Clearly the most enjoyable thing that we had in Thailand is that we did not use the tent a single time and did not cook anything during the whole trip – even often the breakfasts! The hotels are good and reasonably priced, especially during the low season where the choices of accommodations large and excellent discounts offered. To make the choices faster, we had set our phone application ‘’Agoda’’ with a rating over 8.5/10 and price under 500 Bahts for two people (about 12EUR or $15), preferably breakfast included, and swimming pool very welcome! For food, we had literally no stock of food with us, not even snacks. Almost every village has several street food stalls (also every few kilometers, but often also anywhere in-between), any larger town will have a 7-Eleven (also every 10km), and all for a ridiculous charge (we became reluctant to pay $1.50 for a full meal in Chiang Mai after weeks paying less than $1).

Our own bungalow – a luxury!

We thus had days cruising 80km in 3h30 (usually 2h in the morning, 1h30 in the afternoon – normally a ‘short day’), not having to pack/unpack the bike, stopping every hour to get something to eat, getting super-fast internet through the cell-phone (if not a lightning-fast internet through Wi-Fi!) in the evening, and getting a top-comfortable room with AC at night. In short: cyclo-touring in luxury!

However, Thailand felt all the way like ‘there is something weird’ in that country. Compared with Malaysia a little south, we had a lot less interactions with the inhabitants, without being unpleasant it felt a bit like ‘smiling because we are officially the land-of-smiles’ but not much more communication. The best administration in the country is clearly the army or the police, with the best equipment and facilities of every single village. We also realized that the country is politically one of the least stable around the world (17 coups in the last 100 years) and trending away from democracy. Malaysia had a lot of newspapers distributed and read everywhere, in all languages (even English) and we could see a lot of local meetings/debates together with political parties’ activities going on (we even talked to a MP while being invited at a Ramadan evening meal). Thailand on the other hand, has almost no written-press (or at least it is not available), the television is from what we could understand (and watch on the English-speaking channel NTV) ‘happy-news-in-happy-country-propaganda’ type, the best model friendly countries are Myanmar and Cambodia (the current massacres of the Rohingyas in Myanmar is apparently a micro event way exaggerated, but it is not much worse than protecting Pol-Pot for decades after the fall of the Khmers Rouges…), and the king is described as some kind of god-supreme-leader. If you get foreign cable channels, the channel automatically shuts down whenever Thailand is mentioned (positively or negatively) – it happened that all foreign channels were covering the cave rescue during our visit, and we realized that BBC/CNN/DeutscheWelle/France24 all had ‘a technical problem’ every time the rescue operation was mentioned.

In July, the king’s birthday month, it was requested that people wear yellow to show their support of the monarchy… so a lot of yellow things were on display.

We are posting this after having left the country (that could send you in jail, the internet is scrutinized thanks to Chinese technology!), because any criticism of the monarchy is absolutely forbidden. The king is yet nothing of a model – no charisma, trying to transform the country into an absolute monarchy with the help of religion and the army, and in-between has for goal to become in the top-of-the-top-wealthiest list on earth. For the joke, he spends most of his time only an hour away from us in Germany in Starnberg (a nice town, we must admit, in case you are visiting Bavaria!), but to a point where he was considered a full-time resident and asked to pay several billions of euros of inheritance tax when the dad passed away.

Living just one hundred kilometers apart from one another in Bavaria!

So, across the country, we felt that there were fewer schools than in Malaysia- particularly in the backcountry- but there is overwhelming presence of some propaganda to force everyone to revere the king. Each establishment was required to have a picture of the king hanging on the wall. Think of a mix of king Louis XIV in France for the costumes, Kim-Jung-Un in Korea for the kitsch paintings and slogans type ‘our king brought science to our country’ or ‘our king knows how to educate dogs’ (veridic), and some current oligarchies where the ruler is also the super-hero of the nation. I am not going to do any prognostics, but Thailand is not entirely cut off from the rest of the world, so I doubt that people will remain naïve and trusting for the whole reign of the current king. The propaganda really reminded me of Hosni Mubarak while visiting Egypt in 2002… and look what happened. From what we understood, the father and previous king (who died in 2016) was smart enough to still improve the economy a lot during his reign, remained politically in the shadow, and was thus overall appreciated. The son however, seems to be a little less wholesome (John Oliver called him a buffoon, that’s seem quite accurate), and is therefore a lot less in the Thai’s hearts. But again shhh, it’s not allowed to say it – as a foreigner you’ll get into trouble, as a political opponent you may end-up in the jail/crematorium which is literally located under his palace in Bangkok.

With no good options, we decided to head somewhere with better weather! Note Cassie’s Thai alphabet skills!

On another note, as you may have noticed, we have jumped over a few countries and are now in Central Asia, a little different from our original planning. A few reasons for that:

• We had no intention to have to deal with the Chinese authorities. There is a taboo about what is going on in the west part of the country and the actions against ‘non-Hans’ have apparently increased since 2017. Getting a visa is now more difficult, it implies having to close our eyes in a train across half of the country and dealing with dictatorial police. Not interested! From a few feedbacks of other fellow-cyclists, going through China just does not seem particularly neither scenic nor enjoyable.
• From northern Thailand we could have gone towards Laos and Vietnam, but it is a very bad timing with the monsoon (it is raining heavily and non-stop, with landslides, a dam that collapsed in Laos, and you probably heard about the cave flooding story).
• Myanmar could have been another possibility, but we are also not interested in visiting a opium-producing (45% of the foreign trade, not even counting Meth and other funny products) rogue state (although its current prime minister and the Buddhism cliché make it look shinier than Afghanistan). We got a glimpse of Myanmar refugees in northern Thailand: Thailand organizes some human-zoos of long-neck-women who get no refugee status whatsoever and are forced to stay in villages transformed into amusement parks where visitors can take an almost original ‘National Geographic explorer’ type of picture. To visit the tribes, tourists unload from buses and are charged exorbitantly to see the woman. The tribes people (refugees) do not receive any of the, and if they complain, they get sent back on the other side of the border. We still try to have a bit of ethics, so no thanks! That’s also why we do not have any pictures of children dressed in traditional costumes (the parents are usually cashing-in next to them), or other sorts of human-trade. Maybe you will remember when your friends and colleagues will show you their pictures taken ‘remotely in the jungle’.

Thailand was a nice country to visit, we enjoyed very much our almost 6 weeks and 2000km there, we felt that we have seen a good part of it, but we both also said that we would not particularly want to come back there on vacation in the next years.

Nightly food stalls, we will miss you

We just felt like posting a last post about some continuous weird feelings we had across Thailand.

FYI, we are now very much enjoying riding through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (and hopefully the upcoming following countries).

Our new ride (joking!)

The next day, Cédric and I set off to visit the historic downtown and the myriad of temples scattered throughout the city. Each temple had something unique to offer – Wat Jedlin had a bamboo bridge over a lily-filled pond and Wat Chedi Luang had 15^th century architecture. Not ones to miss out on the cultural aspect of our trip, we also visited the Lanna Folklife Museum to understand the local way of life some centuries ago. We felt reconnected to the western countries in Chiang Mai, as we could clearly meet tourists travelling during their summer holidays, for the first time since January during the high season in the southern hemisphere. We rounded out our day visiting the large markets east of the city. For us, we could only window shop – no additional weight was allowed on a tandem that needed to reach an altitude of over 4000m!

Old chedis and temples are everywhere in the city

An older style home – most buildings are now made out of concrete blocks

The bamboo catwalk

The grand-chedi-monster walks across the sea!

Cassie forced to wear a skirt once again (and trying some martial arts)

Wat Chedi Luang

Whatever might be said, there’s a lot of hinduism influence in Thai’s buddhism

Lanna Folklife Museum (and the king’s portrait, like every 500m in the country)

Dr. Ballert trying to heal another one of Cédric’s tropical diseases

The markets

Our motto! So true, anywhere around the world!

Back at the hostel, still continuous rain – so instead of visiting a temple overlooking the city, Cassie dragged Cedric in a Thai-massage salon. Part of the reason was that it was a comment made several weeks before, when Chiang Mai was thousands of kilometers away, when I said ‘’sure we’ll get a massage when we’ll make it to Chiang Mai. Well, a bike can cover any distance fairly quickly! The choice of Chiang Mai is that there are a lot of good clean certified places there, not the backyard of a highway garage like in many smaller towns, or some special ‘’treatments’’ with little clothing involved in Bangkok (Chiang Mai being more the cultural town of Thailand’s tourism). So, apparently the main goal of the game is to get lots of cracking, from the toes to neck through every single moving bone… Cassie is probably a more adequate size for a local Thai masseuse and got to enjoy having all articulation being cracked. I honestly felt more like someone was desperately trying to climb on me to achieve the goal! You get some knees in your backbone, the hand pulling your shoulder, the other hand trying to twist you and if not the forearm you get a tibia compressing your leg muscles – and after some sort of torture-ritual that turns into meat softening, the masseur is relieved to hear a mini crack of your back… okay, I am not particularly flexible, about a head taller, a few inches wider than the masseur, and after 7 months on the road all bones are fully straightened by muscle training, which probably did not help! Let’s say that 2h for 15 dollars, including tea, cookies, and an almost-nap (it’s hard to not fall asleep on the mattress during the 10 minutes stage of toes cracking) is not much worse of a deal than watching yet-another-boring-Hollywood-movie. The result, well I was fine before, still fine after, nothing sore, nothing cracked too much, so I guess that’d be called an experience, not necessarily to be renewed.

Cédric – skeptical pre-massage (while getting his feet tainted with some red liquid…that would be washed away only a couple of days later)

Post-massage bliss!

Another day and another (few) rain showers later, Cédric and I visited more of the Chiang Mai cultural museums and decided on a plan for the upcoming days: we would rent a car to do the Mae Hong Son loop. This 600-kilometer loop is known by cyclists for its never-ending extremely steep hill climbs and sharp curves. The ones who set out of conquer this route plan to carry as little luggage as possible and shorter distances per day, usually still in over 10 days – often more 20 days! Because Cédric and I were short on time and the rain showers were becoming more frequent, the traverse would be made with four wheels instead of three. Whereas we had not been too affected by the monsoon in the previous 5 weeks, the arrival into the mountains was a different story: clouds coming from the Indian ocean get stuck in these foothills of the Himalaya and only disappear when all humidity has fallen to the ground. During our last two weeks, you probably heard in the news around the world the story of the Thai soccer team stuck in a cave, but also the dam collapsing in Laos or large landslides in Myanmar.

We set our early the next morning in the direction of Pai. Once we turned off highway 107, the hills began to take over our view. Utilizing the car’s full throttle potential, we went up steep sideroads and made several detours, something we don’t normally consider on the bike. The first stop was a waterfall and short jungle trek in the Doi Suthep National Park. Next, we followed the undulating, stray dog filled road to a hot spring and geyser. After seeing the technicolor hot springs in New Zealand, these were a little underwhelming, but the National Park had the idea to attract more tourists by making almost resort-like pools. Since the day was warm but drizzling, we ventured in to the pool and enjoyed the scenery. The 40c sulfur water is still more enjoyable on a snowy day in winter in Austria than when we are already sweating in Thailand. Next, after more hills and curves and Cassie verging on getting sick, we drove up to a ‘lookout’ high up in the mountains. However, rain requires clouds and this lookout was not much more than wind and fog. Every now and then, we could make out a valley off in the distance. The day ended in Pai, where Cédric and I had very northern Thai cuisine: animal offal and tendons (Cassie thought at first that ‘’we should take that, it’s probably a typo’’! The bowl of chicken tendons is not too bad though), all paired with sticky rice (amazingly in that region, they no longer had regular rice!).

Mae Sa waterfall

Hoping to make it across the bridge

A bit different than in New Zealand

Enjoying the hot pools

A lookout…

… so much to see

Happy after a dinner of fried chicken tendons

The next day was full of driving, and we didn’t take any detours until we reached Mae Hong Son. Along the way, there were several opportunities to explore some local caves, but considering recent events in northern Thailand, Cédric and I wanted to make sure we could still catch our flight out of Chiang Mai. The police were anyway over-cautious and to avoid having to deal again with half of the world news organization, reporting not much day after day about caves in Thailand, they had simply closed all of them. In Mae Hong Son, we explored several temples around the town. In the afternoon, we continued driving up and down the mountain roads until we reached Mae Chaem in the evening. Our tour went on the next day to the Inthtanon summit, which again was rather unspectacular given the amount of mist and parking lot on the summit, but it is still officially the highest summit in Thailand, and thus worth having a big temple on top. We continued on later that day back to the plains and were surprised to feel both heat and sun again.  Before turning in the car, we drove up to Doi Suthep Temple and managed to overlook the Chiang Mai valley between heavy rain showers. Once in Chiang Mai, Cédric and I started preparing for the upcoming journey to Kazakhstan.

Yep, rainy season (officially renamed ”the green season” by the Thai tourism board…)

Another ‘lookout’

The only cave that we thought was safe… wasn’t

Wat Hua Wiang in Mae Hong Son (the architecture is influenced by Burma across the mountains – the region was somewhat Burmese not that long ago)

Wat Chong Kham

1864 curves make one sick!

Wat Phrathat Doi Kongmu

Brazen dogs relax in the street at night… and never get hit!

Windy on top of Doi Inthanon

The peak

Highest point of Thailand, at two thousand five hundred something meters. Yep, no need to bring your ice-axes here!

Waterfalls on the way down

Cassie successfully ordering an iced coffee in Thai

Downpours on top of Doi Suthep

Chedi Monster

Over the next two days, we retrieved our bicycle, got packing supplies, boxed everything, and ate our last Thai meals. It was more about resting and doing not much than trying to see yet another Buddha-temple (we got slightly Buddhad-up). With three large pieces of luggage, our tuk-tuk trip to the airport was interesting: the bike box was strapped on the roof of the tuk-tuk, and the other pieces stacked on top of each other, between our legs and the driver. He could barely use his rear-view mirror, although this was not very necessary at 430am. With only a few small negotiations about the bike at the check-in counter in Chiang Mai, Cédric and I were off to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Both Bangkok Airways and Air Astana are remarkably great airlines with excellent service (which is becoming rare), but ever since we had bought the tickets we had to explain both airlines that they indeed had a codeshare agreement with the other one…

Preparing Cédric for Central Asia (long beard are now officially forbidden in Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan – Afghanistan is not that far, and looking like a Taliban not very well seen…)

Guess what we watched during the flight to Kazakhstan? Some cold-war soviet espionage movies!

Even if Ayutthaya is still part of the greater metropolitan area is Bangkok, we got relieved to see a lot less traffic, a much quieter atmosphere and be back riding across rice fields! We visited the ruins of the tens of the temples spread out over a large area that was part of the old capital but now often outside of the rebuilt (and visibly still much smaller) Ayutthaya. It was very enjoyable to be able to ride our tandem again from a site to another, and it reminded us a bit of Angkor-Wat (Siam Reap) in Cambodia, but with a lot less tourists and more manicured than in the neighboring country.

Taking the bike on a bike ferry across the river

I (Cedric) however started to feel that something got a little wrong with my health in Bangkok after the first signs of strong tiredness and nausea. This would follow me for the next 2 weeks, not sure what kind of weird sickness that was, but no need to worry, after some internet-auto-diagnostic-auto-medication and some nurse-Ballert-advise, I am fully fit again and ready for cycling!

We spent an evening and afternoon to explore the old temples and left at noon towards the north and a first long day cycling towards Sing Buri. The flat plains in Central Thailand meant that we were still able to cover a ‘normal’ day’s distance over just a few hours and we also had to make it to Chiang Mai at some point (although we tried to buy our flights out as late as possible). Along the way, in need of a bit of cold extra soda fuel to keep Cédric going, we stopped at a small shop and piqued the interest of a few local guys hanging out and drinking whiskey. With them, we spent a few minutes conversing in gestures and taking selfies (by now, it’s easy to figure out what people are asking because everyone asks the same questions).

Wat Chai Wattanaram

Wat Phu Khao Thong

We needed to cover the bike because a few people started sitting on it while parked

A tree growing around a Buddha head

The next morning, we left Sing Buri and continued our course along the Chao Phraya river. Due to Cédric’s wavering health, we made more than a few 7-Eleven stops for cold Coke and other energy packed food-bombs to keep him going throughout the day. That also meant avoiding taking risks with some adventurous street food dishes (fried rice remained a safe bet). Starting that evening in Uthai Thani, we noticed that the monsoon season was catching up with us once again. Instead of days of full sun like we had south of Bangkok, our days were now overcast, and strong showers began in the evening and throughout the night, but still fine for cycling as long as we were done by 4pm. We managed yet to get to our hotel in Uthai Thani just before a heavy downpour.

These yellow shelters along the side of the road serve as meeting points, nap spots, and possibly bus stops

The beginning of the flat lands, our GPS took us through the most remote ways between the fields – we were sometimes really not sure if we would not have to push the bike in the mud, but the GPS was always right!

Not sure what those three old guys did in their lives, but they got some big shining statues of themselves!

Yep, Cassie can see, no worries!

Since Cédric wasn’t in the greatest condition (his day revolved around eating and drinking sugar, biking, and sleeping), Cassie continued cycling the next day steering in the back of the tandem despite her constant preoccupation with dogs (the idea of swapping positions was also to make sure that the healthier person could “transport” the less fit one- although both still need to pedal!). That day, we took a detour to Nakhon Sawan to attempt to fix our hydraulic brakes: they had not been fixed as well as we had hoped in Bangkok (still okay for flatlands in Thailand) but certainly not adequate for the upcoming trip on the edge of the Himalayas in Central Asia. Thankfully, there are many road cyclists, so a Shimano service store wasn’t difficult to find. Despite our explanations that there was probably some air in the hydraulic circuit, the shop was reluctant to fully bleed the tubes and just managed to improve slightly the breaking force by adding some oil. Luckily, we had the backup plan of a much more reliable shop in Chiang Mai that would do a cleaner job in a few weeks.

Leaving our friendly hotel in Uthai Thani, fully solar powered!

The rice fields, the scenery for hundreds of kilometers

Hoping that our brakes get fixed before some steep hills! They tried everything, but apparently had a phobia to bleed the pipes (which we eventually did a week later in Chiang Mai)

The day ended shortly afterwards, a few kilometers north of Nakhon Sawan with Cédric feeling worse than he did in the past few days, also not helped by Cassie ordering a beer instead of a tea at the restaurant for lunch (the beer brand “Chang” vs. the Chinese word “Cha” for tea), but because Cassie was steering, Cedric got to drink the beer… The weird virus sent Cedric into a long nap in the evening, shortly after followed by a night sleep disturbed by fever – we made the decision to stay two nights at the same hotel, so he could recover.

More rice paddies

That night also got very interesting as we discovered the rituals of funeral ceremonies in Thailand: a very old lady passed away a few days before, but the tradition is that you should not be sad about it and keep on living (as explained by the hotel owner), so the family organized some sort of cremation-rave-party with Thai folk music blasted with the loudest possible speakers in the region, only a few hundred meters away, and starting at 4am!  We did not try the same method as for the meth-druggies in NZ (although it was considered), and simply took our earplugs out, but even the hotel owner complained to the police during the night that it was a little too much. The police apparently simply replied that well, traditions are more important than the sleep of locals…not sure if the old lady would have enjoyed that music though! When Cédric was feeling more fit, we rode our tandem around a few temples and enjoyed the scenery of rice fields for a few kilometers in the afternoon.

This was one of the more interesting (and elaborate) temples that we visited – a tip from the hotel owner. The Chedi-Monster is wondering if listening to Nirvana might bring us wings to fly up mountain passes (we are still waiting for them to grow before Kyrgyzstan!)

The entrance to the temple

A Buddha and his Buddha buddies

Since Cédric was feeling better, we set off for Sukhothai, another ruinous former capital within Thailand, this time sacked by the Burmese. For the most direct route, our GPS took us through old roads deep in the rice paddies. Although being a similar landscape for several days, that was a very enjoyable and scenic ride. Our appearance would usually catch the attention of several rice farmers and we got many waves and smiles as we passed by.

Cedric trying the original RedBull (invented in Thailand, it’s stronger and not sparking) as a illness magic potion remedy – result: honestly, a coffee works better

Enjoying the pool at one of our hotels

The hotel owner was Austrian and he made us some Schnitzel with beer – a great change after fried rice every single day!

Thailand produces a loooooot of rice! 3 harvests a year, 50% of its agricultural area and second largest exporter in the world…

Still some rice fields before arriving in the mountains and the jungle

To try making things simpler to understand, Sukhothai was a long time ago capital of a state that would collapse, a state that would eventually get reborn and become larger but with then Ayuttaya for capital, before collapsing again and become even larger as today’s Thailand, with Bangkok for current capital. Some other cities like Chiang-Mai were also at some point “capitals” of some other disappeared or states that would merge together. Just like in Europe, borders have moved a lot over the last centuries in south-east Asia, and that can be seen in the different ruins. The day ended thus at a hotel in Sukhothai for another day of visiting the ruins and rest. Much like Ayuttaya, we wandered from an ancient temple to the next one and enjoyed to freely visit the different spots, yet always under the sight of Buddha statues!

Sukhothai in the evening

We have spotted the chedi monster, once again

Cassie, fashion show – model of the monsoon season 2018

A Baba and a big Buddha

Leaving from Sukhothai the next day, our final goal was in reach. We could also see some changes in the landscape, from absolutely flatland since Bangkok, some hills and mountains in the back started to appear. The day rides from Bangkok were constantly flat – almost amazingly as we had 80km days with only 30m ascent (so small that this would be almost impossible to find anywhere else, a single bridge can often be higher!) – and we would need to change gears for the first time in weeks. We took some back roads between the “Mae Wa” and “Si Satchanalai” national parks, where rice fields give way to jungle on the steeper grounds. We met our first couple of cyclo-tourists in weeks on that road, but they were not too interested in talking to us (or to each other either apparently – we seem to be better at maintaining a good mood). From Thoen, instead of taking the direct highway to Chiang Mai, we followed a road that would go through a mountain pass that a lot of Thai had told us was “very steep and difficult for cycling,” but was a pleasant smooth soft incline gently winding up to 700m over 30km. It sure is massive compared with the plains, finally some entertainment for us!

Cassie with a dog that we almost liked, possibly because he didn’t bark and had one ear

The antidote to the flatness

Other side of the mountains in the old Lanna kingdom – okay, there is still rice, but also a few other crops in-between!

We had just entered the old Lanna kingdom, with a few small hills on the way, overall going downhill though. Again, the jungle gives way to rice fields, but also fruits and vegetables and we would reach Chiang Mai after a last morning cycling. Chiang Mai has become the hub of northern Thailand with clearly more wealth and a lot of foreigners (tourists, but also expats and retirees) and we took the occasion to do a detour to a Decathlon (a French chain of sport goods that apparently started to expand outside Europe) to replace some clothes: Cassie cannot maintain a clean T-shirt for more than 3h (basically until the next meal, but the combination of dirt and sweat didn’t help either), so after 6 months it had turned into baby’s bib colors, and we forgot an underwear for me in a washing-machine – rotating between two pairs, the situation had become critical, and with plans to go to Central Asia, a bit risky…

Barely visible, but we had an epic downpour during dinner on this evening – the start of many more rains to come…

Field of baby-rice-plants

A shirt of stains, sweat, sunblock, and bleached by the sun (as you can see, after yet another cycle in the washing machine – too desperate to be kept). It was time to retire this shirt and get one that wouldn’t show so much grime (the one Cassie is wearing!)

Chiang Mai meant again being back into city hazards, although nothing compared with Bangkok, and we settled in a low-key quiet hotel with the plan to take a break from cycling for our last week in Thailand.

No luck repairing the laptop

Lunch on the side of the busy road

The rest of the day consisted of riding alongside the busy highway 4 until we could finally turn off. In Hua Hin and Cha-am, we could once again feel that Thailand is indeed a heavily touristed place. Where Krabi and Ao Nang had a laidback beachy vibe (at least in the low season), these northern cities touted multiple-story 5-star hotels, visited by the wealthiest people from Bangkok (only a few hours’ drive away, and thus a good weekend getaway) and a surprising number of northern Europeans. Hua-Hin and Cha-am are not particularly appealing, especially after the long stretch of empty beaches just a few hundred kilometers south, but I guess some tourists cannot imagine being abroad without safe 5-stars large resorts with a romantically modelled version of exotic Thailand – but still within walking distance of Starbucks, KFC and H&M.

A newly discovered fruit: toddy palm! It’s supposed to be a good laxative, not necessarily what we are looking for in Thailand…

We found these stands along the road, so naturally we had to see what they were selling. The juice is from the sap. Thanks to high-tech cleverphones technology (yay), we managed to ask the world in Thai, then look for what it could be in English and discovered the toddy palms.

Leaving our tree house north of Cha-am

Salt flats

More salt

We found a nice, shaded lunch spot (without dogs, they had invaded the other side of the street)

On the bridge over Ban Laem

We cruised across that part of Thailand, helped by good tailwinds, flat roads, smooth asphalt, being fit, used to the climate, and not much interest to stop anyway and managed to cycle some parts at almost 30km/h (a bullet speed while cyclo-touring). Arriving in Samut Songkhram, the 2×4 lane-highway clearly indicated that we were entering the metropolitan area of Bangkok. The traffic also becoming less and less enjoyable (although we felt that the massive highways are a lot safer for cycling than smaller roads thanks to a 3m wide shoulder), we decided to stop there our way to Bangkok that evening and continue with a van the next day.

Samut Songkhram is mostly known for its train line that goes right into a market (it’s actually more a market that goes right into the train), looking at the map, that train runs only a few times a day from kinda nowhere south of Bangkok to that town 30km away (train are not quite optimal in Thailand as train rely on an outdated infrastructure and lines are not physically linked to each other), but this train has become a popular touristic destination around Bangkok. In short, hordes of people come with a train in the morning, then empty their wallets buying elephant-pants and other souvenirs that will end up in a drawer while waiting for the next train, take a picture of the next train and go back to Bangkok. The market thus lives with sudden waves of hundreds of visitors, with the city returning to quietness in the evening.

The railway market in the evening

Samut Songkhram

Inside a market

The railway market the next morning, with heaps of tourists waiting for the train

The train coming in and all of the awnings pulled out of the way

How close it gets to us

Immediately after, the awnings come back out and the tourists are pushed back onto the rails so the people can start selling their goods again

Even though we had explained the number of luggage, the size of the bike and so on the day before to get a van to Bangkok, things obviously did not work out the next day with the van company telling us that it’s not possible to put a bike in their van (a 12-seater minibus). We eventually had to double the fare and an hour later another minivan from the same company (same model, same story that the seats cannot flip, etc.) took us to a station in Bangkok that we had not agreed on, but “same same, still Bangkok, you can take your bicycle to your original place”. Of course, they understand English whenever they feel like it. We went into Bangkok to visit Cassie’s friend Pete, against all odds telling us to ride around it, and observing its lights from far far away. We eventually got welcomed into Bangkok with 20km of traffic jams, a lot of concrete and smog, and our nightmarish 10km ride to Pete’s place.

After much negotiating, our bike got into a van

Bangkok has had its population multiplied by 30 in the last century, seemingly growing without any sort of planning or urban thought. Public transportation is just completely inadequate to that size of city: my hometown Toulouse (far from being any sort of public transportation model) has a longer commuter train network despite being the size of Bangkok in the 1930s, buses all seem to have had their odometer fully loop a few times. Add the fact that the Bangkok area is a lot richer than the rest of Thailand (the GDP is about 7 times higher), and that cars are a symbol of wealth and success, and you get the second most jammed city in the world! Its drivers apparently enjoy wasting on average 1h15 of their lives every single day of the year in traffic jams (it’s about 18min in LA or 25min in Paris for comparison), its pedestrians enjoy noisy engines and their unregulated scent of exhausts and other particles – literally 24/7. The only way to get around: add on to the traffic and get a long nap in a taxi, luckily unbelievably cheap (count about 3 euros for 10km in an hour).

Bangkok!

Being in Bangkok, our main first goals became to service our bike in one of the rare reliable shop around as we don’t want to mess up our precious iron-horse (read the Malaysia post) at “BokBokBike” and find a solution to keep on updating the website (among other useful things a laptop can do). For the bike, that unfortunately meant twice 8km dealing with the traffic, with Cassie refusing to steer a single meter and pedaling while closing her eyes/nose/ears – just the mouth and the lungs must remain open to try to supply a bit of remaining oxygen that hasn’t been burnt by combustion engines around!

The bike got its maintenance done without much problem, things got a little more complicated for the laptop: the manufacturer telling us that it will take several weeks and probably will have to get some parts from Germany because it comes from there (I have never heard of a Chinese laptop manufacturer having its production outsourced to low-cost western Europe…), then a few places refusing having to deal with those small compact devices, and finally a Dutch owned shop explaining us after running a few tests that we should cry a little and prepare the credit-card for a new one… Shipping a laptop to some place in Europe for a repair until our return appeared to be impossible (thanks Li-Ion batteries), but we yet managed to sell the dead carcass at a market for a tenth of the price of the brand-new one (knowing that the motherboard and screen were broken)! So we are now writing our posts on a Thai-keyboard (you thought the French keyboards were weird? Check the Thai script!).

Inside one of MANY malls – the MBK center – aka. Most Biggest Krapcenter

Late-night laptop buying – Lenovo: BANNED!

Another mall – the lighthouse probably to remind that Bangkok is basically build on a swamp, and those 14M people will soon need to build some lighthouses with rising water levels.

While waiting for the Hase Pino and computer to be serviced, we also managed to see a few of the touristic parts in the heart of old Bangkok: the Wat Pho complex, the Emerald Buddha temple complex (an overrated temple with a ridiculous entry fee – that we reluctantly paid because there is not much more in Bangkok otherwise, where we were turned away twice for not wearing the correct clothes – both long pants and long sleeves are required despite the heat) and Chinatown. We also explored the myriad of shopping malls along the Rama I and Sukhumvit roads (very exciting: you can see the new models from Zara, H&M or Gap…) to look for a few items and a new laptop. Besides exploring the seedier side of Bangkok (think: white-creepy-gramps with their new Thai-love-too-young-to-be-their-daughters and happy endings), the other thing tourists can turn to is a shopping extravaganza for everything you can think of. Having spent the past 6 months carrying around just our necessities, it was mind-blowing to see the sheer abundance of goods in these shopping malls. Besides ‘luxury’ shopping malls with a lot of western brands, Bangkok has also other types of malls with literally thousands of stalls selling cheap no-quality useless (often Chinese) crap – and a lot of tourists apparently enjoy wasting their time and money filling suitcases of stuff that will never be used and will eventually be trashed across the world. A bit too much for us!

A bang for Bangkok! Three for happiness.

The reclining Buddha

A chedi monster

More chedis

Outside the Grand Palace

Cédric, thrilled that he had to buy pants to be able to pay a ridiculously expensive entrance fee, to enjoy hundreds of guided tour buses – the Grand-Beardy-Chedi-Guru declares from now on: pants strike!

Note the photographer’s effort to avoid the thousands of narcissic selfie-sticks owners

Cassie also with a new shirt – apparently scarves around the shoulders weren’t enough this time (this place is not even a temple being used. But the greatest royal way to make a pyramid of cash (more about the Thai government as soon as we are out of the country…Big Bro is watching you here).

Exploring the city

Inside the National Museum

The chedi monster appears again!

Chinatown

Once the bike was ready to go and we set up the new computer (a few hours were dedicated to trying to remember just how we managed to get a free version of Microsoft Office on the old laptop), we packed our things to get out of the city. Being in Bangkok, we had a few more transportation options than a van ride so we bought tickets to Ayutthaya, the capital city of Siam before Bangkok, less than 100 km north of the city. Just as we were leaving, Cedric picked up a nice respiratory virus as a bonus gift to carry with us for the next few weeks…souvenir from Bangkok!

Saying goodbye to Bangkok and Pete’s family

The train station

Watching the rice paddies

So in short, we really enjoyed hospitality of Pete’s family, and Bangkok is the place in Thailand to find literally anything you may be looking for (including a branch of Cedric’s company ), however don’t expect much for sights and enjoyable places to hangout. If you really need a Thai-script-tattoo, some elephant-pants, or a Singha/Chang beer-T-shirt, the Khaosan district will have everything to provide to look like a western clown, if you are into the weird obscure brothel stuff, well you can surely find that too, but we really cannot give any advice on that (unless recommending taking a flight back home).

If any cyclist is reading that post, seriously don’t consider cycling into Bangkok (apart for suicidal riders), and unless you need a bike shop (BokBok) or spare parts, just ride around the city (to get to Laos, Myanmar and northern Thailand) or get another mean of transportation across (for example if heading towards Cambodia). Also read the previous post about dogs: 10% of dogs in Bangkok have rabies – very exciting!

• the yokels in the NZ South Island
• the list of venemous animals to worry about in Australia
• (we cannot think of anything in Singapore…but not sure that really counts as a country either! )
• the humidity-heat sauna of Malaysia

Without doubt, if we must mention our main issue in Thailand, it will be dogs!

Several factors in Thailand: it has one of the highest number of dogs in the world, at about 9 million – a particularly high number per capita. About 10 percent are abandoned and are surviving completely on their own, and often even thrive and reproduce generation after generation. Among the other 90%, a good part also looks like they do not have any owners but get fed by whoever has a house nearby. From the different answers we have had, it seems like that any dog sitting between the feet of anyone ‘’is not mine but from the neighbor’’ or ‘’is not mine, but it’s been living at my place for the last 5 years’’. Well, we hardly make the difference between stray dogs, almost-stray dogs and pets…

Other good news with dogs in Thailand: rabies is a sickness widespread in the country – with tens of thousands of dogs infected (apparently about 10% of all dogs in the Bangkok region!). In case you did not know, rabies is systematically deadly, in a quick and ugly manner. They cause among humans several hundred deaths in Thailand every year. We did the complete vaccination procedure (according to our doc in Augsburg we shall have the ultimate shield…), but that’s still not very reassuring. Yet people let dogs going around freer than free, anywhere in the country, and from time to time enjoy a dog-lick (which is with or without rabies disgusting anyway looking at the habits of dogs here!).

Dogs – they’re everywhere! That one was slightly too overfed to be of any danger…

Most of the country is also animist and Buddhist, implying that great-grand-uncle might be reincarnated into a four-legged creature, and most likely either a ‘’good-looking’’ or ‘’human-related’’ animal (we haven’t heard of woodworm or guinea fowl reincarnation). That means, nobody would take the risk to threaten making the spirit of great-great-uncle angry. I exaggerate obviously and over-simplify, but there is part of it in the problem. Southern Thailand is however mostly Muslim (proximity with Malaysia and Indonesia), and you get to enjoy a see a lot more wildlife there – but fewer dogs!

It is also a very calm society, where raising your voice and violence are considered bad-mannered (although as a contrast, some favorite hobbies in the country are Thai-boxing and rooster-or-various-animal fights…). There are frequently some (often old) people having an insane number of dogs (we are talking about tens) in their house (neutering is not common here, and some religious groups even oppose it) that they clearly do not control at all (yet feed all of them despite their basic means). They do not attempt to educate or correct any of them and become almost enslaved by the burden of dogs- ridiculous. We decided after a few days to simply boycott any shop, accommodation or restaurant having any dog that would simply bark – we have the choice of usually going to the next place a few hundred meters further, and even if the long-term effect is probably minimal, the decision is easy to make (even if we have to get back on the bike and restart pedaling).

There are mostly picture of sleeping dogs in the post because we didn’t remember to snap a pic mid flight/fight. A dog hosting as many fleas and mosquitos as nerve cells, here performing the famous burrito-yoga-position.

In short, the dogs seem to be a problem for everyone in the country. I have mentioned rabies, but they are causing accidents, bites, sicknesses, dog fights in the streets, waste, etc. It is even being a problem for the vital tourism industry (Thailand is by far the top destination in Asia) as being repeatedly listed as the biggest issue visitors have had.

What that meant to us? Well, we tried to take a lot of very small roads along the way and spent the last 3 weeks having about 10 to 20 dog chases per day. Surprisingly, there are almost no dogs on the highways, and dogs on the large roads are usually quieter (they possibly have been lobotomized by the diesel exhaust-pipes, or maybe the truck vs. pooch natural selection has been effective). But yes, we are talking about several hundred of dog chases in the last past weeks, to a point where Cassie refused to steer the tandem in the last days (and getting dog-related nightmares!). We even had a mini-Cassie-breakdown after yet another chase – realizing afterwards that this one was a miniature chihuahua (that was an exception and made us laugh later).

That has made us focus a lot more than we would have wished on them, and even though our love for mutts was not very high at the beginning, we now have a complete aversion towards them (and their owners by the way – although only about 99% of dog owners think that their dog is completely different from the others and way friendlier…).

These guys ran over barking at us when we pulled over to take a break, but lost interest by the time the camera was out, the butt of the other dog being probably more interesting.

Okay, the post is long enough, let’s not make it a shaggy-dog story!

Because you can’t teach on old-dog new tricks… we have tested and developed a few counter-chase techniques:

1. The “organic’’ technique: wear the stinkiest, sweatiest T-shirt. Easiest technique, as we often carry around a stinky T-shirt. It repulses humans, humans are mammals, dogs are mammals, so that could work too?
   • Result: effect null, it probably makes them feel that you are one of them… and they attack each other anyway.

2. The “go-as-fast-as-you-can’’: the goal is to outrun the dog! In this situation, you play the role of a doggy fast-food, also known as the KFC – Kilometer-Fast-Cyclist. They seem to run fast, but dogs in Thailand are not that big and probably get to eat too much Pad-Thai remains topped with plastic sauce. They run at maximum 25km/h, rarely more than 150m… so if you already go faster you should be fine, if you can go faster keep on pushing, and if you have already passed the dog before it realizes it can attack you, you have a good chance to win the pursuit.
   • Result: It works pretty well if you have a road without much traffic (zigzags and looking at the dog instead of traffic is rarely the safest bet), and for obvious reasons if it doesn’t go uphill). You get to joke how suckers those dogs are whenever they stop running – vexed and exhausted!

3. The “you’ve got teeth, I have ammo’’. This is the favorite technique of the locals when they are annoyed with the dogs. Pick up a bunch of stones at the beginning of the day (because there will be some chasing for sure), put them in your shirt and get ready whenever you have a dog facing you (otherwise save your ammo and try technique 2). Some dogs who already experienced this art of warfare understand quickly and deter just at the sight of a raised hand. If you are good enough at targeting (not our case), you make the newbies understand very quickly that things are getting serious. If the stone flies within 2m of the dog, you get to observe a 25km/h run in the opposite direction of the initial chase (probably a forgotten part of the Newtonian laws of dynamics…).
   • Result: works amazingly well! However, you need to save the stones throughout the day to not run-out of ammo at a bad encounter. Also, Cassie usually somehow manages to lose most of her stock before seeing the first dog. Targeting a dog while steering a 200kg loaded bicycle is however a bit tricky, and I unfortunately never managed to hit the goal… although some dogs will for sure remember the day when a meteorite flew right between their ears!

This guy would just bark at us from a distance but knew to stay away! We had stones ready… And the restaurant on the right side got boycotted because of it.

4. The “you-want-to-fight? Show me what you have!’’. Stop calmly the bicycle, put it on the kick-stand (because you want to finish it seriously!), then go towards the dog with mammoth steps, showing your eye-teeth (also called canine teeth… that’s the reason!) and make the dog understand that you are done eating chicken skewers on the side of the road.
   • Result: seriously annoying technique as you lose all momentum and energy cycling, however this is the most effective technique if you cannot outpace the dog or if going uphill. If the owner sees you after the fight (Thais usually are quite passive and seem to just be annoyed to have to wake up because of dogs fighting), make him understand with gestures that you haven’t tried anthropoid skewers…yet.

5. The “monsoon-approaches’’: empty your bottle of water in the face of the dog.
   • Result: Apparently an efficient method, but because we drink a lot of water and get water mostly from bottles we buy, we are saving the water (and use the method 3 instead). We cannot confirm the results because we haven’t tested.

6. The “hammer-of-Thor’’: that technique is a bit the last resort solution but requires some good steering skills to perfectly execute. If the dog is definitely too close to win a pursuit, and you don’t have anything to throw at it, unclip the cleats of the shoe (correct side preferably) and extend your leg (for muscle preparation), then flex, and send the metal front of the sole right in the nose of the dog.
   • Result: fantastic! The dog stops immediately, wondering where on hell did the teeth come from. You get to enjoy a huge unload of adrenalin during the action, and an even higher dose of dopamine afterwards! Probably better than any sort of drug or steroids usage. The dog will also probably remember for a while that cyclists are not funny people and will probably go back to its favorite hobby next time (usually licking its balls or sniffing its compatriots urine). We fully executed that figure only once, and that doggy still probably gets seismic aftershock in the snout. I almost got a second one a few weeks later, but it dodged the hammer at the last second. Every time, with a huge happiness to have finally got one: it’s just a dog-eat-dog world!

A hot-dog. And it’s hammer time!

7. The “bamboo-stick’’: cycle around Thailand with a 5ft long piece of wood and try to impale whatever runs into you. That technique probably descends from medieval knighthood melee tournaments.
   • Result: that works very poorly against dogs, mostly because maneuvering the stick while cycling is a difficult task. It works better in combination with technique for when no longer on the bicycle. Some dogs may however believe that the stick if for playing… It works remarkably well however against car drivers, as people are wondering what on earth you are doing with your bamboo (and also can no longer overtake you because you take the entire width of the road). It can be a little occurred whenever you encounter law-enforcement-forces (although they don’t enforce much on roads in Thailand)

8. The “very-very-spicy-hot-dog’’: yes, we are riding with a pepper-spray nearby (that we actually purchased as an anti-dumb-German-driver a few years ago) and take around as a last option against irksome humans (there are some…). Yet, its original purpose is against animals – mostly dogs in Europe (and only reason why it is openly sold, although a lot of ladies use it against inappropriate harassment)
   • Result: the result is particularly good in laboratory conditions, but yet the reality is more mixed on the field as you have to target the dog’s eyes very accurately at low level (but still while possibly riding). It also makes a cloud of capsicum that is likely to also spray yourself – the pepper lasts a loooong time and is not water or soap soluble! It however works as a preventive measure if you feel that a dog may relieve itself on your tent or tires (a small amount on the wheel hubs and you will see animals taking a long detour around the bike). It also works against cats who decide to sharpen their nails on your tires (as seen in Krabi).

This guy also really didn’t like us for the first minute, but quickly wanted all the love and attention from Cédric.

9. The “vocal cord test’’: the simplest and easiest technique. Open you mouth, send some air from your lungs and make the membrane vibrate. The loudest the better. After a few days, you can compete in the yell-louder-than-the-space-shuttle category. In a country where people are very quiet, it also works to wake up grandmas taking their 4^th nap of the day on a hammock.
   • Result: It works surprisingly well, especially against medium sized dogs. Small ones are a desperate case of brain liquification, and larger ones don’t seem to care much (but those also usually don’t run particularly fast, so you can attempt other techniques). This is the technique we have used the most, even if not super enjoyable during times of pharyngitis…

10. The “full-frontal’’: if the dog is in front of you, in the middle of the road, do not try to go around, but accelerate right into it! The dog will eventually figure out that the 200kg bullet might be a little too much, and quickly jump on the side of the road. It is likely to chase you as soon as it is behind you though.
    • Result: It avoids stopping the bicycle and gives a few seconds of extra time to take a leeway in the pursuit. That technique needs to be used together with any other one and does not work alone.

11. The “cannonball’’: it is more an exasperation technique than an avoidance method. If a dog seriously pisses you off, stop the bicycle safely, grab the biggest rock you find in the area (including part of a wall, the owner will just watch, quite stunned, at this hairy guy acting like a lunatic). Run behind the dog for a distance longer than the dog has ever been chased before (usually 20m), continue running so that the dog feels that something bad is going to happen, and then try to remember how Hulk does it in the Marvel movies! Load the rock over your head and try to create a crater right where the dog is located.
    • Result: Very poor results, according to the uncertainty principle in flea-bag-quantum-mechanics, the location, speed and trajectory are not correctly known simultaneously. It is however excellent to calm the nerves, it also works as a local entertainment event for local folks in the town where you complete that technique!

They either REALLY care about your presence or don’t

12. The “weatherman’’: probably the most “surrendering” approach to dogs. Simple facts: dogs don’t like rain (and even less heavy downpour) and they apparently don’t like heat either. The idea: bike whenever you see a thunderstorm (lightning very appreciated) or when the thermometer goes over 38c (100F).
    • Result: it works very effectively, the rain works as a particularly strong repulsive (who has ever said that it’s raining cats and dogs in Thailand?), the heat is funnier though, as dogs usually have the memory of a carp – they will leave their shadowy spot, start to run 10m, realize that life is too hard to move, put their tail between their legs, and go shamefully back to that nice shaded spot…

There are dogs like those ones absolutely at every corner… and obviously it’s never the dog of the person owning the restaurant/house/shed where the dog has been hanging around for the last decade.

Note: no animal has been harmed in these experiments and the making of this post.