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Our slog up and down heartbreakingly steep mountains rewards us with spectacular views - beyond the Mekong River lies Laos in wait...


Today we've been on the road for two months, having covered a distance of 4000km and having been rewarded by many new experiences, like a game of elephant polo on the banks of the Mekong River this afternoon. We are in northern Thailand, in a small town north of Chiang Rai, poised to cross over into the unknown territory of Laos.


Picking up on the previous blog update three weeks earlier:
After scuba diving the acclaimed reefs of Ko Tao we continued our journey north and discovered the hidden gem of Prachuap Khiri Khan, an unspoilt coastal town with colourful fishing boats anchored in the harbour and housewives doing evening-aerobics on the beach. For three hundred Baht (R60) we rented a balconied room looking out over the sea and emerald islands and indulged in a dinner of fresh, whole-grilled fish for less than the cost of a McDonalds quarter-pounder.

Towards Bangkok the popular beaches of Hua Hin and Cha-am clogged up with more and more foreign tourists and Thai-weekenders, the quality of hotel rooms deteriorating proportionately. We arrived on the outskirts of Bangkok on a muggy evening and were swept along on thick, heavy exhaust fumes towards the glitzy neon. Malcolm, a generous South African, now Bangkok-resident, fished us from the traffic and put us up in his luxurious city hotel. Oh, the delight of clean, white sheets and new towels and room service and the sheer extravagance of club sandwiches and fries and the joy of speaking normal English to a fellow country-man!

We remained in the city for three days, enough time to recharge our batteries under the wings of Malcolm's kindness and hospitality. We also learnt that one can buy anything in Bangkok, spending an evening in the notorious Patpong red-light district, gawking at the macabre circus of ping pong shows and go-go girls.

We escaped Bangkok to the serenity of Kanchanaburi, made famous by the movie 'The Bridge over the River Kwai', where 100 000 locals and 16000 POWs perished building a railway for the Japanese during WWII.

Being so weightless on the road and without anchor, we have a lot of time to think and are beginning to realise what really matters in life. We're homesick.

From Kanchanaburi we cycled north across the central plains, the agricultural and cultural heartland of Thailand, revelling in the vast crops of maize, sugarcane, vegetables, tropical fruit and rice. Sukothai marked the beginning of the mountains and much sweating and gnashing of teeth. Towards Chiang Mai we granny-geared up unforgivingly steep mountains and from here went on a three-day trek in the high jungled mountains of Doi Inthanon. We spent two more days in the city stocking up on medicine, bike spares, new tyres, US dollars, toiletries and odds and ends for the next stage of our journey into the unknown of Laos.