Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Thailand Two-Week Shuffle, Northern Malaysia

After we made our decision to leave Laos and head south, we woke up eager the next morning to bicycle across the Thailand-Laos friendship bridge and start heading south. Unfortunately for me, I woke up with an eyelid the was crusted shut and a case of the runs (not related). Apparently, one of my long, beautiful, eyelashes got caught in my eye while I was sleeping (long eyelashes and drooling are common Gillispie problems). I said, "don't worry Kerri, I am WFR certified, I know how to handle this one", so I ran in to the bathroom and stuck my head under the faucet.

Kerri's patience ran out after an hour and she suggested we go to a doctor. A doctor? Are you serious? That sounded a little crazy to me, after all we were in Laos, how good could their health care system be? Since I was desperate, I let her convince me that we could just go there and check it out and if it was as bad as we suspected, we could just run away.

I made the five minute walk to the hospital with one eye and we walked up to the first person we saw there, a security guard, and I pointed to my red, irritated eye. He nodded and ushered us over to another, beautiful, old, French-colonial building that said "Ophthalmology". Good sign. We entered the building looking for a reception desk, which we never found, so we just decided to walk around until somebody helped us or kicked us out. We finally made it to the second floor and stumbled in to a room with a doctor and a nurse. We all stood silently blinking at each other (me, with my one eye) for a few moments before they sat me down in front of some nice, new looking equipment for examining eyeballs. The doctor deftly flipped my eyelid inside out and searched for the foreign object. She didn't find it, I think I got it with my hour of flushing, but she was concerned by the irritation and misdiagnosed it as conjunctivitis. Fair enough, I couldn't explain to her that I had been poking at it all morning. Once she put my eyelid back where it belonged they sent us on our way. No questions, no bills, no hassles, definitely the best hospital visit I have experienced.

The next day, we managed to wake up and leave Laos, ride the 30 kilometers to the bridge to Thailand and ride our bikes across the border. Once we arrived in Thailand, we were granted a fifteen-day visa, and since we had seen a lot of the north already, we decided to catch a bust to Bangkok and continue south from there. The twelve hour bus ride reminded us all over again why we like traveling by bikes, so we were excited when we finally got out of Bangkok the next day and continued cycling to the south. On our short bus ride to get out of Bangkok, we struck up conversation with two American girls. After a few minutes of conversing, we figured out we were both from the bay area and finally after another ten minutes, one of the girls heard us talking about our friend named Ramsey and asked if it was the same Ramsey that was friends with their friend Chris Geist. In fact, it is the same Ramsey and we are also friends with Chris as well. We figured out eventually that the girls had heard of Chris' two friends (us) traveling through Thailand and he was going to get them in touch with us. Small world.

After getting out of Bangkok, we jumped off the bus with our bikes and started riding. The main road south from Thailand, however, was an unwelcome surprise after we had adjusted to riding the quiet, nearly deserted roads of northern Laos, so we alternated riding and taking buses until we made it to the town of Surat Thani in southern Thailand.

We found Surat Thani to be a very underrated town in a country full of overrated tourist ghettos. We stayed one night there and found a very lively night market where we ate local specialties such as muslim curried chicken with rice, sweet sticky rice cooked in bamboo, seafood pad thai, and various bite-size rice pancakes with different sweet and savoury fillings.

The next day we woke up early to tackle the 130 kilometers out to Khao Sok National Park. The first ten kilometers weren't exceptional, but after that, we found ourselves riding on one of the most beautiful, memorable rides of our trip. The landscape was completely different from northern Thailand and Laos, with large, limestone karst formations sticking out of lush, jungle vegetation. The ride had the perfect amount of rolling hills to keep you interested and the air was sticky and hot. Very different from anything we had experienced up to this point.

We arrived in Khao Sok in the evening and settled in to a quiet bamboo bungalow in a jungle setting. Our first order of business was to sit on our candle-lit patio for cocktail hour, while listening to sounds of the jungle at night. Always a great way to end a ride.

We stayed in Khao Sok for two days hiking in the rain forest, where Kerri made me go in front and scare all the snakes off the trail. We only had a few close calls, and I'm not sure that the old saying about the snake being more afraid than you is true, you should have heard Kerri's yelps. We celebrated my birthday by playing in a waterfall that we had completely to ourselves in the middle of one of the oldest rain forests in the world. Jealous?

From Khoa Sok, we followed to road west and then turned south towards Phan Nga. The ride was beautiful rolling jungle landscape again and the weather was even hotter. We had to take cover around three in the afternoon as it poured rain for about 20 minutes. This is the first rain we had seen in two months, and it has rained every day since then.

From Phan Nga, we made the 95 kilometers to Krabi town and we had to ride the last 20 kilometers in the rain. On top of that, my front derailer cable broke and we threw away Kerri's annoying front mud flap the day before, which it turns out is very essential to keeping muddy water out of your face while you ride. Oh yeah, I also had a loose bottom bracket. Boo hoo. Still jealous? After working on the bikes the next day (surprise bonus insert for those reading this far: the first person who can tell me from the pictures how I fixed Kerri's front mudflap wins a very special prize), we rode out of the city to explore a wat (temple) with a Buddha statue 600 meters (1200 stairs) on top of one of the limestone spires. We managed to make it to the top just after sunset and were rewarded with breathtaking views over Krabi province and the ocean beyond.

The next day, we decided to take our chances and visit one of the more touristy locations in Thailand. Tourist locations are touristy for a reason, but this location also has world class rock climbing, which happens to be right over some of the most beautiful beaches and warm emerald water. We rode from Krabi to Ao Nang, where we threw the bikes in a long tail boat and caught a ride out to Ton Sai, a rock climber haven near the world famous Railay beach.

Before arriving in Ton Sai, we had our expectations beat down by various reviews, so we were thrilled when we found the agreeable atmosphere, cheap bungalows, BBQ chicken with sticky rice, and beautiful scenery, not to mention the constant climbing show visible from the beach. After one of our yoga sessions, led by our new Austrian best friends Susie and Charley, I stood on the beach for a half hour with my neck craned watching six separate climbers leading various routes up cliffs right over the beach.

Kerri and I stayed for three days, climbing, relaxing, looking at other people's six packs (you would understand if you had been there), and getting our asses kicked by Thai masseuses (thanks for the birthday present, Kerri). We managed to climb for two full days and Kerri even led one of the routes while I was on belay! It was awesome. There's nothing quite as exciting looking down while swinging from a top rope 100 feet above your 110 pound girlfriend who is belaying you. I think I'm hooked.

We managed finally to leave Ton Sai on the morning of the day our visas expired so we caught a bus to Hat Yai in southern Thailand and then a tuk tuk to the border. We read some travel warnings about southern Thailand separatist movements, but after talking to a few locals and other tourists, we decided we were okay passing through, and we actually felt very safe while we were there. The people couldn't have been friendlier. Tourism in the area has taken a big hit, and it seems the locals are trying to revive it.

Once we crossed out of Thailand for the last time, we hopped on the bikes and rode to the Malaysian side, where the border guard proceeded to laugh at us as we pulled into the scooter lane and handed him our documents. We were shuffled through in about 3 minutes and just when we thought we were in the clear, a border guard waved us down. As soon as we pulled up, the biggest smile erupted on his face and he asked us questions about our bikes and our bike trip in excellent English before sending us on our way with a few hotel recommendations.

We were welcomed to Malaysia by a huge, post-thunderstorm, rainbow across the sky as we rode the 10 kilometers down the highway to our hotel. After two more days of riding, and one night in Alor Star, we made it the 150 kilometers to George Town, AKA Penang. This is a beautiful city with one of the more unique histories and mixtures of cultures we have seen. Originally taken as a British outpost for the East India Company back in the 1700's, it become a commercial center and attracted a wide variety of entrepreneurs, mainly from southern India, China, Thailand, as well as the Europeans. The city has a rich history that is still evident in the people on the streets. We have also been enjoying the delicious, cheap, Indian food! A welcome change from bowl after bowl of noodle soup for the last few months.

The Malaysian people have been incredibly nice and welcoming and we have been really impressed by how well they speak English. We have had several people take it upon themselves to personally welcome us to their country.

We put in our application today for a two month visa for Indonesia, since we keep hearing such amazing things about it. It has over 17,000 islands and we just didn't think a one month visa would do.

After 189 days on this trip (and 3,000 kilometers on bikes) we are still loving life and enjoying ourselves. We are trying hard to realize now how unique this experience is and take advantage of it now, especially since we only have 43 days left on this side of the world.

Here are the latest pictures:
Thailand and Malaysia

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Laos

We made it to Laos after riding every possible hill we could find in northern Thailand. We fell in love with the scenery and the people in northern Thailand thanks, in part, to some great advice from Shane's good friend Nicole Ripley, AKA Ripper (Shane told me to write that). We zigzagged our way through northern Thailand using an increasingly battered email printout from Nicole that contained the names of the best towns to visit as well as some key phrases for a couple of lost, hungry farangs. Nicole's email guided us to some of our favorite stops on this trip, including, Chiang Dao, Thaton, and Mae Salong, a beautiful hill tribe village nestled way up in the mountains. Thanks Nicole!

We passed the 2,000 km mark on our bike trip (insert little victory dance)! We entered Laos from Chiang Khong, Thailand by hopping on a tiny little boat to cross the quarter mile wide Mekong. The contrast between the countries was immediately visible. Laos seemed so much more poor and less developed than any other country we've seen so far, especially compared to prosperous Thailand. The roads vary between perfect condition at best and dirt filled mountain biking trails at worst, but we have both fallen in love with this place and are sad to leave it.

The far north of Laos is way off the beaten track, particularly the road we chose, which is the northernmost route and generally used as a truck route from China and Vietnam to Thailand. The scenery was gorgeous. Most of our day would be spent cycling by jungle-like vegetation, interrupted occasionally by a tiny village of stilted houses. I loved passing through these villages because we would be swarmed by half-naked cute little kids that rush to the road and yell "Sabadii!" or "Hello!" and run along us to give high fives and giggle with their friends. The villagers would be so friendly as we cycled by, but the moment we would stop to buy water, their smiles would disappear and they would stand about 3 feet from us and just stare. It was so funny, and I'm sad I didn't get it on video because Shane would be buying water (we learned how to count and say 'water' in Laos, which shocked the hell out of most people) and he would be completely enclosed in a circle of gawking little kids and young women who wouldn't say a thing or return a smile, but just look at him like he was an alien...which he kind of looked like compared to their beautiful dark skin and dark hair. However, the moment we got back on our bikes and said "bye bye!" the smiles returned and it was back to normal.

We were in such a remote area of the country that on the first night we nearly blew past our "guest house" without knowing any better. It was nearing sunset and we entered the village that another cyclist had told us contained the only guest house within 200 km, when we passed a convenient store with 2 guys lazily hanging out in front. Just as we were beginning to question whether we had misunderstood the directions, one of the guys at the convenient store yelled "Hey! You want sleep?" and made the 'sleeping on a pillow' motion with his hands. After assuring him that sleep is exactly what we wanted, he showed us to the back of his house which contained 3 small rooms on a balcony overlooking a river. The room was...less than clean (which is why sleeping bag liners are my new best friend), but the family was really nice and they cooked us a yummy dinner -- so fresh we saw the chicken before it was dead -- and also a delicious breakfast, and they even had cold beer :)

The rest of our time cycling through the north was roughly the same. Tons of gorgeous scenery, even more little villages with even more tiny kids yelling "Sabadi!", and lots more staring at us like we're aliens. We became accustomed to being the only 'falangs' (a term originally meaning French, but now refers to all foriegners) in the villages we slept in or passed through and we actually managed to pick up more words in Laos.

In case you're wondering what our cycling trip has been like on a daily basis, here's a general rundown of what we do. Get up around 6:30 more or less and grab a breakfast of noodle soup and coffee (Laos coffee is delicious, by the way, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to drink coffee without a cup of sweetened condensed milk in it ever again). Then we pack up, and try to hit the road before 8 am. We'll ride for about an hour or so, take a snack and stretch break and then ride as much as possible in the morning while it's still cool. Once it gets hot (around 12:45), we'll either post up at a noodle shop, or in the shade on the side of the road if we've packed food the night before, and eat a long lunch. Then we'll start cycling again, taking snack and stretch breaks until we get to a good place to stop for the night. We ride about 85-115 km a day, which is 50-71 miles, and we will usually take a rest day every 3 or 4 days, especially if we like the place. We'll take longer breaks in bigger cities like Luang Prabang, or Vientienne, where we are now. In general, it's a lot like backpacking, except you eat at restaurants for almost every meal and sleep in hotels at night.

It feels amazing to be fit and strong, and I'm already going twice as fast as I could in the beginning. I'm kind of surprised that I like cycling as much as I do. In fact, I was dreading the cycling portion of our trip for a while, especially when the first part was so freaking difficult. But now I can't imagine traveling any other way. We had to catch a bus once because a spoke on my back tire snapped, and the whole experience of finding a ride, and waiting for a bus was exhausting. The driver dropped us half-way to where we were going (which was in the middle of nowhere, of course), and we had to pay some guys driving a truck full of green beans to take us and our bikes in the back, and drive us the rest of the way. It's so nice to not worry about transportation, and just hop on our bikes whenever we're ready to leave. Long gone are the days of hassling with tuk-tuk drivers or having our bags puked on by carsick locals :)

Now we're in Vientienne, Laos, a huge city by Laos standards and we are freaking out about how little time we have left. As I write this, Shane is purchasing our flight tickets home. It looks like we'll be arriving in Seattle on April 25th! Reality has started to hit us pretty hard...mostly because I'm broke, but also because we're excited to get home and see our friends and family (we miss you guys!!). It's really incredible that we will have been gone for 8 months, and how much has changed during that time!

Speaking of a dose of reality...I got a job leading kids on wilderness trips in different parts of the world this summer with RLT! Woo Hoo! It's the same program that Shane did last summer when he went Costa Rica and Nicaragua, though I won't find out where I'm going until the end of April. Shane is going to be doing it again as well, so one of the first things we'll do when we get home is to leave again.

Due to the time crunch we're feeling we decided a few hours ago to head back in to Thailand tomorrow and book it south, so we are going to have to get used to riding on the left side of the road all over again. We have heard wonderful things about cycling and diving in Indonesia and want to spend as much time there as possible! Only 2 months left and we've got to live it up as much as possible.

Here are some older pictures of our trip with Ramsey, that include some awesome scuba shots.

And here are our latest pictures...hope you like them!

Thailand and Laos

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Thailandia!

(If you only like pictures skip to the end, although there's some good stuff in here)

We've spent the past month traveling Thailand from Phuket, in the south, all the way up to the northernmost point, Mae Sai, on the Burmese border. Here's a summary of what we've seen and done in between.

After Ramsey (better known as Ramrod to many of you) flew in to Bangkok, we spent a very quiet New Years chatting in Shanti Lodge, while sipping some of Thailand's finest brews. After catching up on life and filling Ramrod in on our travels, we went to bed early, got up early and took a plane (weird) down to Phuket. After the most comfortable 45 minutes of travel in my entire life, we landed in Phuket. Ramrod and I studied the tourist map and, decided on a random destination for a hotel on the island. We headed for Kata, and couldn't have picked a more touristy spot. It worked out in the end, after Kerri was able to explain the complex relationship that she had with the seemingly related blond boys and that it would be okay if we shared one bed between the three of us.

After one day in Kata, we decided to splurge on a four-day SCUBA trip to the Similan Islands of the west coast of Thailand. We headed off for our boat one evening, arriving just in time to eat some delicious Pad Thai before setting off for the islands at night.

All three of us had just finished our certification courses, and while we took our certification course in Cambodia, where the visibility was pretty bad (~6 meters), Ramrod learned to dive off the coast in California where he couldn't barely see his own hands in the water and had to wear two wetsuits to keep from getting hypothermia while practicing the mundane exercises underwater.

We awoke the next morning at sunrise (you have to start early to squeeze in four deep dives), stepped out of our rooms to a sparkling green/teal color that I can't even really describe. I looked over the edge of the boat and realized that I could see all the way to the coral and white sand beneath us. The forty meter visibility was breathtaking and we hadn't even dipped below the water.

We spent the next four days following our instructor, Darren, who was wearing a full-length spiderman wetsuit. This turned out to be a good thing, as some of the sites were very crowded with other divers and its easy to get disoriented under water. Darren would swim along slowly kicking his fins in a froglike motion, and every so often would stop, bang his metal pointer on his tank to command our attention, and point at some unbelievable small, rare fish that was usually motionless and write its name on his chalkboard. Some of the highlights of the underwater life were sea turtles, leopard shark, sea horse, frog fish, octopus (who knew they could change color in and instant!? crazy), squid, clown fish, trigger fish, angel fish, and a ten foot MANTA RAY - awesome.

After we made it back to land, we were so broke from the dive trip, we told Ramrod that we were willing to do 20 straight hours on a bus to save fifty bucks on plane tickets to get to the north.

Twenty-four hours, and 2,000 kilometers later, we arrived sleepy-eyed and freezing cold (someone explain the deal the the air conditioning in hot climates) in Chiang Mai, a beautiful walled city with a moat in northern Thailand. We spent a day exploring Chiang Mai and hunting down bikes for Kerri and Ramsey, since I was lucky enough to buy one used in Bangkok (thanks Andrew). Making large purchases at the end of a large trip is a difficult thing to do and it usually means that you (or maybe its just me) will spend hours to find the best price.

We visited four or five bike shops until we saw a french traveler on a bike that looked like it would be perfect for Kerri, so she went up and asked him if he wanted to sell it. He didn't, but it turned out he bought it from a Chinese shop in Chiang Mai and drew us a map and explained in french how to get there. We said "merci" as best we could and took off with our chicken scratch map to find the bike shop.

We got lost. One hour later, I saw a guy with the same bike and asked him where we could buy it. He wrote me a note in Thai, told me to go down a street and show it to people until I found the bike shop. It worked! Thai people are super nice and friendly, even if they don't speak any English, they are always willing to help.

After we got Kerri hooked up with none other than the LA Spectrum for a bike, we rented Ramsey a bike, and I hopped on the Asama Sabotage, and we took off for Chiang Dao, a town in the mountains about 70 kilometers north of Chiang Mai. We arrived around sunset and settled in to a cute little guest house called Chiang Dao Rainbow, with a breathtaking view of the mountain. We celebrated Ramrod's birthday that night with some delicious cake-like thing that we bought at 7-11 and had a smashing time. The guest house was so nice and because Ramrod was sick, we hung out there all day enjoying the view of the mountain and watching the corn grow.

We left Chiang Dao and took another two days to complete our trip back to Chiang Mai on some very remote, rural roads. Our first mini bike trip with Ramsey was success and Kerri and I were getting ready to head off on a longer one after a few more days getting miscellaneous odds and ends in order in Chiang Mai. Two days later, we headed southwest to do the popular motorcycle route known as the Mae Hong Son loop.

We couldn't acquire any real topo maps of Thailand, so we settled for a road map of the whole country on a 1:1,500,000 scale with some shaded relief which was useful for picking out mountains and ridges in a very cartoonish way. It turns out, when you shrink something down to one million five hundred thousand times, you leave out some details. We soon realized that the road we were on (route 108, for the curious google mappers) was too busy, so we turned towards the mountains about 20 kilometers out of the city.

We couldn't have chosen a more difficult route if we tried. Literally. After two more days of struggling up some hills that Lance Armstrong would have been walking his bike up (or at least my bike, with fifty extra pounds on the back), we found ourselves on the highest road in Thailand. Seriously, this was the highest road we could have gone on, we were up around 2,300 meters on Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand.

At one of our toughest points physically and emotionally (I promised Kerri I would spare the details) a man stopped his car and walked towards us looking very intimidating in a full camo military outfit. I was sure we were in trouble somehow, but just before we made a break for it, he started smiling and asked where we were going. He quickly realized how lost we were, and after a half hour of talking to us, he drew us a map and told us where we could find tents and a hot shower. Just when we thought the Thai people couldn't get any nicer, he pulled out a new trick that we hadn't seen, popped open his trunk and proceeded to pull out a beautiful bunch of roses and hand them to us. We had been riding uphill all day at this point, and I was tired, dehydrated, and starting to question my sanity when I saw the friendly military man hand us the bouquet of flowers from his trunk. Ahh, Thailand.

The route we took to get there was so obscure, that we managed to sneak into the most prized national park in Thailand without paying. We learned this from a friendly English fellow in a restaurant and he also informed us that we were headed for more hilly trouble (and a possible national park fee) if we didn't head back to the main road. He didn't have to tell us twice, in fact, I don't think he even told Kerri once, she heard the word hill and immediately was overcome by some of the intense emotions that she experienced the previous two days and tuned him out. Actually she did a really good job, especially considering how tiny her legs are and how heavy the LA Spectrum really is.

We booked it out of the mountains, and managed to loose all of the elevation that we had gained through our blood, sweat, and Kerri's tears over the past two days in just 30 kilometers and it only took 45 minutes.

To speed it up a little, we got back on the Mae Hong Son loop, very confident that we were in for easy street compared to what we had been doing. It didn't take us long to find some more hills just outside of Mae Sariang, so we pushed it to there and took a rest day. Over the next three days, we rode from Mae Sariang to Mae Hong Son and then over to Pai, where, at Sam Grant's request, we visited his old friend Sandot at Tacome Pai and stayed two nights in a bamboo hut that was straight out of a fairy tale. We had an outdoor bathroom and the hut was entirely constructed out of bamboo or other types of wood from the area, even the sinks! It felt a little more like a tree house than a bungalow.

From Pai, we rode to the east and then turned north again and stayed another night in Chiang Dao, where we had stayed with Ramsey. After our experience on the Mae Hong Son loop, we realized why it is only popular with motorcyclists, but we were pleasantly surprised by how flat the hills felt back up to Chiang Dao. I would be cruising uphill at a good pace and sometimes I would hear Kerri's little bell ringing just before she would blow past me.

The bike trip has proven to be an amazingly positive part of our trip and we are discovering that it is a great way to travel. Local people are always so curious when you approach on bikes, you have an instant connection with them. You aren't the typical farang (as they say here) traveling by tourist bus that speeds through their town spewing diesel smoke. We have seen such amazing acts of kindness (i.e. flowers above), we average somewhere between one and two occasions a day where people go out of their way to give us free fruit and drinks and often ask us if we need help when we are just resting on the side of the road. We even had one guy pull over, jump out of his car and start running along side us so he wouldn't slow us down as he handed off ice-cold bottled water on a hot afternoon.

We made it all the way north to Tha Ton and we just passed the 1,000 kilometer mark. The legs are feeling great. We had to make a run to the Burmese border yesterday and we ended up spending a few minutes in Burma. We are having a little R&R here before getting back on those seats tomorrow and heading to Mae Salong and then farther to the northeast and eventually into Laos via Chiang Khong.

Check out the map, as well (bottom of page), the bike trip with Ramsey is shown in green and the other in red. I spent a lot of time clicking around the corners through the hilliest parts of the road.

Here are the pictures:






Thailand