Hello once again readers, fellow adventurers and armchair travelers. After lying dormant for about a year blogwise, I have dusted off the old keyboard and decided to get back to work, ie traveling, observing and writing about it for posterity. Let me say up front that rumors of my demise since last April have been greatly exaggerated. Oh sure I've been out on the bike, even done a few trips interstate, and as per usual I enjoy every minute when I'm out riding. But for most of 2014, I have been busy being a homebody, content to grow vegetables, watch the footy and follow the exploits of friends like Chris Phillips, riding across the vast steppes of Russia and Mongolia, from the safety of my lounge room. I guess ever since my proposed 16,000 km trip from Cairo to Cape Town with Compass Expeditions, scheduled for late 2014, was cancelled due to security concerns in several African countries thanks to radical islam, I have been a bit listless. I even sold my KLR 650 which I had all prepped for the trip, and that was quite a downer. Yet ironically, one of the main problems with staying home in safety and watching television is that you are likely to become even more depressed, and pretty soon jump to the conclusion that the whole world is rapidly turning to shit, what with the relentless march of ISIS and all the other murderous islamic nut cases killing innocent people for no good reason here, there and every bloody where. So I'm pretty dark about what radical islam is doing for us. Note that I said radical islam. I have nothing against Islam per se, and I have ridden in several islamic countries and received nothing but unconditional hospitality. People can worship the sun if they like, I don't care, just extend me the same courtesy.
That said, its as good a subject as any for getting back into my stride blogwise, a bit like pre-season training for bloggers. You know what? Here's something I'm really getting sick of hearing. "God is Great!", usually followed by an explosion or the plop of a severed head hitting the floor. Think about that. God is great. Yeah, well so was Gatsby, and so are Vili's pies and pasties, and so is Port Power, but you don't see me beheading vegetarians and Crows supporters to prove it, nor to appease any deity. If God is great, surely he can do his own killing. What I want to know is this. Where are the defenders of the so called "religion of peace", the assumed vast majority of ordinary folk, the religious and community leaders and the government spokespeople, here and around the world, who represent the religion as it is alleged to be? Where is the groundswell of condemnation from those who should be outraged that their religion and their culture have been hijacked by the loons and taken straight back to the year 700 AD? Good to see them standing up for what they believe. The spineless bastards. Or maybe they think its all ok. Either way, the silence is deafening, and that should concern a lot more people than just me.
Normal people must never let the crackpots and evil doers think they have a chance of winning. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." I don't know about you, but if my house was overrun by cockroaches, I would definitely not: (a) Ignore them and hope they went away, (b) Try to reason with them, nor (c) Try to see the world from a cockroach's point of view. I'd call in the pest exterminators while I still had a house worth living in. I know what a cockroach is, and the vermin don't get to call the shots. Not yet, but time's a wasting, people. But realistically, I guess its cheaper to let the muslims kill each other and behead the occasional unlucky westerner, or lose the odd airliner or building than it is to go at them all out. However, its good to see the Australian government has a good grip on the jihadist terror threat situation though. We're building more submarines! Just wait till we get those babies in 2035. Oh, and its illegal to insult anybody, or hurt their feelings. Feel safer now?
What's all this blah doing in a motorcycle blog anyway? Hang on, I'm getting to that. There was a time when the only audience for my astute identification of the world's more serious problems was the poor unfortunate sod on the adjacent bar stool, but thanks to the Internet, I can now go global! (And I can bang on about whatever the hell I like too, its just terrific). So anyway, it occurred to me that I'm well overdue for a new adventure, as much just to get out there and exercise my own essential liberty as a paid up, card carrying infidel as for any other reason. But if I needed another reason, it would be to escape from Adelaide in what has become known as Mad March. Where we get all our culture for the year - good and bad - delivered in one insane month. Then we don't have to bother with any culture again until the same time next year. Very popular with everybody except the people who live here. But what to do? Where to go?
Then out of the blue, I get an email from Kay at Big Bike Tours informing me that all the crew who did the trip around northern Thailand last year have signed up to do an adventure ride into Laos this year. All except me, that is. Hmmm. Yeah well nobody calls me chicken, so I signed up for a re-run. And as luck would have it, it will be in March. I guess I'm just a motorcycle jihadist. A not so holy road warrior who wants to conquer even more roads, just because they are there. Maybe that should be unholy, which is the way I prefer my roads. And besides, anywhere with good - yet dirt cheap - beer presses all my buttons. As I recall, in Laos all you need to be able to say is "Beer Lao !!" with a certain authority in your voice, and you're in business. If you notice your lights flicker a bit over the next couple of weeks, relax, that will just be the beer vendors of Laos stacking their fridges. Suck on that, ISIS. Or whatever acronym you've changed your name into in the last five minutes. Scumbags like you don't decide when and how I have my fun, so up yours. (F-U-N, an English word that has no equivalent in any squiggly language - but in the present context, a close approximation might be.....let's just say that being an animal handler doesn't necessarily mean you work in a circus.) Anyway readers, enough about all that stuff, its time for some much more agreeable Buddhist tolerance. Some Zen to counteract my aggressive motorcycle jihadist tendencies, if you will. My personal challenge will be to moderate my own intolerance and lessen my attachment to material things (excluding motorcycles, oh and beer). And I will abandon Adelaide to the infuriating chaos that is Mad March. I may or may not succeed, but as usual, I will keep striving for my own contentment in the face of all that gets right up my nose, I promise. Seeking enlightenment surely generates better karma than any kind of conquest anyway. So here we go again !!
The itinerary this time has a little overlap with last year's ride. We start in Chiang Mai once more, and go straight onto Highway 1148 again (woo hoo!!), finishing up in Nan again. This stretch is worth the money just on its own, the rest of the trip is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Then over the border into Laos as far as Xayaboury, down through Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, the Lao capital of Vientiane then back into Thailand to Chiang Khan. We then revisit Khao Kho, onto Uttaradit, then back to Chiang Mai. Ten days of riding, covering some 2,200 km. There are some tricky bits, the first being that in Laos, traffic drives on the right, so we have to switch sides for a while. My experience has been that while I have covered plenty of distance on the "other" side, it takes a while to get used to it, and I find that if you have to switch from one side to the other, then back again, it can be quite dangerous. One really has to concentrate, and maintain a high level of situational awareness, which can be very draining. I expect that like last year, it will be hot, it will be smoky from the burning of the rice crop stubble, and again, we will coincide to some extent with good old Songkran, so we can expect to get very wet and to be dodging even more loonies (but happy loonies) on the roads and footpaths. Don't know about you, but I can't wait. I leave on 13th of March. Until then, think Zen- I am already. I have awoken. I am the bike, the bike is me, we are one and the same, we belong, nothing else matters.
That said, its as good a subject as any for getting back into my stride blogwise, a bit like pre-season training for bloggers. You know what? Here's something I'm really getting sick of hearing. "God is Great!", usually followed by an explosion or the plop of a severed head hitting the floor. Think about that. God is great. Yeah, well so was Gatsby, and so are Vili's pies and pasties, and so is Port Power, but you don't see me beheading vegetarians and Crows supporters to prove it, nor to appease any deity. If God is great, surely he can do his own killing. What I want to know is this. Where are the defenders of the so called "religion of peace", the assumed vast majority of ordinary folk, the religious and community leaders and the government spokespeople, here and around the world, who represent the religion as it is alleged to be? Where is the groundswell of condemnation from those who should be outraged that their religion and their culture have been hijacked by the loons and taken straight back to the year 700 AD? Good to see them standing up for what they believe. The spineless bastards. Or maybe they think its all ok. Either way, the silence is deafening, and that should concern a lot more people than just me.
Normal people must never let the crackpots and evil doers think they have a chance of winning. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." I don't know about you, but if my house was overrun by cockroaches, I would definitely not: (a) Ignore them and hope they went away, (b) Try to reason with them, nor (c) Try to see the world from a cockroach's point of view. I'd call in the pest exterminators while I still had a house worth living in. I know what a cockroach is, and the vermin don't get to call the shots. Not yet, but time's a wasting, people. But realistically, I guess its cheaper to let the muslims kill each other and behead the occasional unlucky westerner, or lose the odd airliner or building than it is to go at them all out. However, its good to see the Australian government has a good grip on the jihadist terror threat situation though. We're building more submarines! Just wait till we get those babies in 2035. Oh, and its illegal to insult anybody, or hurt their feelings. Feel safer now?
What's all this blah doing in a motorcycle blog anyway? Hang on, I'm getting to that. There was a time when the only audience for my astute identification of the world's more serious problems was the poor unfortunate sod on the adjacent bar stool, but thanks to the Internet, I can now go global! (And I can bang on about whatever the hell I like too, its just terrific). So anyway, it occurred to me that I'm well overdue for a new adventure, as much just to get out there and exercise my own essential liberty as a paid up, card carrying infidel as for any other reason. But if I needed another reason, it would be to escape from Adelaide in what has become known as Mad March. Where we get all our culture for the year - good and bad - delivered in one insane month. Then we don't have to bother with any culture again until the same time next year. Very popular with everybody except the people who live here. But what to do? Where to go?
Then out of the blue, I get an email from Kay at Big Bike Tours informing me that all the crew who did the trip around northern Thailand last year have signed up to do an adventure ride into Laos this year. All except me, that is. Hmmm. Yeah well nobody calls me chicken, so I signed up for a re-run. And as luck would have it, it will be in March. I guess I'm just a motorcycle jihadist. A not so holy road warrior who wants to conquer even more roads, just because they are there. Maybe that should be unholy, which is the way I prefer my roads. And besides, anywhere with good - yet dirt cheap - beer presses all my buttons. As I recall, in Laos all you need to be able to say is "Beer Lao !!" with a certain authority in your voice, and you're in business. If you notice your lights flicker a bit over the next couple of weeks, relax, that will just be the beer vendors of Laos stacking their fridges. Suck on that, ISIS. Or whatever acronym you've changed your name into in the last five minutes. Scumbags like you don't decide when and how I have my fun, so up yours. (F-U-N, an English word that has no equivalent in any squiggly language - but in the present context, a close approximation might be.....let's just say that being an animal handler doesn't necessarily mean you work in a circus.) Anyway readers, enough about all that stuff, its time for some much more agreeable Buddhist tolerance. Some Zen to counteract my aggressive motorcycle jihadist tendencies, if you will. My personal challenge will be to moderate my own intolerance and lessen my attachment to material things (excluding motorcycles, oh and beer). And I will abandon Adelaide to the infuriating chaos that is Mad March. I may or may not succeed, but as usual, I will keep striving for my own contentment in the face of all that gets right up my nose, I promise. Seeking enlightenment surely generates better karma than any kind of conquest anyway. So here we go again !!
The itinerary this time has a little overlap with last year's ride. We start in Chiang Mai once more, and go straight onto Highway 1148 again (woo hoo!!), finishing up in Nan again. This stretch is worth the money just on its own, the rest of the trip is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Then over the border into Laos as far as Xayaboury, down through Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, the Lao capital of Vientiane then back into Thailand to Chiang Khan. We then revisit Khao Kho, onto Uttaradit, then back to Chiang Mai. Ten days of riding, covering some 2,200 km. There are some tricky bits, the first being that in Laos, traffic drives on the right, so we have to switch sides for a while. My experience has been that while I have covered plenty of distance on the "other" side, it takes a while to get used to it, and I find that if you have to switch from one side to the other, then back again, it can be quite dangerous. One really has to concentrate, and maintain a high level of situational awareness, which can be very draining. I expect that like last year, it will be hot, it will be smoky from the burning of the rice crop stubble, and again, we will coincide to some extent with good old Songkran, so we can expect to get very wet and to be dodging even more loonies (but happy loonies) on the roads and footpaths. Don't know about you, but I can't wait. I leave on 13th of March. Until then, think Zen- I am already. I have awoken. I am the bike, the bike is me, we are one and the same, we belong, nothing else matters.
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