Arriving Thailand

It was a morning that was just like any other morning when we stay at a hotel. We went up early, packed our stuff and loaded our bikes. But there was something different – it was the last morning on foreign soil. Although we have spent the last days in an environment that is very similar to Thailand, spoken Thai most of the time and seen Thailand on the other side of the river, we were very happy but also nervous when loading our bikes to ride the last 20 km to the border crossing.

Crossing into Thailand would be our 14th border crossing and we stuck to the same routines as usual. Try to get rid of all remaining currency before leaving and we did this by having a wonderful breakfast of grilled baguettes and traditional laotian coffee.

The ride to the border checkpoint was smooth and took less than an hour. We were wearing our brand new cycling jerseys and we felt like a small professional cycling team in our uniforms….

The border procedures were dealt with quickly. In this photo I have entered no mans land while Wej is still technically in Laos.

All the countries we have cycled through have been countries where you drive on the right hand side. In Thailand the traffic is on the left hand side and right after the border check point on the Laotian side, there is a strange intersection where the lanes cross each other and the traffic continue on the left hand side.

We passed the border on Saturday at 10 AM and there was not many cars at all. We didn’t bother to wait for green light and carefully crossed the intersection against the red light.

We had been warned by local cyclist about the train tracks on the bridge. They had told us they are very dangerous, but we are used to tram tracks in the midst of the streets in Göteborg and didn’t think a single train track was much to worry about.

Wej smiling as she crosses the actual border in the middle of the Mekhong river.

At the end of the bridge on the thai side.

Our cyclist friend P’Ben had taken a night train from Bangkok and met us after the border checkpoint on the thai side. He had ordered a grilled baguette and the delivery lady came with it all the way from Sweden.

We will cycle together most of the way to Bangkok and try to re-live some old cycling memories together.

Day 161-162 (Udon Thani – Baan Taen)

Thailand is home to many Swedish nationals and one thai-swedish family in Udon Thani who follow our blog invited us to come and stay at their house. After having left the checkpoint at the border we decided to hurry to Udon some 55 km further south. Chawee and Sven welcomed all three of us and brought us to a restaurant to meet some more people in the Swedish community in Udon. We have met less Swedish people along the way than we expected so it was great to meet some Swedes again.

Loy Krathong is a traditional festival that is celebrated during full moon in November in Thailand and Laos and probably some more neighbouring countries. In thai the word for river is literally translated as ”mother of water” and the festival is celebrated to thank the mother of the water for the water that she lets us use. Small and beutifully decorated floats carrying flowers, candles and joss sticks are released on the river. It is a very beutiful sight to see a river that is lit up of thousands of such floats. 

This year Loy Krathong was celebrated while we were staying in Udon. Our initial plan was to take part in the festivities in a public park in Udon, but in the afternoon ut turned out that all of us were too tired to go out so we decided to stay home. We have celebrated Loy Krathong many times before and don’t feel we missed anything more than a good opportunity to get some nice photos to post on this blog….  The internet is full of Loy Kratong photos so if you are interested, then google it…. 

We stayed with Chawee and Sven for two nights and when we left the first thing to do was to cycle into to downtown to try to buy a road map and reactivate my thai SIM-card for my iphone so that we can navigate by using google online maps. 

It wasn’t hard to find our way out of Udon – what was hardest was to get three people to agree on which way to take… Once outside Udon our plan was to stay away from the big roads and try to spend as much time as possible cycling on the small back roads in Isan (Thailand’s northeastern region). 

We cruised across the Isan landscape and passed numerous small villages. The small road got smaller and smaller and soon we found ourselves on a narrow dirt road which surface was covered of a very soft mix of dust and sand. It was a bit tough but when we wanted to complain we reminded each other that 30 minutes in sand is nothing compared to the endless days we spent fighting the loose sand in central asia…..

Soon we realized that we wouldn’t be able to get as far as we had planned to and when we cycled into a village we decided to stay there. There was a temple and a school that would provide good camping opportunities, but we decied to ask around anyway. A shopkeeper told us to go to the ”phuyai baan” – village headman (head woman in this case) who had a big field behind her house. 

The village chief welcomed us and when she found out that we came from Sweden the welcome became even warmer since her daughter is married to a Swede and lives there most of the year. We were offered to pitch our tents in their ”sala” (pavillion) by a pond behind the house. The pavillion had electricity. lights and water boilers and next to it there was an outdoor kitchen where we could wash ourselves. We couldn’t have asked for more…

Even if it is winter in Thailand now the afternoon sun is still strong and we try to start as early as possible in the mornings. The family told us which way to go but warned us that the road was bad. It was indeed a dirt road, but the dirt was packed and we had no problems to cycle. After 2-3 hours a steady northeastern wind picked up and since we were mainly going south or southwest it was going to be our day….

P’Ben has a tiny little MP3 player mounted on his handlebar and it contains lots of classic thai hits. A flat beautiful landscape surrounded by hills, golden fields, no traffic, tailwind and thai hits from the time I was first in the country – could it be any better…?

We talk too much and cycle too little and didn’t make it to where we had planned to the second day either. When we approached the small town of Baan Taen we decided it was time to stop for the day. People in villages we had passed on the way told us there would be plenty of accomodation in this town. We found one simple hotel that was full and when we continued through the center we cycled past the local police station. Wej and P’Ben have stayed at police stations before so we went in to ask if we could pitch our tents on their lawn.

The officers said it was OK to stay on the lawn but thought that we would get a better sleep if we stay inside the station instead. We accepted that kind offer, and no – we aren’t staying in the arrest – we are staying on the floor in the police chief’s office using his internet connection to update this blog post….

Video of Day 162

We have taken thousands of photos during the 9 months we have been on the road, but as soon as we entered Thailand the number of photos we have taken have dropped dramatically. Maybe it is due to us feeling so at home that we forget to take photos.

However, yesterday we took a lot of videoclips with our iphone. Now we have edited the clips and we are rather sure that this one minute movie will never earn any Oscar

Day 163 -165 (Baan Taen – Ayuthaya)

I have said it before and I am willing to repeat it – I do prefer mountains to deserts. A mountain has a highest pass point somewhere and after that it is downhill. A desert has an end too, but while the a pass point on a mountain usually is reached in a day, it can take a month to cross a desert.

This said, when we left the hilly section between Luang Prabang and Vangvien in northern Laos, we started to look forward to the huge plains in Thailand. Of course there are big mountain ranges in Thailand too, but they are easy to avoid and that’s what we have done. 

Cycling across the plains of Thailand’s northeastern Isaan region has been a pleasure. Gone are the days of hard physical endurance and we have got our pay back in the shape of a flat landscape, a steady tailwind and cool temperatures in the morning and not too hot in the afternoons. 

We have crossed Isaan with our good old friend P’Ben who took one of his two weeks of annual vacation to come and meet us and join us on our ride towards Bangkok. P’Ben is a teacher at a university and is a busy man and he gets to cycle less than I’m sure he’d like to so it was great to see his big smile when he cruised with his bike along the roads of Isaan listening to old thai pop on from the mini loudspeaker he has mounted on his handlebar.

Traveling across Thailand has been different from all the other countries that we have visited before. Not that Thailand is very different in itself, it is we (at least Wej and P’Ben) who fit in here. The language barrier is completely gone and we can stop and talk to people who are usually very curious about our journey. I bet other people we have met in other countries have been just as curious but the difficulties in communicating have limited the conversation to the bare minimum. 

Where are you from, where are you going, how many kilometers and when did you start are questions we have learnt to answer in many languages by now. When traveling in Thailand we get the same questions but since there is no language barrier anymore those questions are quickly answered and we can continue to discuss more deeper and interesting issues with people we meet.

One interesting thing with traveling through a familiar setting is that we take less photos – far less to be correct. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, we don’t find things as exciting or exotic here and secondly, we are busy talking to each other or people we meet.

Cycling is a growing sport in Thailand and there are increasing numbers of Thais who travel overseas to do cycle touring. Apart from this blog, Wej also writes short notes on a thai cycling forum and when we started to approach Thailand she started to get questions what route we would take and when we would pass certain places. 

When we passed a small town in Chaiyaphum province we met an old man who was waiting for us along the road. He knew that we were coming and wanted to join us for a day. This man is 70 years old and cycles around some 300 impressive km a week. It was great to get his company for a day. We did 135 km that day, but this gentleman did 175 before he got home. I hope I will be that strong when I am 70 years old.

Thailand’s capital used to be in Ayuthaya some 70-80 km north of Bangkok. The city was destroyed by the burmese around 250 years ago. It has lots of ruins and the city has a special meaning for all thais. Since we came from northeast and are heading to visit my hostfamily west of Bangkok Ayuthaya was straight on our route. 

P’Ben had to leave us in Ayuthaya and return to Bangkok. Some local cyclists who read this blog and follow Wej’s thread on the thai cycling forum were curious about our trip and took us to a very nice restaurant on the riverside. We had a great evening together and we do hope we will meet them soon again.

The short distance and the very good roads between northern Bangkok and Ayuthaya attracts lots of cyclists and during the weekends the roads are filled with different groups that are training in the area. Some groups are hard core racing teams while other are more recreational cyclists who want to ride together to some place where they can have a cup of coffe or a bowl of noodles before returning home.

Today two separate groups cycled up from Bangkok to visit us. One was a minigroup consisting of two of Wejs close cycling friends while the other group was a larger group of senior cyclists who wanted to come and meet us. We had lunch with them before we split up and they returend home. We will see them soon again since this group will ride with us on our final cycling day into Bangkok. 

We have camped in every country since Bulgaria and we have pitched our tent at many different places. Some have been extra ordinary beautiful while others have been boring sites just out of sight behind a bush somewhere. The night before we entered Ayuthaya would be the last possible night for us to camp so we had to make something extra out of it.

In Chaibadan district in Lopburi there is a large dam with a low bridge leading across it. On its western shore there is a line of fish restaurants and when we arrived there to have dinner we asked where we could camp. The restaurant owner pointed to the Buddha statue that faced the water just across the street and told us to pitch our tents on the platform. 

It was just a great way to conclude our long trail of camp sites. After a great fish dinner at the restaurant we showered in the restaurants bathroom before going to bed. We felt safe with Buddha keeping an eye on our tents and the stray dogs that would ensure that we would wake up if anything happened.

The name of our journey is ”Cycling from home to home” with the subtitle Göteborg-Bangkok by bicycle. Many people have asked where the trip will end and we can now say that it has three ends….. The journey from Göteborg to Bangkok ends in front of the Grand Palace in Bangkok while the trip from home to home has two ends. Wej ends her home to home trip outside the blue door to her home in Bangkok while my home to home trip ends in Banglen where I used to stay as an exchange student many years ago.

When I write these few lines I sit in a guesthouse in Ayuthaya. It is late and time to go to bed so that I am prepared for the cycling tomorrow which is a special day since it is the day we will ride to Banglen and I will conclude my home to home journey.

We will try to update with some photos and short comments during the day so it may pay off to check our blog a few times during tomorrow (Sunday 24 nov.)

Day 166 (Ayuthaya – Banglen)

This day was one of the most important days of our journey since It was the last day of my journey from home to home. We split the day in two halves and the first half was the 53 km ride from Ayuthaya to Pathum Thani to visit P’Ya and her family. 

P’Ya used to be a teacher at the school in Banglen that I went to during my exchange year. She was my counsellor and Thai teacher and she and her family became my close friends and we have kept the contact ever since. P’Ya and P’Aeks daughter Araya and her boyfriend Kong are the ones who have designed our new cycling shirts. Unfortunately Araya wasn’t at home to see the shirts she designed in real life, but we will come back later to show them to her.

We stayed at P’Ya’s house for about three hours before we set out on the second half which was the 55 km to Banglen. Technically P’Ya’s house isn’t in Bangkok but since the city has grown a lot in all directions her suburban town is surrounded by big and busy roads that aren’t fun to ride a bicycle on. Nowadays one has to get almost all the way out to Banglen before getting a sense of being on the countryside. 

When apporaching Banglen I couldn’t stop thinking of the first time I went there. It was a day in mid March 1987 and I was only 17 years old and jet-lagged. My host family had picked me up at the exchange organizations arrival camp in Bangkok and we were 7 people squeezed into the family’s car when I got my first glimpse of Banglen from the top of the little bridge over the Tha Chin River that flows through the at that time very small town. I remember when crossing that bridge the penny finally dropped that I had a great adventure ahead of me. 

The bridge is certainly not any Golden Gate – it’s just a simple white painted concrete bridge which there must be several thousands of in Thailand. I have crossed it uncountable times since the first time but now when it was time to cross it this time I felt similar emotions as when crossing it 26 years ago. First time it marked my entry into Banglen and the beginning of a great challenge, adventure and new relations to people I still hold dear.

Passing the bridge this time was emotional in another way. If my first passage of the bridge was the start of something great, then this latest crossing marked the end of a great adventure. It is hard to understand that what we have been through and experienced between the gates to our home in Göteborg and passing that bridge. I think we both will need some time to let it all sink in.

Before going to my host family’s present house we had to do a tour of Banglen and visit some important places. First stop was in front of the family’s old house where I stayed as an exchange student. I haven’t been inside the house for many years but seeing it from the outside still feels like looking at a home.

Next stop was at the local temple to pay respect to the deceased father in my host family. He was an active layman in the temple and I have spent many hours with him there to see and learn how life is going on at a thai buddhist temple. Where ever he was going in Banglen he did it by bicycle with his dog sitting on the rear rack and I am quite sure that he would have approved of our mission to cycle from Sweden to Thailand.

It was late in the afternoon and after the visit to temple we headed straight for my host family’s house 2-3 km away. The journey isn’t over yet – we still have the ride to Bangkok left – but for me the feeling when cycling the 1 km from the main road along a small local road to the family’s house was something like the participants of the Tour de France must feel when they cruise along the Champs-Élysées towards the final goal.

The family was out at the gate waiting for us and after lots of hugs we stepped through the gate and discovered that the kids in the family had used coloured chalks to write welcoming words on the ground – just like the cycling fans do on the roads in the alps during the Tour de France.

I had been in contact with the family throughout the day and they had promised that it would be a barbecue dinner that night. It tasted lovely and we had a lot of food, a few beers and long stories to tell each other. It was a Sunday evening and the children had to go to bed early but as usual Mat, P’Ngoan and myself stayed up far too late discussing both serious and crazy matters. It feels great to finally be here with all of them.

Cycling towards Banglen

This is a minute by minute update during the day we rode to Banglen.

We woke up at 5.15 and 6.30 we were ready for departure.

First destination today is Pathum Thani to visit old friends

It’s far to cycle 50 km. Maybe we should take a bus…

or the train.

Stopping at a gas station to have a coffee and a sandwich. 40 km and tailwind so it looks good 

After 53 km we are at the gate to the street that leads to our friends house.

We are a bit early and Our friends are out buying things to eat so they told us to wait at the motorcycle taxi stand.

Maybe time for a cheat and go with the MC taxi

And we recieved a very warm welcome by P’Ya and P’Aek

And they had even made a beautiful sign to welcome us with

On the road again after spending a few hours visiting P’Ya, P’Aek and Ohm.
We just crossed the ChaoPhraya river going west. Seems like we are getting a headwind. Reports from Banglen says that itis raining there.

Touching the outskirts of Bangkok. The traffic is intense even a sunday afternoon.

First sign of Banglen. 15 km to go

Back on the countryside again. Green rice paddies is much more nice to look at than concrete buildings.

Outside my host familys previous house.

The father in my host family passed away 5 years ago. First thing to do in Banglen is to visit his toomb at the temple.

Day 167-168 (Banglen – Bangkok)

When I first arrived in Banglen back in March 1987 the place was much smaller and very unlike what it is today. There was for example only one phone in town and that was in a house at the market and a man clocked all calls with a stop watch. Roads were not good, there were no cyclists and certainly not any bread or coffee available. 

Today the situation is completely different. Banglen has grown from a large village to a small town. There are a number of factories around and traffic lights at the main intersections, people run around with smartphones and there are a couple of minimarts where for example bread and dairy products can be bought which would have been very exotic in 1987. Early this year a nice bakery and coffe shop was opened where pastries and coffee as well as pork chop with french fries can be bought. 

If I hadn’t followed the development in Banglen and Thailand continously during the 25 last years I would certainly not have recognized the place by now. It is amazing what a big change that has been put through in such a short time.

In the western world it is not at all uncommon to take a sabbatical year and do something else for a change. Cycling across a continent is maybe an odd way to spend such a year, but as said it is not at all unusual. In Thailand the situation is different. People work hard, have short vacations and it is hard to get visa to at least the western world so very few Thais make long distance cycling tours in foreign countries.

Apart from this blog Wej has been writing on a thai cycling forum and when we were about to enter Thailand she made an open invitation for anyone to follow us. One friend followed us from the border to Ayuthaya and we have also met a few other cyclist along the way.

When it was time to leave Banglen for Bangkok a cycling club announced they would escort us to the city. We made an appointment at the café and I bet the workers there must have been as surprised when 30 cyclists turned up a Saturday morning as I would have been by finding a loaf of bread at the Banglen market back in 1987.

The club leader had visited Banglen a few days earlier to check what route to take and he must have done a good job. The road we cycled on was very small and went past green rice paddies and orchid farms. 

Riding on that sort of road is much more interesting than going on the big roads. Since there was so few cars on the small roads it was possible to cycle side by side and Wej and I tried to talk to as many as possible of our fellow cyclists.

After some 10-15 kilometers another group of cyclists from Nakorn Pathom joined us and our escort had now grown to around 50-60 people. It was an amazing feeling to ride in such a big group knowing that they had come all the way to ride with us – or perhaps mainly Wej – into the finishing line in the midst of the mega city. Some cyclist had to return before we reached Bangkok and some parted to go to their homes, but we were around 25 people who rode into Wat Arun on Saturday at 3 PM. 

I have never been photographed so many times in one day and once at the official finishing line at Wat Arun the photo spree continued.

Thailand’s biggest cycling magazine have interviewed us a week ago and turned up to take photos on our arrival to Bangkok.

Klättermusen have been so kind to sponsor us with a jacket and a pair of pants each. These clothes are usually seen on Mount Everest, Greenland or the south pole, but now they have been spotted in downtown Bangkok too. We have had very good use of these clothes that have protected us from wind, sun, mosquitos, snow and even rain to a certain level. Thanks a lot Klättermusen.

We then had to rush to the dinner we were going to host for our friends. Since we were a bit late we had to sprint as quickly as our legs and the traffic allowed and when we finally got there most of our guests had already arrived and received us with applauses and hugs.

It was a nice dinner and although not everyone could come due it was great to finally see our friends. Wej’s mother is getting older and doesn’t want to go out late so she didn’t come to the dinner. After mingle, dinner and a slideshow Wej and I stayed the night at a nearby hotel so that we could arrive to her home when her mother was awake.

We finished my home to home trip in Banglen a week ago, then it was another 70 km to Wat Arun where we finished the Göteborg-Bangkok trip. The distance from the hotel to Wej’s house is about 4 km. When we left for the last ride to her house we didn’t really want our journey to end so we made a little detour and ended up on Silom Rd where we had lunch. 

Wej’s bike has now done about 50.000 km and was bought in Bangkok 8 or 9 years ago – we couldn’t resist the temptation to take a ride to her bike’s birthplace….. 

The distance we have cycled from Göteborg to Bangkok is roughly 15.000 km and luckily we haven’t had any more accidents than Wej’s fall in Georgia when she hurt her knee. When were cycling through Lumpini Park with about 2 km left to Wej’s family house I almost got involved in a wildlife accident in the midst of Bangkok. It was broad daylight and we were biking very slowly when I heard Wej shouting loudly STOP….

I braked quickly and discovered I had stopped about 30 cm from a large lizard. They are often seen in the park and I don’t know why I didn’t see it. That lizard now owes Wej a big thank you….

After leaving the park and a frightened lizard behind us we rode for about a kilometer on the huge Sathorn Road, before turning left into Soi Suan Plu into the area where Wejs house is. The first ones to spot us was Wej’s nephews who were playing outside the house. Soon everyone who was at home came down. Wejs mother presented us with jasmine garlands and lots of photos were taken before we could enter the house.

This was the endpoint of Wej’s journey from home to home. It isn’t however the end of this blog…. We still have a few articles to write where we sum up things so check out the blog every now and then the coming week. 

P.S.
Most of the photos in this post is taken by Sakkapol Tungsongpaiboolya who has also designed our shirts together with Araya Ponkhumheang. Thanks to both of you for all your help.

P.S.S
After publishing this post we got the link to a 4 minute long video from our last cycling day made by Ugrid Milintangkul who rode with us from Banglen to Bangkok. Enjoy