To begin with I was fairly worried about getting in to Thailand. Actually, not about getting in to Thailand, I was worried about leaving Malaysia.
When I entered Malaysia nearly 2 years ago I 'forgot' to get any paperwork for the bike. I didn't really forget, and I actually did try. But the only customs guy I could find at the border showed nothing but disdain for me and told me to leave. Apparently he was fairly angry that I forced him to step away from his poker game and pay attention to me.
According to Malaysian law foreign vehicles can enter the country for 3 months, extendable to 6 months with permission from customs and the police. I knew I would have to pass through customs leaving Malaysia but I wasn't sure how they would react to finding out that the Tranny had been in Malaysia for 4 times as long as was allowed and with absolutely no documentation to support it.
Thankfully my worrying was in vain. Malaysian customs at the border consisted entirely of a sign that said "Malaysian Customs." If there were any people there they were spectacularly invisible.
So into Thailand. This was one of those borders where you instantly know you are in a new country. Everything just feels 'different.' It's kind of hard to explain but I think one of the more obvious things is the way the infrastructure has been build. The messy street wiring feels very much like an afterthought, like electricity and telecoms was brought in too fast to consider routing things underground, or at least subtly.
But there was no time to enjoy that. It's rainy season in Thailand.
I'm not going to complain about the rain. In fact I won't even mention it after this. I'll just get it out of the way now. It is really annoying. I mean, it's completely possible to ride in the rain, it's not really a big deal. And I quite like the rain here because it's warm. But I chose to pull over every time it chucks it down because riding in the rain is so much more difficult and I'm too lazy for difficult things. So for several days I spent copious amounts of time examining Thai bus stops. I learnt nothing.
Actually there is a good side to the rain.
If you can excuse the terrible quality pictures this really does happen. And I'm going to sound like a right idiot for saying that. But it's true. The kind of stuff that you see on documentaries about monsoon season in tropical countries is all true. The rain kind of really makes this place, it makes everything seem so much more alive. The trees are so much more green than I feel they should be. I think I spent more time staring at clouds hanging low over mountains than I did looking at the road. But it was worth it. Plus I didn't die.
I had this great idea to keep off the main road in the East and try to follow the west cost and Burmese border instead. This turned out to be a bad idea. Obviously it was low season so everything was very quite. Too quite. (sorry) I just mean things shut down very early. Like 8-9pm early. All the shops and restaurants would just close for some reason. Never really worked out why.
I went to a market one night.
Although the single picture that I took doesn't show any food the place was actually 90% food. Really good stuff as well, barbecue-y things all over, smelled amazing. But I'm very bad at markets. After a while of sheepishly wandering around I skulked back to the (empty) guesthouse with some sort of disgusting peanut pancake, a cup of Sunny Delight mixed with hydrochloric acid, and the remains of a pineapple after it had gone 5 rounds with a very angry Pitbull.
I went to bed hungry that night.
Although, the next night was better. I was wandering around some town that felt like it had just received a nuclear threat warning when I found some guy grilling chicken on the street. I spent a few minutes waving and pointed trying to communicate that I wanted to buy something. The guy stared at me blankly, much to the amusement of some other guys sat at a nearby table. The larger and more desperate the waving the harder they laughed. Eventually one of them took pity on me and ordered some food. It was delicious.
At some point, I can't quite remember when, I ran into Moritz
who displays immense taste and wisdom by also riding a Transalp. 2 years ago we had been talking about riding across Mongolia together but we then ended up caught on opposite sides of the fighting in Tajikistan and never managed to meet up until now. In the intervening years he has been working in Bangkok so can speak a bit of Thai. We went out to lunch, he ordered the food. This is the one and only time outside of Bangkok where eating has been easy.
This is all very out of order. I have no idea where I'm meant to be right now.
Something to do with mountains. Why not.
Mountains are good.
I think I've managed to lose some pictures somewhere. Never mind.
Also beaches.
I'm not really one for beaches. I mean, they're nice and all, just a bit boring after a few minutes. But Thailand is known for its beaches, among other things, and it's easy to see why.
Of course Thailand was hit badly by the Tsunami in 2004. Every 100m along the coast now there are sign directing you to the nearest evacuation route. Obviously a very, very good thing. But if I was on foot I'm not sure how confident I would be at travelling 2.2km along the beach just to get to the start of the evacuation route.
Also temples. There are temples everywhere. They are always the nicest building in every town, even when everything else is run down the temple is amazing.
Eventually I was forced east back towards the main road by the Burmese border.
But instead of taking the dual carriageway I ran straight back over to the east cost and carried on through the small villages. So much better.
I never worked out what these guys were doing. These flat flooded 'fields' stretched for miles up the coast. At first I though they were getting salt from sea water but I'm not sure.
Now, I didn't really want to go to Bangkok. But the front brakes were playing up so much that I had to get them fixed. So my mind was made up for me.
Welcome to Bangkok
Turns out I couldn't get the spare parts I needed so I arranged to have them shipped over from the UK. That would take a while so I had a few days to experience the city.
I wish I hadn't come.
It's not often I say this about anywhere but Bangkok is just not a nice place. Sure, it looks nice in the pictures, but being there is something entirely different.
What makes it so terrible is the amount of scams and hassle you get there.
This guy was hanging around outside the grand palace selling fake tickets. Every time the soldier would move he would run around the corner for a second until it was safe to come back. Others will come up and tell you that you couldn't enter the palace right now and that it would be better to go somewhere else and come back later. A tuk tuk driver then appears out of nowhere offering to 'help' you. They will all lie and cheat and deceive you without thinking twice.
And you're probably thinking that this can and does happen in every city in the world. And you're right, to an extent.
But this is the grand palace, probably the biggest attraction in Bangkok. These signs are placed all along the walls
Other, bigger signs list all of the rules. There are loudspeakers all around the perimeter which every few minutes play a recorded message that ends with "Don't trust any strangers who try to speak to you."
Think about that for a minute.
This is the Grand Palace. The centre piece of Bangkok and Thailand. The kings house is surrounded with warnings not to trust the people. Imagine if Buck House had to be surrounded by that.
This kind of dishonesty is rampant across the touristy part of the city. Any attraction in Bangkok, any shopping centre, any hotel you can expect to find people wanting to take advantage of you.
Now, I don't have a bad word to say about Thai people I met outside of Bangkok. It's just that Bangkok is a perfect example of how large amounts of tourism can corrupt an otherwise good people. And in fairness this sort of thing is endemic across all of South East Asia. The disgraceful practice of double pricing is endorsed by all governments around here. Police and security guards are corrupt and do nothing to get rid of the touts who prey on tourists. I am of a certain demographic that makes everyone assume I am always on the hunt for alcohol, drugs, or sex, or all three. I literally cannot step of the hotel without being hassled and followed down the street by drug dealers and pimps. And all of this is a terrible ambassador for the countries here. As far as Thailand goes if my experience was limited to Bangkok and Hua Hin I could not recommend it to anyone. In fact I would tell people to avoid it like the plague.
And this is one of the reasons why I think travelling by bike is so much better. You can escape all of this stuff, never have to fight taxi drivers, tuk tuk drivers, bus drivers. Never get targeted at transport hubs.
It also meant I got to spend time on the outskirts of the city. Which was much better. Once the brake discs arrived I went back out to the garage to have a few bits and pieces done. I spent a bit of time wandering around and got chatting to some locals outside a shop. Nothing fancy but they didn't try to rip me off. And that was nice.
Anyway, with the bike fixed and resolving to never going back to Bangkok I ran away as quickly as possible and headed for some place I can't remember the name of. It was north a bit.
This is the old capital, just ruins now. But a really laid back place. It's so close to Bangkok that most people just come here on a day trip and don't stay for the night
I have never seen an elephant before. Complete tourist trap but still. They were smaller than I imagined.
My time in Bangkok meant that I didn't have enough of my visa left to poperly enjoy the north of Thailand so I decided to head towards Cambodia instead.
This park was amazing. Massively expensive to get in, only falangs are charged of course, but probably worth it.
I spent a fairly significant amount of time trying to lure a wild elephant out with a bag of peanuts. Then I got bored and ate the peanuts.
There were signs for a waterfall so I followed them. At the start of the trail someone said that it was pretty flat except for a "small set of easy stairs" at the end.
Hmmm.
So coming here in the wet season actually does make sense.
I camped in the park that night and rather than sleeping spent all night watching lightning and trying to count the Pleiades..
The next morning the family next door invited me over for breakfast. First time I've ever had squid curry for breakfast. Probably the last time as well.
And then I was very close to the border. I stayed in the last town for one more night before leaving Thailand.
When I entered Malaysia nearly 2 years ago I 'forgot' to get any paperwork for the bike. I didn't really forget, and I actually did try. But the only customs guy I could find at the border showed nothing but disdain for me and told me to leave. Apparently he was fairly angry that I forced him to step away from his poker game and pay attention to me.
According to Malaysian law foreign vehicles can enter the country for 3 months, extendable to 6 months with permission from customs and the police. I knew I would have to pass through customs leaving Malaysia but I wasn't sure how they would react to finding out that the Tranny had been in Malaysia for 4 times as long as was allowed and with absolutely no documentation to support it.
Thankfully my worrying was in vain. Malaysian customs at the border consisted entirely of a sign that said "Malaysian Customs." If there were any people there they were spectacularly invisible.
So into Thailand. This was one of those borders where you instantly know you are in a new country. Everything just feels 'different.' It's kind of hard to explain but I think one of the more obvious things is the way the infrastructure has been build. The messy street wiring feels very much like an afterthought, like electricity and telecoms was brought in too fast to consider routing things underground, or at least subtly.
But there was no time to enjoy that. It's rainy season in Thailand.
I'm not going to complain about the rain. In fact I won't even mention it after this. I'll just get it out of the way now. It is really annoying. I mean, it's completely possible to ride in the rain, it's not really a big deal. And I quite like the rain here because it's warm. But I chose to pull over every time it chucks it down because riding in the rain is so much more difficult and I'm too lazy for difficult things. So for several days I spent copious amounts of time examining Thai bus stops. I learnt nothing.
Actually there is a good side to the rain.
If you can excuse the terrible quality pictures this really does happen. And I'm going to sound like a right idiot for saying that. But it's true. The kind of stuff that you see on documentaries about monsoon season in tropical countries is all true. The rain kind of really makes this place, it makes everything seem so much more alive. The trees are so much more green than I feel they should be. I think I spent more time staring at clouds hanging low over mountains than I did looking at the road. But it was worth it. Plus I didn't die.
I had this great idea to keep off the main road in the East and try to follow the west cost and Burmese border instead. This turned out to be a bad idea. Obviously it was low season so everything was very quite. Too quite. (sorry) I just mean things shut down very early. Like 8-9pm early. All the shops and restaurants would just close for some reason. Never really worked out why.
I went to a market one night.
Although the single picture that I took doesn't show any food the place was actually 90% food. Really good stuff as well, barbecue-y things all over, smelled amazing. But I'm very bad at markets. After a while of sheepishly wandering around I skulked back to the (empty) guesthouse with some sort of disgusting peanut pancake, a cup of Sunny Delight mixed with hydrochloric acid, and the remains of a pineapple after it had gone 5 rounds with a very angry Pitbull.
I went to bed hungry that night.
Although, the next night was better. I was wandering around some town that felt like it had just received a nuclear threat warning when I found some guy grilling chicken on the street. I spent a few minutes waving and pointed trying to communicate that I wanted to buy something. The guy stared at me blankly, much to the amusement of some other guys sat at a nearby table. The larger and more desperate the waving the harder they laughed. Eventually one of them took pity on me and ordered some food. It was delicious.
At some point, I can't quite remember when, I ran into Moritz
who displays immense taste and wisdom by also riding a Transalp. 2 years ago we had been talking about riding across Mongolia together but we then ended up caught on opposite sides of the fighting in Tajikistan and never managed to meet up until now. In the intervening years he has been working in Bangkok so can speak a bit of Thai. We went out to lunch, he ordered the food. This is the one and only time outside of Bangkok where eating has been easy.
This is all very out of order. I have no idea where I'm meant to be right now.
Something to do with mountains. Why not.
Mountains are good.
I think I've managed to lose some pictures somewhere. Never mind.
Also beaches.
I'm not really one for beaches. I mean, they're nice and all, just a bit boring after a few minutes. But Thailand is known for its beaches, among other things, and it's easy to see why.
Of course Thailand was hit badly by the Tsunami in 2004. Every 100m along the coast now there are sign directing you to the nearest evacuation route. Obviously a very, very good thing. But if I was on foot I'm not sure how confident I would be at travelling 2.2km along the beach just to get to the start of the evacuation route.
Also temples. There are temples everywhere. They are always the nicest building in every town, even when everything else is run down the temple is amazing.
Eventually I was forced east back towards the main road by the Burmese border.
But instead of taking the dual carriageway I ran straight back over to the east cost and carried on through the small villages. So much better.
I never worked out what these guys were doing. These flat flooded 'fields' stretched for miles up the coast. At first I though they were getting salt from sea water but I'm not sure.
Now, I didn't really want to go to Bangkok. But the front brakes were playing up so much that I had to get them fixed. So my mind was made up for me.
Welcome to Bangkok
Turns out I couldn't get the spare parts I needed so I arranged to have them shipped over from the UK. That would take a while so I had a few days to experience the city.
I wish I hadn't come.
It's not often I say this about anywhere but Bangkok is just not a nice place. Sure, it looks nice in the pictures, but being there is something entirely different.
What makes it so terrible is the amount of scams and hassle you get there.
This guy was hanging around outside the grand palace selling fake tickets. Every time the soldier would move he would run around the corner for a second until it was safe to come back. Others will come up and tell you that you couldn't enter the palace right now and that it would be better to go somewhere else and come back later. A tuk tuk driver then appears out of nowhere offering to 'help' you. They will all lie and cheat and deceive you without thinking twice.
And you're probably thinking that this can and does happen in every city in the world. And you're right, to an extent.
But this is the grand palace, probably the biggest attraction in Bangkok. These signs are placed all along the walls
Other, bigger signs list all of the rules. There are loudspeakers all around the perimeter which every few minutes play a recorded message that ends with "Don't trust any strangers who try to speak to you."
Think about that for a minute.
This is the Grand Palace. The centre piece of Bangkok and Thailand. The kings house is surrounded with warnings not to trust the people. Imagine if Buck House had to be surrounded by that.
This kind of dishonesty is rampant across the touristy part of the city. Any attraction in Bangkok, any shopping centre, any hotel you can expect to find people wanting to take advantage of you.
Now, I don't have a bad word to say about Thai people I met outside of Bangkok. It's just that Bangkok is a perfect example of how large amounts of tourism can corrupt an otherwise good people. And in fairness this sort of thing is endemic across all of South East Asia. The disgraceful practice of double pricing is endorsed by all governments around here. Police and security guards are corrupt and do nothing to get rid of the touts who prey on tourists. I am of a certain demographic that makes everyone assume I am always on the hunt for alcohol, drugs, or sex, or all three. I literally cannot step of the hotel without being hassled and followed down the street by drug dealers and pimps. And all of this is a terrible ambassador for the countries here. As far as Thailand goes if my experience was limited to Bangkok and Hua Hin I could not recommend it to anyone. In fact I would tell people to avoid it like the plague.
And this is one of the reasons why I think travelling by bike is so much better. You can escape all of this stuff, never have to fight taxi drivers, tuk tuk drivers, bus drivers. Never get targeted at transport hubs.
It also meant I got to spend time on the outskirts of the city. Which was much better. Once the brake discs arrived I went back out to the garage to have a few bits and pieces done. I spent a bit of time wandering around and got chatting to some locals outside a shop. Nothing fancy but they didn't try to rip me off. And that was nice.
Anyway, with the bike fixed and resolving to never going back to Bangkok I ran away as quickly as possible and headed for some place I can't remember the name of. It was north a bit.
 |
| Fishing under a motorway bridge |
This is the old capital, just ruins now. But a really laid back place. It's so close to Bangkok that most people just come here on a day trip and don't stay for the night
I have never seen an elephant before. Complete tourist trap but still. They were smaller than I imagined.
My time in Bangkok meant that I didn't have enough of my visa left to poperly enjoy the north of Thailand so I decided to head towards Cambodia instead.
 |
| I still don't know what to make of this |
This park was amazing. Massively expensive to get in, only falangs are charged of course, but probably worth it.
I spent a fairly significant amount of time trying to lure a wild elephant out with a bag of peanuts. Then I got bored and ate the peanuts.
There were signs for a waterfall so I followed them. At the start of the trail someone said that it was pretty flat except for a "small set of easy stairs" at the end.
Hmmm.
So coming here in the wet season actually does make sense.
I camped in the park that night and rather than sleeping spent all night watching lightning and trying to count the Pleiades..
The next morning the family next door invited me over for breakfast. First time I've ever had squid curry for breakfast. Probably the last time as well.
And then I was very close to the border. I stayed in the last town for one more night before leaving Thailand.
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