The delight of a cold shower and clean towels at the end of a hot, sweaty day on the road and the lost battle against our increasingly unruly hair...



During the past two weeks our hair has grown half an inch and we have crossed from Hat Yai on the east coast to Krabi on the west coast, crossed again to Chumpon on the east coast, via the Isthmus of Kra, the narrowest waist of Thailand where a mere 53km separates the luscious Andaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand.

Some days the road feels like velvet, especially when we are rested and when there is cloud-cover and the friendly push of a tailwind. But some days the road feels like gritty glue – hot and sticky and hard going under the blazing sun.

To recover from the long, hard days, we indulge in three island escapes, the first to breathtaking Koh Phi Phi where the movie ‘The Beach’ was filmed – endless white beaches, aquamarine water, palms waving in the silky wind - paradise.

The second escape is to the neon strip-malls of Phuket, largest of Thailand’s islands, where every farang man has a beautiful Thai girl or lady-boy on his arm – not every tourist comes to Siam for the scenic views and temple ruins. Sprawling under a cool ceiling fan we ponder the price of love, for Thai women are eager to sell it and the love-handled, bald and sagging farang men are keen to pay for it - and, in the end, who are we to judge or determine an appropriate o permissible price tag for love.

We leave Phuket, labouring up coastal hills so steep that cars skid and slide to the top, desperately revving their engines for the slippery summit, us having to change to sturdier shoes to push our heavy bikes up the murderous gradient.

Escaping the beaten coastal track rewards us well, for we are given another chance to dream of perfect golden beaches and cool sea breezes and the locals on our way are not farang-weary - they wave and call 'hallooo' from their homes, roadside stalls and one-room karaoke bars. When we buy fruit people often throw in a handful of manggis or rambutin for free and a smile that melts one's heart.

Sometimes we cycle into the night, dodging roaring busses. Fireflies flicker in the jungle and stars flicker above and there is always a kind soul, in the biggest city and even in the smallest town to escort us to a hotel/ guesthouse/ bungalow, us frantically pedaling after their motorbike. We are learning to live and trust the Thai way - that things will just work out one way or another.

Here everything seems to be held together with duct-tape: electric wires are tangled in crackling crows’ nests; nobody wears motorbike helmets or cares much for any form of safety - even the slippery squat toilets are health hazards. But it all simply works - one chaotic, beautiful, unhurried flow of life.

The scar of the tsunami has been built over in most touristy places like Phi Phi and Phuket, but in Khoa Lak, a small town flanked by the Andaman Sea on the west and trapped by towering mountains on the east, the scar has not healed. Guesthouses, internet cafes, restaurants and dive shops stand deserted. There is an eerie, sad air about the town, everywhere road signs indicating the best escape route in the event of another freak wave.

As we cycle north, the monsoon rain intensifies, our days spent cycling in the white stillness of the downpour, the rain battering down on the jungle, the mountains steaming with dank, swirling mist. Our waterproofing and our daily 50-km stops for noodle soup are our life savers...

Our third island escape is to Ko Tao, the diving island that qualifies the most newbie divers in the world – we blow in on the wild and unsettling tailwind of the tropical storm that swept across the south of China and splurge out on the luxury of a beach-fronted bungalow, happy for the cool rain that sifts down on the churning, restless Gulf of Thailand.