Today is the day when we will finish our cycling trip from Göteborg to Bangkok. Our plan is to start from Banglen at 10.00 and arrive at Wat Arun in Bangkok at 15.00. Our original plan was to finish in front of the Wat Phrakaew and Grand Palace, but due to the large demonstrations going on there we have decided to move the endpoint to Wat Arun.

If you are interested in seing us while still on tour then come to Wat Arun. We will be there around 3 PM today (Saturday Nov. 30).

After finishing cycling we will go to a dinner for friends and family and since it will be late we won’t cycle to Wej’s house tonight. The plan is to stay at a hotel tonight and cycle to her home tomorrow morning.

Wej writes on a thai cycling forum and there she has posted an open invitation to anyone who is interested in cycling with us this last day. About 30 cyclists from Bangkok have accepted the invitation and will meet us very soon here in Banglen.

We will update photos from today’s ride as we go and it will be possible to follow us almost live.

Packing to leave Banglen

Leaving Banglen

Lots of cyclists have come to Banglen to cycle to Banglen to ride to Bangkok with us.

Waiting for green light in Banglen.

Passing the road to the family house.

Passing the school I went to as exchange student.

Wej and Lung Netr who win todays competition for coolest outfit.

Lunch break at a temple

Group photo

Passing narrow lanes in a village

And abridge

And rice paddies

Small backroads not far from Bangkok

In Bangkok now, right outside Taling Chan skytrain station

There has been many pepole cycling with us today. For a moment there was more than 50 cyclist who cycled with us.

Bangkok here we come

Almost unbelievable bu now we have arrived the end point of our journey at Wat Arun, Bangkok.

This day was an 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 friend 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.

P’Ya, P’Aek and myself back in 1987.

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.

The bridge that marks the start and end of great adventures

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.

In front of the old house

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.

The mother and the father in my host family who have welcomed me into the family and let me come and go as I wish for over 25 years.

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.

20 meters to go and the family waiting at the gate

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.

Parts of the family
(Joseph, Tonsak&Tonsai, Ploy, Wej, P’Jum, myself and Tonkhao)

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.

The ground painted with welcoming words

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.

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.

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.

A spirit house by the bridge across the dam in Chaibadan district

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.

Wej and P’Ben making a photo stop on the bridge across the dam

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.

A B747 fuselage used as a store room. I’d like to get such a section to use as a summer house. Anyone who knows where to buy it – at the airport???

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.

A fisherman at dawn

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.

Having dinner with a great view of one of Ayuthaya’s temples

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.

The cyclists who came up from Bangkok to have lunch with us in Ayuthaya today

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.

Camping in front of a Buddha statue

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.

Too stingy to pay the entrance fee the ruins of Ayuthaya, or maybe is it because I’ve been here several times before….

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.)

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 love cycling on dirt roads. It’s much more fun than riding on ever so good highways

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…..

The pavillion where we pitched our tents

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…

Saying good bye to our hosts

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.

Posing outside the police station with the very welcoming police officers

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….

Staying in the police chief’s office

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.

Outside our guesthouse in Vientiene and ready to go the border

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.

Wej talking to someone at the border. Our Polish friend Bartek is seen in the background

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.

Intersection for changing from right hand side traffic to dito left.

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.

Saluting the flag of the motherland

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.

When Greta’s flight passed over our guesthouse I was busy cleaning and checking my bicycle. It was nice to get back its original colours from underneath all the layers of dust from northern Laos and south China. What wasn’t as nice was to discover a broken spoke in my rear wheel, but I am glad that I discovered it then and not when we were packing to leave the following morning.

The two broken spokes I have previously got on this tour have both occured when hotel staff have moved my locked bike without lifting the rear wheel. I don’t know if this was the case this time, but at least I got to practise how to change spokes and true a wheel without proper tools.

We have read many blogs telling about how hard it is to cycle in Laos. The road is supposed to be bad, the mountains tall and steep and the temperature like a pizza oven. When cycling towards Luang Prabang we started to think that those accounts were severely exaggerated – we started to think that cycling through Laos was like a walk in the park…… Then came the climbs south of Luang Prabang….

In the deserts of western China we could tick off our first no.2, i.e. +200 km in a day. On the first day after leaving Luang Prabang we could tick of the second no. 2 which is climbing more than 2000 meter in a day.

Profile of our first >2000 meter climbing day

After uphill comes downhill and the following day was going to be fun. That was at least the plan until I woke up in the middle of the night and felt all my joints were stiff and my back was aching. All of these are classic symptoms that tell me I will soon get ill and when I woke up in the morning I didn’t feel well at all.

It took ages for me to pack my stuff and we delayed our departure a couple of times until we around mid day decided to not cycle. I went back to bed and spent the rest of the day sleeping or reading my book.

I need to apply for a visa to Thailand and since it takes two working days and we have decided to cross the border on Saturday I had to apply no later than on Thursday morning.
The unplanned restday wrecked our plans of a nice and gentle ride towards Vientiene and now we had to speed up in order to make up for lost time.

I felt much better after resting for a day but I was still a bit weak. The aim was to cycle 150 km to the town of Vangvien. It went well for about 100 km but when my speedo showed 110 km I completely lost all my power. We stopped at a shop at the far end of a small village to buy a softdrink and discuss what to do.

I got knocked out and slept for an hour behind a shop.

Going back is never an option but I would have needed a pack of hungry wolves behind me to muster enough energy to ride the remaining 35 km. It wasn’t simply going to work. Wej who is a master of communication had already started a conversation with the young lady running the shop. Without telling me she asked the lady if we could pitch our tent somewhere near her house which was behind her shop. The answer was ”no, it’s not necessary because you will sleep in our house tonight”….

The family then fed us and prepared mattresses for us to sleep on in their living room. Meeting complete strangers like this is the best part of this trip and here in Laos it is even better since we are able to talk directly without using dictionaries or body language.

Having dinner in with our host family. Their house is still under construction and will be wonderful once it’s completed.

We were still delayed and it was almost exactly 200 km from our host family’s house to the Thai embassy in Vientiene. It could be possible to cycle in a day but the sun sets so early now that there is simply no time to ride that far before it gets dark. Our plan was then to ride as far as possible or at least 150 km and do a very early start on Thursday in order to make it in time to the Thai embassy.

Misty morning when leaving our hosts in Kasi

When we set out in the early hours it was still misty and a bit cold but as soon as the sun came up, it chased away both the mist and the nice temperatures. We stopped to have breakfast in Vangvien which is a famous tourist town.

At 17.00 we saw a nice looking motel. We still had about 35 minutes to sunset, but we were satisfied since we had reached within striking distance to Vientiene so we decided to check in at that motel. The place looked good and had a huge garden, but there was nobody there and we were close to giving up when someone finally turned up. Investing in a nice motel but not have any staff to take care of guests looks to me as a recipe for a future bankruptcy.

Our bikes were loaded at 5.45 the next morning and we set out in complete darkness. The dawn came not long after and at 6.15 it was full daylight.

Laotian-french “khao jii” baguettes on the grill

Laos used to be a french colony and being a colonized by foreign masters must be national tragedy on an astronomical level but at least there was one little small advantage in being colonized by France – the ”khao jii”.

Think of a freshly baked french baguette, think of it grilled over a charcoal fire and filled with yummy indigenous laotian fillings such as sweet hairy pork (moo yo), pork paté, coriander and spicy sauses. It is a perfect mix of local cuisine and french baking traditions. We had it every morning when we visited Vientiene 8 years ago and when we arrived in Luang Prabang we wanted to have it again, but in Luang Prabang they don’t grill the baguettes first which is a major mistake that won’t make them anywhere close to as tasty as the grilled ones that are for sale here in Vientiene.

Breakfast at a food stall along the road consisting of a grilled baguette and a strong laotian coffee. This rocket fuel brought us to the Thai embassy long before it closed for the day

A ”khao jii” baguette should be grilled on the spot and served with the very strong and sweet Lao coffee. We have enjoyed it every morning we have been here and it is a reason in itself to some day return….

We made it in time to the Thai embassy and today I got my passport back endorsed with the last visa and we are prepared to cross the 14th border into the 15th and final country of this journey.

Happy after having secured the final visa on this tour

And being in the fourth capital city on this tour we had to get the photos taken in front of its most wellknown landmark, the Pratu Xai….

At the Arc de Triomphe in Vientiene

We try to carry a minimum of equipment on this tour and I think all of you have seen my white and green cycling jersey so many times now that you are fed up with it. Well think of me then… It’s the only one I have and I have been wearing it almost every cycling day since Bulgaria and I have handwashed it in wash basins in public toilets, streams, lakes, showers or anywhere else where there has been some running water, but rarely in a washing machine.

Take a good look at it in the photo below because it is the last time you will see it…. 🙂

Our dear N’Arm and her friend Kong have designed the logo that is on our business card and now they have even designed new cycling jerseys for us. We got them delivered to our hotel this morning and we are more than satisfied and owe both of them a big thank you. We will wear these cycling shirts with pride from tomorrow morning when we cross the Mekhong river into Thailand and all the remaining way to Bangkok.

Great new shirts. Thanks Araya and Sakkapol