from all the stress back home in Germany.

time for another mango shake

taking the shortcut

But after a few days we wanted to get going again. We wanted to go to an island. Initially we had the "Perhentian islands" im mind, but fellow travelers advised us against it. So we consulted our "Lonely Planet" and headed for a tiny little island called "Pulau Kapas", in hindsight one of the best decisions we did.

on the way to Pulau Kapas

Pulau Kapas was heaven:

A tiny little island in the ocean, 500 meters across, so small there was not a single road, the thick jungle went right up to the beach, our cottage was ten meters from the beach. No noise except birds and the ocean, amazing food, perfect weather, we couldn't have had it any better...
(well maybe except for the snake that awoke us one night, but the next day the owner assured us that they were "only a little bit poisonous")

After a few days on the island we wanted to get on the road again, and decided to drive to the "Cameron Highlands", the tea growing capital of Malaysia.

The drive itself was quite interesting, be it cows on the road, thundering rainstorms, or broken roads, it never got boring. We were getting used to our bikes, and bit by bit felt more confident on the road.

Our daily dose of rainstorms

suddenly the road was gone

"Be aware - Wild Elephants"

first thousand kilometers, no crash yet

In Cameron Highlands we were surprised - it might have been a tea growing village, but it felt a lot more like one big tourist trap. Wealthy people from KL would drive here for a weekend getaway. Interestingly, it was still easy to get away from the crowds: all the Asians would go to one of the tea plantations, walk into the fields for ten meters, have a relative take a photo with their cellphone camera, and then rush back to the entry to drink an incredibly overpriced tea and have a muffin. We decided to go for a hike in the plantations, and within seconds we had left the crowds behind. The plantations were beautiful, lots of rolling green hills. History has it that the English founder of the town went for a hike in the plantations, got lost and never came home. This couldn't happen to us, from every hill we could look back to the entry and see the flashes of the Asians taking photos in full daylight.

We also met a lot fellow motorbikers here, a Frenchman who had driven on his BMW GS all the way from France, and a couple of Asian bikers from Penang. They all had some sort of motocross leg protection, something we were completely lacking. We talked to them, and immediately one of them offered us to show us around once we got to Penang and to take us to the shop where we could buy them. We agreed and left for Penang a few days later.

Some more rainstorms (and a huge bridge) later we got there. We found us a little hostel in Georgetown, and the next day the old biker came to pick us up. He had changed his big bike for a small scooter, and not only showed us where to buy the leg protection, but also took us all across the city so we could get our bikes serviced for the first time and demanded nothing in exchange, he didn't event let us buy him his lunch. Again, it was amazing to see how nice people were to us...

pedestrian protection: over 9000!

By now we had spent a few weeks in Malaysia. It had been a great time - it wasn't as munch of an adventure as the trip later would develop into, but it was the perfect place to relax and unwind - and meet some incredibly friendly people.
But now we had seen enough, and decided it was time to discover a new country - Thailand!

[Part 3 in 1-2 weeks]

 

[MartinThai]

Terrific report, many thanks..... great reading.

Did you ever find out why Asians don't eat with their left hand?

 

[Just Bob]

What a trip! Fantastic photos!

 

[MAX]

Finally...

Part III: Thailand



Our first 24 hours in Thailand were heaven and hell.


It was our first land crossing with the motorbikes and we were quite excited to see if everything would go as planned.
we had picked the route 15 which led us to a remote checkpoint, far away from the big Malay-Thai highway.
The immigration officers were surprised to see foreigners crossing the border on their own bikes. They demanded lots of papers, but we were prepared and everything went just fine.

We hadn´t exchanged any money prior to crossing the border, and I didn´t want to get ripped of by some shady creatures on the roadside, so I tested my luck and asked the immigration officer if he could exchange some money for us. Theresa abd ne both had heard about the corruption in Thailand, and when the Immigration officer seemed a bit too eager to do the exchange, Theresa got a really bad feeling.
I somehow had the feeling I could trust him, but I grew nervous aswell. Still, didn´t want to be impolite and cancel the exchange, so I gave him the equivalent of 100 US $, and he handed some money back to us. I was mentally preparing myself for having lost some money, but at least we had some Thai money now, and went on into the new country.


Thailand was incredible green, the sun was shining, people were nice, prices even lower... we had a good feeling about it.
After following the boarder road for a while, we realized it was getting dark soon, so we picked Satun to spend the first night at.
Satun had a few surprises for us: First of all, we realized the downside of being off the tourist trail. Not a single roadsign was written in English, and virtually noone was able to speek even the most basic english. We ended up finding our way with hand sings, circling the city endlessly, hoping to find a place to sleep. It had been dark for quite some time when we finally found an old hotel. It looked shabby from the outside, but Malaysia had thaught us that often you will find a nice place inside some dirty outer walls. How wrong we were! It was dirty. And I don´t mean dirty as in "look there is a spot on the wall", I mean dirty as in "look Theresa, I´m pretty sure this sh*tcovered something is supposed to be our toilet" and "hey Max, have you ever showered with dirt-brown water?"

At least we could park our Bikes in the Hotel lobby...

The next day we were woken up at 4am by the mosque next door. While comforting our arching backs and counting all the mosquito bites, we vowed, from now on, to look for small homestays instead of big hotels, and to make sure we got to our destination early enough to still be able to have a look around town.

Next came a big surprise: We went to a Bank to exchange some more money, and realized the immigration officer had "rounded up a little" on the exchange rate - but in our favour! Insted of ripping us of, he had actually given us a little extra... what a nice person.

Now our "real" trip into Thailand was almost ready to start, but we had one last "little" thing to do: We had to get Thai third party insurance for the motorbikes. And what usually you´d expect to take about 10 minutes, became a nightmare we would still be talking about weeks later.

We spent six hours walking the streets in the blazing sun, visited about 20 different shops and institutions, including the police, the immigration office, the customs, the insurance headquarter... with zero results. Everywhere, people were happy to see us and invited us in. Again and again we explained our simple concern: to get third party insurance for our motorbikes.
And again and again, after I had finished my whole spill about the bikes, the papers and the insurance, the clerk would look me in the face, happily chant "rent motorbike?" and smile.

In the end, we found a pretty easy solution. It only took a South African school teacher, who knew a local school headmaster, who knew a teacher who had a friend at the boarder, who knew someone who was selling insurance at the border, who knew someone in town who could bring us to someone who could sell the insurance to us... See? That easy!


On the second day, the monsoon hit. We were used to rainstorms by now, but Thailand took it to a whole new level. Rain in Malaysia had been strong, but it seldom lastet more then half a hour. In Thailand, it was fierce. It rained so hard, sometimes we couldn´t see for more than 50 meters, and strong side winds made sure the water found any possible hole in our gear to creep in.

In the evening, we got to Trang in Southern Thailand. Still completely off the tourist trail, we again struggled to find anyone capable of speaking English. We also discovered some of the wonders of Thailand, e.g. elephants waiting at a red light, or religious processions shutting down traffic on the main street.
Searching for a place to stay at, we ended up in a surprisingly clean and new place. Men with big cars and sunglasses came and went, to this day we are not sure if the little hotel provided some 'special services', but we were treated nicely and, paying less than 3 dollars each, had one of the best price performance rations of our trip.

We had dinner at the local nightmarket, mingling among the locals. It was pure chaos, dozens of little food stalls were scattered about the compound, each of them trying to get the attention of customers. The rain had soaked the soil, mud was everywhere. So much frying, cooking, burning, smoke, spices, every step we took, we could smell or hear something new. Then there were people butchering live chickens, shopowners doing all sorts of supply trips, shy school children abound, ... The whole place was buzzing with life.
Walkling trough the aisles, we always could feel people watching us. But we never felt any hostility: we were the only whites among hundreds of thais, we couldn´t understand any of their language and neither could they understand us, but somehow if felt saver and more "at home" than walking in a unknown city at night back in Germany.
People we looked at smiled, and using our hand and feet, we managed to have a tasty Thai dinner among the chaos around us.



The next day was acutally sunny, and we made our way up to Krabi, a little town on the west coast of Thailand. We took the coast road, the riding was beautiful: long stretches of good road inbetween rainforest, sometimes opening to small little beaches with zero tourists.

Almost no traffic on the road, blue skyes... it was beautiful. We also got used to the Thai roads: Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Monkeys, Buffalows, every corner held new surprises. Additionally, the Thai seem to have discovered a more efficient way of using a road, they know about a secret third lane noone else knows about. Apparently it´s right in the middle of the road!

Being Krabi meant getting back on the tourist trail, people could speak English, we had our first Western meal in days, and found a nice little hostel that charged each of us only 50 Bath a night! Krabi had a nice vibe about it, a reggae bar had just opened, the owner had actually managed to get hold of an original VW-Bus, and played Bob Marley every night. When asked why he always had the same record running, he told us, "thats the only music I own". The bar attracted some initial customers, and upon hearing his story, most returned with their MP3 players and hard drives, not before long the owner had thousands of songs in his inventory.

We had read about beautiful Ko Phi Phi, and although I had a wierd feeling about it, we bought tickets for the ferry and left our bikes behind.

Expecting a small paradise island, Ko Phi Phi turned out to be the biggest disappointment of our trip!
Everything was focussed on commerce. Thais were hustling you on every occasion, we were offered a trip to "The Beach" ten times a day. The small island was cramped with hotels, tiny pathways were packed with drunken Western tourists. At high tide, the water was filled with garbage.

Everything screamed for attention, at night, the beach clubs were blasting the US TOP 50 all over the island. The whole vibe felt negative. If you ignored a hustler, they sometimes became agressive and cursed you. Local beachboys were agressively targeting blonde girls, giving away free alcohol in hope to increase their bragging count of how many they had been to bed with.
People told us how nice the island had been, but apparently, after the tsunami hit and wreaked havoc, the reconstruction of the island just went over the top.

On the positive side, there was a telephone tower at the top of the island. I climbed it, and we managed to capture one of the most beautiful sunsets of our trip.

Back in Krabi, we heard about another beach destination nearby, and this time, we found just what we were looking for.
Railay/Tonsai beach was a small penisula, seperated from the mainland by tall mountains, only accessable by boat.

It's home to one of the most exclusive beach resorts of the planet, but there's also just the right amount of small shacks and middle class hotels. As it was low season, we managed to strike a bargain and get a nice little hut. This time, the vibe felt right: much less drunken tourists, much less hectic and an incredible beach setting.
We also saw a snake that had overestimated its powers, seems like the lizard managed to at least take revenge:

Exploring the area, we found a small sign "Lagoon", pointing upwards into the rainforest. We decided to follow it, the path gently climbed up a rocky hill, until suddenly there was an almost vertical climb. At this point most tourists who had, curious as we were, simply followed the sign, decided to turn back. We were keen to keep on going, and found a skinny rope hanging down among the vines. We scrambled up and were rewarded with a postcard view over Railay:

Next was the lagoon, this time we had to climb down the inside of the hill, hanging off ropes and vines and rocks on the steep bits. We caught a glimpse of the bright green lagoon and were determined to get down there, it involved some unofficial vertical rockclimbing down a couple of drops! Theresa had injured her ancle on one of the climbs, so she decided to wait until I got back. I left my camera with her in order to get my hands free and concentrate on the climb. Two aussies made it down with me, some other tourists weren't keen to do the climbing.
The lagoon was magical, it was something straight out of a movie... Bright green, surrounded by cliffs, echoing every word.
As I had left my camera with Theresa, here is a picture taken of the web:

The climb up was difficult, we all had slimy wet feet covered in red clay, the Aussies lost their thongs with every step they took. I was wearing my nike free shoes, they helped me on the climb, but it took weeks to get them clean again.

Once we got back to where we had started, we were sweatier and dirtier than ever before ... luckily, the beach was just arround the corner!

We spend two days relaxing there, reading books in the hammock I brought, and discovering the various caves accessible from the beach.

yes, these are dicks. Apparently it´s a good luck charm for the fishers.

Again we caught a beautiful sunset on camera:

Back in Krabi, we had to decide where to go next, and chose to head for Chiang Mai.
It would be a long drive, about 2000 km, and most of it was completely off the Western tourist trail. Most Backpackers coming to vist Thailand will travel by bus. These buses are new, clean, big, comfty... and they bring you safely from one tourist destination to another. You wouldn´t imagine how many people claim to have seen the "real" Thailand, without ever leaving a tourist trap! Everytime we realized something was overpriced, or people were only after our money, we knew we had found a tourist destination. With out motorbikes, it usually took less than 10 minutes to be back in the real Thailand.


We left Krabi for the East coast, roadsigns made sure we never could get lost:

Once we finally found our way, we discovered a nice little guesthouse at the beach, about 100km north of Surat Thani.
Having witnessed the Thai driving style on some minor higway, we decided from now on to stay away from any highway as much as possible and enjoy the small back roads.


This of course meant going slowly, sometimes getting lost, and stopping every half an hour to ask for directions - but it also meant seeing lots of rural Thailand, driving along the beach for hundreds of kilometers, watching farmers and coconut harvesters do their daily work, and of course- meeting lots of local people.

He invited us to lunch with him and the head of the temple

definately not intended for western tourists.

If we somehow managed to overcome the language barrier, some realy interesting conversations ensued. When we had gotten past the narrow part of Thailand, we went to the left, towards Ratchaburi, then Kanchanaburi. Along the way, we found dozens of signs poiting at waterfalls, apparently the Thai are obsessed with it. We tried one of them, and found nothing a tiny little fountain, with lots of kids playing in the river.

We also found some Thai recreation areas not mentioned in international travel literature. We drove past "Honeymoon Farm", "Love Homestay" and "Swiss Paradise", the latter advertising with a supersized swiss flag, and big headlines: "Original Swiss bullfighting!" and "Original swiss Fish and chips!" I was smiling for hours.

The bridge over the river Kwai

The school bus

Then I fell! I was taking a 90 degree bend in a small town, leaning in, trying to power out of the corner, and suddenly my backwheel lost traction. The bike slid over the the asphalt, with me somehow still holding onto it. When we came to a stop, I got up and inspected the damage done, fortunately, nothing serious had happened. The bike had lost its main stand and the shift lever was bended. I didn´t have any scratch on me! The motocross vest and the leg bracers had taken all of the impact. They were scrachted, but still intact. We got the shift lever fixed up at a small motorbike shop just 20 meters away from the point of accident, and on we went. The next day we went to an official Yamaha dealer in order to get the main stand fixed. The people there were really nice and helpful, but told me they didn´t have the main stand for the bike - because it wasn´t sold anywhere in Thailand (which also applied to Laos and Cambodia)! Turns out the salesman in Malaysia had lied to us...
They managed to repair it with some basic welding. It didn´t look to fancy, but it did the trick, and they even refused the money we wanted to give them, instead they asked us to take pictures with them.

Right after I fell, it was probaply Theresa who had gotten the bigger shock, she had been driving behind me and had to watch me fall, unable to intervine. I was rather happy nothing serious had happened.
It wasn´t until days later that I realized I had lost the trust in my bike, every corner I took, I had the memory of falling in my head. This took the joy out of driving, I realized I had to do something about it.
I started to inspect the tyres, and realized they were not meant for hard cornering: The profile part would let the tire only stand sideways to a certain percentage, if the biker leaned in further, the profile would end and the tire only had partial grip left on the street. We decided to get new tires as soon as we would get into the next big city, which in this case was Chiang Mai.

But we weren´t there yet, two more things were about to happen. The evening on the day I had fallen, we stopped at a little homestay, somewhere deep in the country. We parked our bikes outside our little hut, gravel had been arranged to form a car parking spot. We went to sleep, faintly realizing the monsoon rain had started once again. Suddenly we head a loud bang, and immediately we knew what had happened: the gravel had given way, our bikes had fallen over. We had parked them close together so we could use our chainlock, this turned out to be a bad decision: My bike had fallen, tipped Theresas over, and smashed its handle into her bikes fuel tank.

Fortunately, the fuel tank was only dented, but with two things gone wrong in one day, after 5000km without anything happening, our motivation had taken a hit.
Additionally, we started to get sick: I only had minor stomach pains, but Theresa had caught it really bad. What first started as a minor annoyance turned into a major sickness: Stomach pain turned into servere cramps, making it almost impossible to stay on the bike for Theresa.

When we finally got to Chiang Mai, the first thing we did was to see a doctor in the hospital. It turned out we both had contracted some sort of food poisoning, we were given heavy antibiotics.

Chiang Mai was good for us in any possible way. It´s a laidback town in the Northwest of Thailand, with lots of temples, nice places to eat and drink, and a positive atmosphere. After weeks in the rain, we spend a few days in a nice litte (and dry!) hotel, discovering the city, visiting temples and drinking the possibly best mango shakes in the world.

Thai Shopping Malls...

This brought out the child in me. Whitening facial, anyone?


We also managed to find some michelin tyres, it prooved to be a tremendous upgrade to our old stock tires.

I did some exploring and a little offroading on my own while Theresa was recovering, and slowly I regained my trust in my motorbike!

After a few days of relaxing and recovering, I was eager to get going again. People had recommended the Mae-Hong-Son loop to us as one of Thailands best motorbiking roads, so that´s where we were heading next. It´s also known as the Road of 1000 corners.

When we left Chiang Mai, the setting changed almost immediately. No more flat riverbeds, no more long straights - mountains, here we come! The road was winding up steep hills, with lots of tight bends, following crests, with drops on both sides.

We also noticed a change in the nature around us, the tropical scenery gave way to a more "mediterranean" flora.

Our first destination was Pai. We passed some little villages along the way, then stopped somewhere at a roadside restaurant to eat. Immediately after taking our helmets of, we realiced we had made a bad decision. Minibusses were pulling in, spitting out loads of backpackers. We took a quick look at the prices, and got back on the bikes. As we pulled out, we noticed the bus drivers covertly getting their commission for bringing the backpackers to this restaurant... Just 500 meters down the road we found the next restaurant, this time with Thai prices and a smiling host.

Approaching Pai, we passed the usual waterfall sign, but this time it was promoting one of the best waterfalls in the whole country. (at least the sign said so). We followed a nice little trail, and at the end - found some hot springs! It was three pm, the sun was blazing down... somehow we didn´t feel like hot springs.

When we got to Pai, we took a little detour and found a tourist hotel with a special accommodation just 5 minutes outside the village: They had a tree house! Among a nice garden and some standard cottages, stood a really big old tree, with three little huts nestled amog its crown.

You had to climb the tree to to get to up there, the huts themselves were tiny, there were spiders everywhere...

but we just loved the idea of sleeping in a tree. It was also surprisingly cheap. We settled in, and drove down the road into Pai.

It immediately reminded me of a place in Australia called Nimbin - countless old hippies spending their day doing yoga, drinking organic tea and ratteling about the modern times.

Among them the young backpacker crowd, some of them looking for the deeper meaning in life, some looking for the next cheap party. But it was all in a good spirit, the percentage of Western people openly showing a happy mood is probaply worth an entry into the Guinnes book! Maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe the good and cheap food, maybe it´s due to the fact that Thailands strict drug laws are beeing little enforced in Pai...

After a nice dinner we went back to our tree house, climbed the stairs, went to bed - and were waken right away by the staff- "Quick, Quick, you have to come! Quick!" Nothing seemed wrong, so we calmed them down a bit and asked what had happened. Apparently, they told us, a big storm was coming! The huts in the tree were nowhere near waterproof, and the little boards didn´t seem to trustworty. So we packed all our stuff and made our way down the tree, and in perfect timing, the second we got to the bottom, the storm hit! And what a storm it was, the tree started shaking, leaves flying everywhere, rain falling almost horizontal. I had to get up there to fetch one last thing, the tree was moving so much, it felt like an amusement park!
They moved us into one of the cottages, and we watched the storm in awe...

The next morning, the blue sky was back. The huts in the tree still seemed intact, but branches were scattered all over the floor. We decided to spend the next night in Pai. Once again, we decided to try and find a waterfall our guidebook had recommended to us. We set of into the jungle, following a little river upstream. The rain season had made some of the riverbed crumble, adding an extra thrill to the hike.

better not fall...

Expecting the descibed five minute walk, I hadn´t bothered to drop my biking vest somewhere. We kept on going and going, but for some reason - there was no waterfall! We had intended to take a quick shower in the waterfall and then get back for dinner, but after half an hour, there was still no waterfall in sight, and it started getting dark. I was sweating like crazy, we had no water left, mosquitoes were attacking us from all sides, but I decided not to give up yet. I left the backpack and my gear with Theresa and started to run along the river. But even after minutes of running, there was just no waterfall, just more jungle, heat and mosquitos. Reluctant I headed back. Theresa had picked up a third hiker searching for the waterfall, and together we walked back into town, in desperate need of a shower and something to drink. We were speculating, that whoever had written the guidebook, had been smoking a little bit to much...
For the third time, our search for a waterfall had been fruitless, and it wouldn´t change until we got to Laos!

Our next stop was Mae Hong Son, driving there meant more amazing bends, spectacular views, animals on the road...

Somewhere on the road, we had seen a sign for a cave, and spontaneously decided to follow it. It was a good decision!
After following a tiny rural road for a few minutes and passing a small village, we got to a huge, empty carpark. They seemed to be prepared for mass tourism, but thanks to the rain season, we appeared to be the only visitors for the whole day.

The cave was actually some kind of tunnel, there was a river going in and out of it. We took the mandatory guide, and boarded a raft going into the cave. The young woman didn´t really speak any english, she just had memorized two sentences: "watch your head" and "watch your step", but it turned out that's all she really needed: the magic of the cave needed no words to explain.

Once we had left the raft, somewhere deep insided the mountain, she used her flickering petroleum lamp to light the way and show us special features.

At times, the cave was 30 meters high, then it got so narrow we had to walk sideways. Near the end of it, we got to an ancient burial site, age-old burial coffins were preserved by the dry climate.

Exciting the cave, we came across a huge bat colony, thousands of them were flying in and out of the cave, filling the air with their sounds and smell.

On the way back we came across a broken concrete bridge, but the locals had simply used their traditional way to repair it.

When we got to Mae Hong Son, we escaped the rain by seconds. The instant we closed our hotel room door behind us, it started pouring down, and it wouldn´t stop for the next three days. When the rain finally stopped, we hadn´t seen much of the surrounding area, except for the beautiful temple overlooking the village.

our bikes officially rated comfortable!

There´s an option to visit the Karen villages, where girls have their necks stretched by brass rings, but we did some research into it, and it seems the villages are nothing but tourist displays, built by rich entrepreneurs from Bangkok. We were told the women sit in front of their huts all days, selling small wooden crafts, while the majority of the profit goes to the "owner" of the village. So we skipped this sight and went back to Chiang Mai, again more bends, more mountains, more fun ... and more rain, when we got back to the big city, we were drenched as usual.




Again, we had to decide where to head next. After all the stress in Germany, it had been great to unwind at the beaches of Malaysia and Thailand, and riding the Mae Hong Son loop had taught us how to handle our bikes on winding roads. But now we felt recharged, and it was time for the real adventure to start - we decided to head towards one of the poorest, most corrupt, and, as we would find out, most amazing countries on earth: Laos!

 

[Lone Rider]

Wow, what a trip and that all on relatively small bikes. Big thank you for posting all these beautiful pictures with the story and look forward to the next installment.

 

[Just Bob]

Great stuff. Thanks!!!

 

[nikhuzlan]

Very Nice. Great storytelling.

 

[KTMphil]

What a great thing to do, they have the energy and curiosity to make this possible, good on them.

 

[MAX]

Laos!

Hello RideAsia,

you might not believe this, but after ONE AND A HALF FRIGGIN YEARS we acutally managed to put up the next part of our ride report.
LAOS is here - we hope you enjoy


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Max:
Crossing the international border into Laos wasn´t as easy as expected. The only way to get across the river that separates the two countries was to take the “official” ferry, which cost us a non-negotiable ten dollars each. That’s way more than the average Lao daily income! Considering it was a 400 meter ride, we felt ripped off, especially because it took them more than two hours just to get two trucks on the ferry, two hours we spent waiting in the blazing sun. The ferry ride itself took less than five minutes, and there we were, a new country, hello Laos!

The ferry to Laos

The first thing we noticed was the slowlines of, well, just … everything. People seemed more relaxed, scooters were driving slower, even animals were taking their time to cross the road. Next to the ferry dock some locals were playing boule, a French game that must have come along during the colonial times.
The first thing for us to do was to get a Visa and temporary import permit for the bikes. The last one wasn’t absolutely necessary so long as we didn’t run into any legal problems, but a fellow motorbiker had had an accident the year earlier and was subsequently jailed for not having the import permit and insurance, so we decided to stay on the safe side.
Getting our passports stamped was surprisingly quick, getting our bikes legally into the country was a whole different matter. Customs demanded a “bike passport” of us, a document, we supposedly should have gotten back in Thailand. They told me to go back to the Thai side and get it! 20$ each again, hours of waiting, a day lost? There was no way we were going back to Thailand just to get that. So I insisted we had tried to get it in Thailand, but as our bikes were registered in Malaysia, the Thai customs wouldn’t give it to us. More and more officials and policeman showed up, insisting on me going back to Thailand. The situation became a bit hairy, but in the end I succeeded and received an official temporary import permit for our bikes. Only later I found out that my bluff had actually been the truth, Thai customs don’t issue that “bike passport” for Malaysian registered bikes. Had we followed the Lao customs request, we just would have wasted a lot of time and money.

With everything sorted out, we left for Luang Namtha. The drive there was pretty cool, a newly sealed road led us through many tiny Lao villages, nestled along the hills, with locals curiously watching us everywhere we stopped. It was such a change of scenery, the brick houses we were used to from Malaysia and Thailand were gone, people were living in wooden huts and houses, all sorts of animals (especially pigs!) running free, it felt like we had gone back in time.

First impressions of Laos
We met two French motorbikers that were also exploring Laos, they had brand new BMW GS 1000cc bikes. They seemed strangely out of place, driving a 30.000$ bike in a third world country somehow felt wrong to me.

We got to Luang Namtha and were surprised to see lots of backpackers there, it turned out they all had taken the gruesome twelve hour minibus ride from Thailand to do some trekking in the golden triangle. They even had some bars there, catering to the western tourism, but we just had a nice dinner and went to bed early.

Theresa:

As locals had told us about the bad road conditions between Muang Xai and Luang Prabang, we got up earlier in Luang Namtha and headed for Muang Xai. It was a short drive so we arrived just in time for an early lunch break and found a small restaurant with even a terrace and decided to stay and have lunch there. So we took our bike gear off and soon, a man came to take our order. Then we waited...fifteen minutes, half an hour and started getting impatient. We neither could hear any noises coming from the kitchen nor even see light inside. So Max asked the waiter who was around playing with his son and chatting with others if the food would take much longer to be prepared. He told us that he had called his wife, who was obviously the cook, and that she was still on the market buying the ingredients for our dishes. Another 30 minutes later she showed up, loaded with tons of fresh vegetables, and got started in the kitchen. After having waited for altogether about two hours we finally got the delicious and especially fresh meal.
First thing after lunch we put our bike gear back on and after having filled up the fuel tanks we made our way to Luang Prabang.
That was what we thought, but after having driven one hour, we again got impatient as the nicely tarred road would not stop and we still had the locals' warnings in our mind. And another half an hour later we asked the first people the way. The "no, no Luang Prabang", pointing in the direction we were driving and saying "Pak Beng" soon showed us that we were heading in a completely different way.
As it was getting dark soon it would not have made any sense to turn around and make it all the way back to Muang Xai, so we still kept on driving towards Pak Beng. There we looked at a few shabby homestays before finding a nice one that was clean and had the possibility of parking the bikes in a shop next door.
While having had dinner with a group of Canadian girls and Max eating his first buffalo steak (which was unfortunately a little dry) we learned that boats were stopping in Pak Beng and running down the Mekong. The girls told us that they had booked such a tour, that Pak Beng was their first layover and that locals often took their scooters and even animals with them. That explained why so many tourists stayed in a town with nothing but a few warungs and hostels.
In the next morning we went down to the Mekong to find out about the prices, the departure time and if we were able to take our bikes with us on such a boat.
The guys who were responsible for selling the tickets maybe might have thought of the deal of their lifetime and offered us about 10 USD for each bike to be carried down the approximately twenty meters to the ship, another 20 USD for each person and 10 per bike to be brought to Luang Prabang. As that sounded to us like an incredible rip-off and because they were not willing to bargain we got back to our bikes and drove back to Muang Xai. (Unfortunately, we got in a massive rainstorm and could not enjoy the beautiful landscape at all.)

This time in Muang Xai we decided to look for a different restaurant because we did not have the time to wait another two hours for our lunch. In the center of town we found a nice one and after having been all wet we could warm up with a nice noodle soup. It did not take us long to finish it and shortly after lunch we hit the road again and made our way to Luang Prabang. When passing the gas station again we discovered what had made us to take the wrong street at our first attempt of heading to Luang Prabang: The entrance of the gas station began meters before the huge road sign, which showed the way, and the exit behind it. So we were not able at all to see it. Soon after having left Muang Xai the infamous road began. The tarmac passed into huge stones surrounded by mud, the rain season had taken its toll on the road. We had the feeling of driving through an endless pothole and had to reduce our speed to approximately 15 km/h. For me, it was almost fun driving on slippery roads and finding the most accessible part of the street, but Max soon developed some back aches and we had to go even slower. The road was seamed with little bunches of bamboo huts and kids, piglets and chicken were crossing our way.

It took us ages to get ahead and as Max's pain grew stronger we had to lie in an overnight stay in a small town only just 50 km from Luang Prabang. No tourism there, not a single white person to be seen. We found a little hotel and arrived there all muddy and wet, the bikes covered with dirt from the drive.

Definitely wrong tires. But they did the job.

As the locals who had a fondness for eating warans, it was pretty hard for us to find dinner there. They only sold rice, noodles and even soups with pieces of lizards, which I just could not eat at all. Finally we found a small warung serving fried rice with chicken and sat down to have dinner there. Unfortunately, the cook had minced a whole chicken with all the bones and it was not possible to eat it without them stinging into our mouths. Soon, we decided not to be hungry anymore and bought some chips and candies in a shop across the street. First thing after dinner we went to bed and after breakfast we made the last distance to Luang Prabang.

Finally we had arrived there and immediately got impressed by the great colonial architecture and tiny winding alleys. Just a few meters off the Mekong bank we found a nice home stay. And after having relaxed for a little while and had a nice dinner we started exploring the city. Nice shops and restaurants were nestled up to each other lining the main street. We could even find a Scandinavian bakery, selling real bread, croissants and pastries. In the evening we strolled down the colorful night market of Luang Prabang where locals were selling beautiful lamps, handicrafts, t-shirts and food in a very calm and relaxing atmosphere. I even spent the next evening there but Max soon had enough of shopping.
As Max is always in search of waterfalls and we had not found the "perfect" one for him while traveling throughout Malaysia and Thailand, we definitely had to find it in Laos. The locals in Luang Prabang told us about two amazing multilevel downfalls. So off we went to explore the first one, which is called Chute Taat Sae. Just half an hour out of town we saw the huge signboard with even a picture of the water masses running down and through different levels and pools, but to get there we first had to park our bikes and hire a small wooden boat to cross a river.

After having passed a few elephants that were waiting for tourists to ride on them, on the short walk to the cascades we finally got there...and saw a trickle coming out of a hosepipe. All the levels and ponds except from the basin on the bottom of the waterfall were completely dry! After the first minutes of shock and disappointment we decided to take a bath and Max even did some jumping pictures.

But it was all worth it when, on the way back to Luang Prabang, we stopped at a small food stall where two little girls sold us the most delicious and sweetest pineapple we've ever eaten.

After having recovered from the waterfall disappointment we started our next attempt and drove to the Kuang Si cascades. They were a half an hour drive in the south- west of Luang Prabang. After having parked the bikes on a big parking space, surrounded by market stalls, we started walking to the waterfall. On the way there we crossed a small zoo with bears and a few different animals. And then we finally found the perfect waterfall for Max. I was pretty impressed as well. Apart from the many tourists it was perfect. On the top it started with a beautiful cascade, then countless basins and ponds were nestled against others. On the bottom you could relax and swim in a huge pool or use the rope swing to jump into it.

On our drive back to Luang Prabang Max suddenly noticed his bike moving differently and unstable. It did not take us long to see his rear tire leaking air and to discover the huge nail that bored into it. Slowly we drove on, fortunately we found a tire repair shop just minutes down the road.

MAX:
Within seconds we were surrounded by helpful “mechanics”, and in the blink of an eye they had the nail out. Actually fixing the tire was a different story. Realizing it was a tubeless tire, they discussed their options for a while, and then brought a “tubeless tire repair kit” from the back of the shop. It had never been used, and the repair gum looked like it was well past its expiration date. I should have read the signs right there, but they were so eager and excited, I just trusted that they would somehow get it done. Already a bit worried, because I knew there was no place I could get a replacement tire for the bike in Laos, I asked them if they were sure they could fix it – agreement all around. The chief mechanic took out the first string of repair gum and a screwdriver-like tool, and proceeded to stuff the gum into the tire, further and further – until the whole gum had disappeared into the tire! They tried to inflate the tire, but obviously it was still leaking. Then they repeated the whole process two more times, each time widening the hole in the tire.

The skilled mechanics crew.


With three strings of gum inside the tire, the hole wider than it ever was and the tire still flat, I realized I had to stop this. I took the repair kit and had a look at the (English) user manual. Turns out you are supposed to grab the gum string with the tool right in the middle of the string and then stuff it halfway in, so the middle of the string is inside the tire and the two ends are still outside. Then you cut away the outside and inflate the tire. I tried to do it myself and it seemed to work, but by the next day my tire was again halfway flat, the mechanics had widened the hole too much in their first three repair attempts. Until we found a proper way to repair the tire, I was forced to inflate the tire every few hours from now on. We enjoyed the atmosphere and feeling of Luan Prabang for two more days and then decided to head further south towards Vang Vieng.

Wild land.

Theresa enjoys the dirtroad.

The many uses of a guard rail.

Windy roads.

Not everybody is wearing T-shirts and pants.
Theresa:

We often stopped just to enjoy the beautiful view and weather. The drive went on for hours, but somewhere down the road a weather front caught us and forced us to take shelter at a shop next to the road. A couple welcomed us friendly and soon kids from everywhere came by to watch us foreigners.

The owner offered us some water in unsealed glass bottles. Max and I did not know how to react to that, as we've always been careful not to drink contaminated water. But just as Max opened the bottle and wanted to take the first sip he put the bottle down and passed it on to me. I smelled at it and immediately had to smile. The man had offered hard liquor to us. We tried to thank him (in sign language) for the nice offer and showed him that we still had quite a distance ahead of us. As the rain had stopped we could continue our way to Vang Vieng.

Max:

When we got there, we were surprised. Vang Vieng was the impossible – Deep inside sleepy Lao was a wild rowdy party town, catering to the backpacker crowd from all over the world. Western bars, loud Music, lots of alcohol and drugs. There even were clubs on the riverbank, but the main attraction was the tubing.

Night in Vang Vieng.

(Image taken of the internet)


What is tubing, you might ask? It consists of an old inner tube of a truck, a river to drift down in the tube, and lots of bars nestled along (and on top of) the river where you would stop to drink, dance and have fun. The locals had built all sort of sophisticated water plays, from giant rope swings to jump towers and the infamous slide of death, named because two people had already died just on that slide. Death wasn´t an uncommon sight, the mixture of alcohol, drugs, a wild river and no rules and regulations produced on average one dead backpacker each month. Still it had and out-of-the world feeling of freedom and fun, people were coming from all over the world just to be part of the madness! We joined the party crowd for two days, left out the drugs and actually had a good time. Of course it wasn’t all sunshine, we heard stories of people getting robbed or corrupt cops first selling drugs and then busting their own customers and witnessed a French backpacker so fucked up he couldn’t even walk anymore, I had to carry him back to his hostel. Some people were also concerned about the local population losing its culture and moral values. Others responded by highlighting the tenfold income the locals were making out of the backpackers, compared to their old jobs as rice farmers.

I got scammed in Vang Vieng, the "louder" button of my phone was broken, and so I brought it to a phone repair shop to get it fixed. The girl there told me she could easily do it, took the phone apart and started soldering the button. It felt weird to me from the start, why would you use heat and current on such a delicate thing as a mobile phone when you can simply use some glue to get it done?

She tried many times but didn't get it done, in the end proclaiming "no repair". She assembled the phone back together, and gave it back to me. I did a short function check, and it turned out she had broken my SD-memory card! I had all my music on there, and now it was all gone. Still I didn't really bother, I could download It again, mistakes happen, so I told here "don't worry about it, just give me a new one".
She stood silent for a few seconds, looking at me, and then exclaimed: "no, it was broken before"!!

I politely explained to her that we had been listening to music just a few minutes before on the phone, and the music was coming from the sd card. She insisted the card was broken before, even told me I should be glad she didn't charge me for the re-assembly. I tried to explain her how the heat and current from the soldering can screw up the sd card, she wouldn't listen. I brought my girlfriend and the hotel manager who also politely explained to her how we were listening to music on the phone before. She told us she was going to call the cops for harassing her.
At this point I felt I had done all I could, and decided to just abandon the whole thing and buy a new card somewhere else. The girl probably just didn’t know better, even thou the shop was called “Phone repair shop”, you just can’t expect western rationalism in Lao.
But when I got back to the hotel, the receptionist, who was Lao and spoke good English, asked me what the problem was, and offered to help. I explained the whole situation to her, and she seemed eager to help - until I told her the name of the shop I had been to. That second she frowned, her face became sad, and she told me the shop owner was notorious for scamming customers and ripping them of.
Now I had heard enough. I asked for 2 eggs at the reception. They asked me if I wanted them cooked or fried, but I said, "raw please".
I took some tape and glued the eggs to the roof of our room, so they could sit in the heat for the next few days.
We had a nice time in Vang Vieng from that on, relaxing and recovering from the hard bike rides in the rainstorms and getting over our hangover from the first days. When we left 3 days later, I took the eggs of the roof, and we got on the bikes.
We stopped next to the shop, revved the engine, made sure we had some local spectators... then drove the last 10 meters to the shop, which fortunately had it doors open, and I threw the fowl eggs, right between the open doors, they exploded on the glass of her counter.
No real damage done, all she had to do was clean up the eggs, wipe the counter. But I felt so deeply satisfied...
We headed further south, inflating my tire again every few hours, until we got to Vientiane.

Foreigners stealing the local jobs!




Vientiane is the capital of Laos, and probably the most boring capital of any country in the world. We still had a good time there, we met nice people, watched the German soccer team play in the European Championships and explored the city, but there was just nothing special about it, no real attractions, no unique activities.

The local bike crew.

Long live communism!

Arc de triomphe? No, this is Laos. But you can see some French influence.



At least we finally managed to get my tire fixed! After three different shops and another unsuccessful repair attempt, we found a car tire repair shop that managed to finally properly repair the tire. I was so happy to finally have that of my mind!

Our biggest surprise was a restaurant, run by an old French Cook from the Alsace Region, which is just a few kilometers from our homeplace in Germany and shares a lot of our food culture. After weeks with nothing but fried rice and noodles, eating some Spätzle and other authentic food from back home was soooo good. We went there for dinner, and the next day again for lunch.

This is healthy and tasty.

This is food from home!


Then we decided it was time to see some more of the real lao, and decided to head further south, towards the Bolaven Plateau, the islands in the Mekong and the Cambodian border.


Theresa:

When we wanted to visit some famous caves a few kilometer off the main road we realized that after we had filled up our fuel tanks we only had about twenty dollars left. Obviously that was not enough to pay for a room and the entrance fees for the caves. Locals told us about an ATM one hour down the road and we decided to stay there and visit the caves the next morning.
When we got there the entire village and with it the ATM had a power blackout. But not long after having brought our luggage to a hotel room across the street and after having paid 15 USD for the room (without breakfast), power came back. So we immediately crossed the street to draw money. We inserted one of our VISA cards and the ATM started working - just to show us the message that it only takes local cards...yay, we had about three Dollars left for dinner and breakfast. Having to eat together with Max made that a huge problem considering the portions he needs to get full. We each ordered a noodle soup and, of course, Max stayed hungry. With the leftover money we bought as many Lay's potato chips as possible and got back to our room for a late night picnic. Of course we did not want to drive another hour to the next ATM to withdraw money and then drive back the two hours to see the caves, so next morning we went on further South.
Finally we found an ATM and with the great feeling of not being completely broke we could enjoy the winding road and the amazing landscape surrounding us.

Our next stop was Pakse, officially the regional capital, but still just a quiet little town in the south of Laos. We found ourselves a nice little hostel to stay, run by an old Frenchie. He had nice little rooms, lots of information about the surrounding area and fresh “proper” bread every morning. He was also renting out scooters for his guests to explore the area, but he charged astronomical prices.

In Pakse we heard about a centuries old temple archeologists had uncovered and decided to head there. We had heard stories that the temple was build in Angkor Wat- style, but was even older than all the ruins in Cambodia and may have served as the blueprint for what the Khmer build later on. We didn’t know what to expect and got there without any expectations. What we found when we finally got there was absolutely amazing!
The temple is nestled into a mountain slope and build on different terraces, or “levels”. Walking up to the start of the temple, the little road that leads up to the temple runs in between two artificial water basins, both a couple hundred meters long and maybe 50 meters wide. The road itself is lined with rock pillars, with the stone temple buildings left and right ahead on a higher level, and the higher shrines straight on further up the mountain. After all the colorful, overburdened (if not to say cheesy) temples in Thailand, this was so different, so raw … you could imagine how intimidating and awe-inspiring it must have felt like for the peasants, walking up to the massive, towering temple structure almost a thousand years ago, being greeted by head-high statutes of five-headed snakes. We took many pictures, explored all the different temple buildings, had a look at the delicate rock carvings and climbed all the way to the top. Up there was a still used shrine and great views over the flat land down below.

Talking to a worker there, we got to know that the temple is actually is in a pretty bad condition, but locals and French archeologists are providing emergency conservation measures and have future plans for proper restoration and lasting conservation.

Theresa:

Our next destination was the Bolaven Plateau, the area that suffered most during the Vietnam War and is now known for growing coffee and cocoa. In Paksong we stopped at a little warung, where a Dutch guy served coffee and hot tea, all grown and roasted by him. Both our drinks were quite overpriced, but warming up with it after such a long and cold ride - I even had to put on my kidney belt while driving for the first time in a month - felt great.

First thing after teatime we started looking for a home stay and after having passed the market place it did not take us long to find a nice one.
Luckily we discovered a little local bar just across the street and when we learned that we would be able to watch the European championship in the middle of the night we got even happier.
The next day the couple, who was carrying the home stay, told us about a waterfall and as soon as Max had heard about it we immediately had to get going.
But first we met a European girl at our home stay. As she wanted to visit the downfall as well, the owner was trying to show her how to ride a semiautomatic scooter... unsuccessfully. After having explained it several times he decided to introduce her to a bicycle. We offered her to join us on Max's bike but she wanted to do some exercise.
After having arrived at the entrance to the waterfall we met a girl from France who volunteered to work there on different projects and who helped teaching kids and adults from English. She showed us the way and soon we heard the water masses roaring. A steep path led us down to the basin and we could enjoy the mist on our skin and the impressing view.

Safety first!

When we got up to the entrance again we saw a few of the locals playing boules and Max joined them for a few rounds until it started pouring down.

Gladly it took us only a few minutes to get back to our chalet, but on the way we saw the girl from earlier struggling to make it up the hill.
For dinner we followed the recommendation of some locals and tried a Lao / Korean BBQ. We definitely did not expect such a delicious and special meal.
First we got seated at a table with a round hole in the middle and soon a waiter came with a huge pot filled with glowing coals and placed it in the hole. As we had been kind of freezing all day long we were totally amazed by the warmth that soon went through us. But bot long after having warmed up a small grill with a basin around which got filled with hot chicken broth, was put over the pot and different sorts of raw meat, noodles and vegetables were served on plates. The waiter showed us how to place the meat on top of the grill and how to put the vegetables and noodles in the broth. The next two hours we just enjoyed barbecuing, cooking and the atmosphere of our own little campfire.
On the next morning we decided to have breakfast at the market located on a muddy field just off our home stay and bought some yummy fruits and pastries there. Thankfully we had our proper hiking boots and did not have to worry about our feet getting stuck ankle deeply in the sludge.

We enjoyed the short drive on winding roads to Tad Lo and the closer we got the more the roads became dustier and un-tarred.
Just before driving into Tad Lo we crossed a bridge with a great view on a huge multilevel downfall and stopped to look at the water masses.

What bridge?

When we got into Tad Lo we soon found the perfect homestay run by a young couple with two kids. They showed us through a beautiful garden to a amazingly big new room with a balcony facing rice paddies- unfortunately, dried out by then but still beautiful-and so we spent the rest of the day relaxing in the hammocks on the balcony, enjoying the view and reading.
On the next day we wanted to try the elephant riding recommended by the Lonely Planet.
The owners of the homestay asked us to be back by six o'clock to cook and have dinner with them. As we were really looking forward to experience some authentic Lao cooking we promised to be there in time and drove off to the elephant camp. After there having watched the beautiful animals for a while we went off to book a tour.
Again we were confronted with a complete ripoff. They had doubled the prices listed in the Lonely Planet and wanted to charge us 20$ per person and per half an hour. So we decided to postpone the elephant riding and went down to the river to enjoy the laid-back atmosphere and perfect scenery with kids playing at the river, building a campfire and a huge cascade in the background.

There we met three Canadians who were staying at the same homestay and we played card games with the evening before and joined them for a swim in the basin at the bottom of the waterfall before climbing up to the rim and looking for small ponds to relax in.
When we got back we soon started chopping and peeling vegetables together with a Dutch couple and then in their small kitchen watched the owners creating a delicious dinner for us.
On the next morning we had to discover that we had run out of plasters for Max wound and as the owners of the home stay did not have any they told me to take their daughter with me on the bike to the pharmacy and let her explain what I needed. As it was the first time for me to drive with someone on the back of the bike and then she did neither have a helmet nor wear proper clothes I went extremely slowly and carefully. She though seemed to be pretty amazed and excited and waved everybody we passed by. At the pharmacy she did a great job of explaining what I needed and soon the pharmacist showed me plasters in all different colors, sizes and shapes.
Back at the homestay thanks to the plasters Max was finally able to put on his shoe and so we packed up all our stuff and...


Max:

Our last stop was Si Phan Don, the “Four Thousand Islands” in the Mekong. They are located next to the Cambodian border, when the Mekong is at its widest, spanning more than 10 kilometers from shore to shore. Just getting there turned out to be a major undertaking, the official road was under repair, which meant we had to find a different way to the shore of the river and then follow some local mud paths along the river until we got to the ferry. We had to cross a lot of bamboo bridges, some in pretty bad shape, with boards missing and tire – big holes. I kept thinking to myself “with my bike, all the gear in the backpack and my body weight, I’m probably 100kg heavier than the locals on their little scooters, so if any bridge is close to breaking, I’ll be the one to do it”. But it nothing happened and we got to the “ferry” port, only to find out that there was no proper ferry, just wooden canoes with little makeshift outboard engines. Noone spoke English, and as we didn’t want to leave the bikes behind on the mainland, it took us some time to find a way to actually get on the islands. In the end we discovered an improvised ferry, the locals had connected two canoes with wooden boards, hopefully strong enough to hold our bikes. We pushed our bikes on the ferry. They even had another person (a local girl with her scooter) join us, and off we went.

It actually worked, the ferry had to point 45 degrees sideways to our actual destination in order to compensate the strong current, but we really got across the river. Only our “captain” seemed a bit worried. It took us two days to find out why: just a kilometer downstream were the mighty Mekong falls, had the little boat engine failed, we could have swam to shore, but our bikes would have been gone for good…

Don Det, the islands we had come to visit, had been introduced to us as the “backpacker” island by other travelers, and we somehow expected something similar to our Kho Pi Pi experience in Thailand, but it was the complete opposite. Everything was peaceful, the locals were smiling at us wherever we went, and the western tourists were the most relaxed I had ever seen them (which probably has some connection with the MASSIVE weed use all over the island…). The backpacker crowd was diverse, it ranged from young travelers like us, party tourists that needed a few days off to old, longhaired hippies, but they all got along well.

We spent a couple nice days there, watching the mighty Mekong falls, exploring the islands, and water watching. Water watching, what’s that, you might ask? It was supposed to be dolphin watching, but no many how many hours we spent looking out on the Mekong, all we saw was rainseason-brown Mekong water.

Driving to the lookout, we noticed three different pushbike tire repair shops within less than a kilometer, a most curious sight on such a small island. Later on we talked to a restaurant owner and found the reason, lots of western tourists were renting pushbikes to cycle to the dolphin lookout, and for some reason, they often happened to run into some nails strewn over the path. We asked why the locals didn’t remove the nails, he started smiling and we understood.
After another exciting “ferry” ride back to the mainland, we headed for the Cambodian border. The Lao border policeman asked for a 4 dollar bribe to stamp out our passports, a daily wage for a normal worker there! I tried the “no money” routine, but he merciless demanded of us to drive back 100km to get the money at the next atm. In the end we talked him down to two dollars, got our passports stamped and went on to our last country on the Asian mainland - Cambodia!

 

[CraigBKK]

Thanks for posting. Very little sun but lots of adventure

 

[bsacbob]

Didn't realise the upload speed was sooo slow sipping thanks for posting great pictures and story.