Thailand

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.

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.

Leaving and Malaysia

The coach to Paris was pretty amazing. There was nearly a riot getting on in London since they decided to try to cram 2 coach loads of people onto one.

Then it turned out that the seats had 0 inches of leg room (not an exaggeration. I still can't feel my knees.) After 10 minutes in one of those I was actually looking forward to the economy class plane seat.

Later we spent a fairly serious amount of time lost and stuck very late at night, on a very large coach, on the very small streets of a housing estate somewhere on the outskirts of Gillingham.

At Dover the coach in front of us managed to crash into the immigration building.

Then there was the ferry. It left at 1am-ish and I foolishly thought it would be a very quiet journey. Not so. There were approximately 150,000 people on it, 149,000 of them were German teenagers wearing "I heart London" hoodies.

Eventually we got to Charles De Gaulle.

I learnt a bit of French at school and am very overconfident in my own abilities.

Check-in Girl: Bonjour.
Me: Bounjor.
CiG: Combien de sacs avez-vous?
M: Deux
CiG: ????? ?? ????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ?????
M:
CiG:
M:
CiG (best condescending voice): Would you rather speak English?
M: Yes, please.

Then I sort of slightly forgot a little bit that the clocks are different in France so I nearly missed the plane because I was in McDonalds thinking I still had an hour before the gate opened.

But we got there in the end. To make up for the lack of space on the coach I managed to blag a front row seat for the first flight and an entire row for the second. Score.

I arrived early on Saturday morning giving me 2 days to sleep off the jet lag.

First thing Monday morning I ran down to Sunny Cycles, who had been looking after the Tranny while I was away, excited to finally be reunited with him/her/it.

It was closed. Monday was a public holiday in KL. Fail.

First thing Tuesday morning I ran down to Sunny Cycles, who had been looking after the Tranny while I was away, excited to finally be reunited with him/her/it.

It took 2 days of work but the bike was brought back to life. 2 new tyres, new brakes, probably some other stuff as well.

The hotel I was staying in was a fair distance out of the city centre and away from public transport. That meant that when I was without the bike I didn't do much because I couldn't face the heat. But I chose it specifically for the parking. Can you get much more secure that guarded by a tank?

After I had said goodbye to friends I was able to leave.

It was great to be back riding again. While I was in the UK I had bought another bike, a massive 1200cc sports bike - pretty different to the Tranny. Although I think I prefer the Tranny, not out of sentimentalism or because of its raw power, but just because it actually works. I only rode the Bandit maybe 4 or 5 times because it was in a constant state of broken. I say that I had a Bandit, but really it was more that the garage had a Bandit.

I went up to Bukit Fraser, not far from KL. There isn't much there but the ride up was great through the mountains. A bit wobbly, I've sort of forgotten how to ride in all this time. Too much luggage, I seem to have acquired more somehow.

At the top I met 3 guys from KL, Atoks, Fitri and Shuhe on a weekend ride around. We were heading the same direction so teamed up and ended up in Cameron Highlands for the night. A place I've been to many times in the past and despite the commercialisation I still love it partly for the climate but mostly for the endless tea plantations.

After breakfast of nasi lemak and chicken tea we all said goodbye, they headed back to KL and I went towards Penang.

The road out of the mountains was fantastic. There was a giant group of bikers pulled up by the side of the road at one point. I waved going past and not 10 minutes later every single one of them raced past me. Even the 2up GS. Slightly embarrassing.

And then there was the first run in with the satnav. I knew it wouldn't be long. I went miles and miles in the wrong direction only to find the road that the magical Garmin was insisting I take actually doesn't exist. Then I nearly ran out of fuel.

Lee Moustache provided some welcome entertainment.

The woman at the ferry shouted at me because I can't read signs.

At the hotel in Penang I met up with Ingo, a German on a Tenere and 2 Kiwi cyclists. I went to Penang to find a guy that might be able to help with shipping in a few months time. When I arrived I couldn't be bothered so I drank beer and slept instead. After a few days of doing little and being delayed due to the rain I took off in the general direction of Thailand.

Glorious, sunny Thailand

Reviving the Tranny - Day 2

No video today, but that's only because I've been threatened with having my camera confiscated if I produce anything as terrible as that other one ever again.

Yesterday seemed to have been a bit misleading. Yes, on the surface it does appear that the Pile 'o Rust was brought back to life just by filling it up with fuel and electricity. But going out last night wasn't a particularly pleasant experience.

So I was back at the garage again today sorting out other things. Well, other people were sorting them out, other people who actually knew what they were doing.

2 new tyres, as expected and planned.

Brakes. Things kept happening with brakes.
I had always planned on replacing the pads. But when I removed the rear, this sort of happened.

That shouldn't happen even though they are old.

But then it turned out that the dust seal was perished and the piston was almost completely seized. So everything was cleaned and replaced.

Difficult to see in the picture but that is not what a dust seal is meant to look like

Pretty much the same thing happened with the front brakes. Bad seals, everything stripped down, cleaned and replaced. New brake fluid, probably long overdue. At the front each calliper had 1 piston completely seized. I have learnt that that is a bad thing.

On the upside fixing the brakes so they actually work has allowed proper diagnosis of the issue with the front wheel which has been annoying me ever since Japan 2 years ago. On the downside it turns out that I have at least 1 warped brake disc at the front. After careful consideration I have decided the best course of action is to ignore it.

Then it was time to tackle the engine stuttering. This is one of the plugs.

Look up what it's meant to look like.

So I replaced all 4 of them. 3 weren't a problem but the 4th was in such an awkward position that I had to remove the radiator to get to it. Having to almost completely disassemble the front end allowed a unique opportunity to count the number of bolts which have mysteriously vanished over time. Hint: it's a lot.

Most of them are fairing bolts so aren't really a problem, apart from the rattling. But among the more concerning absences is one of the bolts which holds the exhaust on. "Not a problem," you say, "bolts can easily be replaced." True. But the thing about exhausts is that they tend to get very hot. And hot metal tends to be much more malleable than cold metal. And, well, it appears that the hot exhaust has sort of slightly deformed itself under its own weight. There is no chance of fixing that.

And then there is electrical modifications. I wasn't involved in any of this, probably for the best given past experience. But the long and short of it is that I now have permanent GPS wiring that won't cut out when going round a slight corner, and a tank bag that can be plugged into the bike for that extra special Tranny(tm) brand of electricity.

Oh, also I replace the broken left hand mirror, although it took nearly the whole morning to work out how to unscrew the old one and screw in the new one.

Actually I have done very little. These last two days I have been in the garage all day while other people have worked to get the Tranny going again. I never would have been able to do this by myself.

But the thing is that the only thing I have had to pay for is the parts. New tyres and a new tank bag (which I probably didn't actually need), plugs and seals comes to less than £300. About the same as in the UK except in the UK I would be charged £50/hour+VAT for labour.

And after all of that I they invited me for dinner tonight.

So really I have to say a big thank you to Sunny Cycles. Best bike shop I've been to by a mile.

Reviving the Tranny

Incredibly high production values, as always.

Don't Go Right 2 - Attack of the Killer Tranny

Aaaaannnnnddddd....we're back.

Nearly 2 years after the last one came crashing to an end it's all happening again. I've quit my job, everything's going into storage tonight, last day of work tomorrow, then leaving on Thursday.

Now, before anyone gets too excited I must warn that this one is likely to be even more disorganised than the last one. In fact, I've known I was leaving for a month now but only just got around to writing something about it. So perhaps a quick run-down of preparations is in order.

• Plane tickets: check
• Passport: unknown
• Visas: nope
• Cash: nothing useful
• Packing: sort of
• Tent: got a hole in it

And then there is the bike. My beloved Tranny that I haven't seen in what feels like a small ice age. I have no idea what state it's in although I suspect that it's now composed mostly of rust. So I have prepared myself for the worst, ish, and bought a load of spare parts, hopefully enough to get it running again. Unfortunately I now have no room left in my luggage for clothes.

Whatever, that's not important.

And then there are the things that I forgot to do, like sort out documents. And maps. And the tracker thing. Lots of things that I haven't bought. Or rather I've spent time buying thing that I don't really need. I mean, I don't have an air pump for the tyres, but I do have 2 identical satnavs. Also I have 6 batteries for my camera. So that's a plus. At least I'll be able to take pictures while I'm sat at the side of the road with 2 flat tyres and 2 fantastical Garmins no doubt trying to convince me to drive up a waterfall.

That's not important either.

And then there is the caffeine addiction, the only thing that has been keeping me awake recently (I only started preparations less than a week before the plane leaves.) Not really looking forward to the flight.

Oh, and all my bank cards are set to expire in the next few months.

In exactly a little bit over 50 hours I get on a bus to the airport. So pretty much what's done is done, what's not done hopefully won't matter. Because I'm not going to do it now.