"Be Your Confident. Smile with Your." That's what it said, emblazoned on the kid's tshirt at breakfast in the Amora Hotel in Chiang Mai this morning. No idea what it means! Aaah Thailand. The Land of Smiles, and mangled Engrish. I started to get the feel of the place as soon as I got to the airport in Bangkok. The hot, humid air hit me in the face like a straight left from Mike Tyson as I exited the plane. After a walk of over 1 km through the gigantic terminal, I located the Bangkok Airways desk to check in for my flight north. There was a guy on the desk serving a small group, so I got on the end of the line. Alongside him, there was another busy airline guy sitting behind a sign that said Closed. No point waiting there, I thought. Wrong! A sizeable group of Aussie bogans walked right up to the guy and he started processing their boarding arrangements immediately. Maybe he was intimidated, I don't know. What's more, he had nearly finished processing this mob while my guy was still stuffing around. Closed obviously means Open for Business around here, and I'll pick the wrong queue every time. Through Immigration easily and into the domestic terminal. I quickly located the eating area for another green chicken curry in an exact replay of what I did last year. And it was every bit as good as it was last time. Things soon took a turn for the worse however when I fed my credit card into an ATM to get some folding, and it didn't come out again. It took 30 minutes to sort that out while I was seriously running out of time to make the flight. All for nought, as it turned out, because the plane was late arriving and the flight was delayed, fortunately for me in this case.
Not my day really. After getting up at 3 am to get to the airport at home, the flight out of Sydney was delayed by a lazy two hours due to congestion, and the place was a zoo. Anyway it was a long day, I was up for just over 25 hours before I got to hit the sack again. But I was pleased to see Kay and Noah from Big Bike Tours, both at the airport waiting to collect me. We greeted each other like long lost family and caught up with what had happened in our respective lives over the last 12 months. I dropped my bags in my room, and not wanting to appear unsociable, thought it would be a good idea to have a coldie with the guys. Next minute all three of us (and me helmetless) are on a tiny little scooter heading through the warm, balmy night air for their local bike haunt, an open air bar in the backstreets of a very non touristy part of town. All sorts of bikes, mostly big, dotted the scene, live music, meat grilling, cold beer and bikers doing what bikers do everywhere, lying to each other. I was introduced to a big bunch of their mates, and I was treated like an esteemed guest, I even got bowed at a couple of times. Yep, I'm back in Thailand! But I declined Noah's offer of a bowl of blood soup just like the one he was tucking into. It looked as gruesome as it sounds. There are limits, you know. After a gallon or two of beer, I got a tuk tuk back to the hotel - actually, the bar manager sent a junior lackey out on a scooter to find a tuk tuk for me, and you don't get service like that where I live - and man oh man, was I glad to see a pillow.
Right, we're up to speed. A couple of days to acclimatise, have a look around, meet the rest of the group, sort the paperwork out then we are out of here on Monday morning. As I expected, its warm here, the forecast is for 37-40 degrees, but Kay reckons it should be cooler in Laos. Again, the air is full of smoke from the burning rice stubble in the paddy fields, just as it was last year. That is a bit of a downer, but hardly a surprise. The word is that we hit Highway 1148 on day 1. Its a great ride, one of the highlights of last years trip, but then I had about 800 km of local riding under the belt by the time we got to that fabulous stretch last year. Am I ready for it again? I haven't done too much riding lately, so I hope I'm up to it, but I better not succumb to "first day fever" and get sucked in too deep when the pace quickens. Nevertheless, I will BE MY CONFIDENT, like the kid's tshirt said.
PS. One thing I did find out is that motorcycles are no longer allowed in the Khao Yai National Park which we rode through last year, with some trepidation I might add. Apparently the noise can upset the elephants, and our bikes were particularly noisy. I was a bit apprehensive at the time and hoped that we didn't run into any prickly pachyderms on or near the road. Recently a carload of tourists was not so lucky. If you haven't already seen it, click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHcMc748Uc
Hilarious when it happens to somebody else, isn't it?
Not my day really. After getting up at 3 am to get to the airport at home, the flight out of Sydney was delayed by a lazy two hours due to congestion, and the place was a zoo. Anyway it was a long day, I was up for just over 25 hours before I got to hit the sack again. But I was pleased to see Kay and Noah from Big Bike Tours, both at the airport waiting to collect me. We greeted each other like long lost family and caught up with what had happened in our respective lives over the last 12 months. I dropped my bags in my room, and not wanting to appear unsociable, thought it would be a good idea to have a coldie with the guys. Next minute all three of us (and me helmetless) are on a tiny little scooter heading through the warm, balmy night air for their local bike haunt, an open air bar in the backstreets of a very non touristy part of town. All sorts of bikes, mostly big, dotted the scene, live music, meat grilling, cold beer and bikers doing what bikers do everywhere, lying to each other. I was introduced to a big bunch of their mates, and I was treated like an esteemed guest, I even got bowed at a couple of times. Yep, I'm back in Thailand! But I declined Noah's offer of a bowl of blood soup just like the one he was tucking into. It looked as gruesome as it sounds. There are limits, you know. After a gallon or two of beer, I got a tuk tuk back to the hotel - actually, the bar manager sent a junior lackey out on a scooter to find a tuk tuk for me, and you don't get service like that where I live - and man oh man, was I glad to see a pillow.
Right, we're up to speed. A couple of days to acclimatise, have a look around, meet the rest of the group, sort the paperwork out then we are out of here on Monday morning. As I expected, its warm here, the forecast is for 37-40 degrees, but Kay reckons it should be cooler in Laos. Again, the air is full of smoke from the burning rice stubble in the paddy fields, just as it was last year. That is a bit of a downer, but hardly a surprise. The word is that we hit Highway 1148 on day 1. Its a great ride, one of the highlights of last years trip, but then I had about 800 km of local riding under the belt by the time we got to that fabulous stretch last year. Am I ready for it again? I haven't done too much riding lately, so I hope I'm up to it, but I better not succumb to "first day fever" and get sucked in too deep when the pace quickens. Nevertheless, I will BE MY CONFIDENT, like the kid's tshirt said.
PS. One thing I did find out is that motorcycles are no longer allowed in the Khao Yai National Park which we rode through last year, with some trepidation I might add. Apparently the noise can upset the elephants, and our bikes were particularly noisy. I was a bit apprehensive at the time and hoped that we didn't run into any prickly pachyderms on or near the road. Recently a carload of tourists was not so lucky. If you haven't already seen it, click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHcMc748Uc
Hilarious when it happens to somebody else, isn't it?
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