Some Mothers Do Have Em'

From Pai we completed the Mae Hong Son Loop. I'm not really very good at describing roads, all that I can say is that it was like a 1000km racetrack. My tyres were once again rounded when we completed it. The last night of the loop we stopped in a very nice guesthouse next to a river. There was limited parking space so I was forced to park in a bush. The next morning I had a small colony of giant red ants who had decided to make my radiator home.

We nipped back to Chiang Mai for one night so that we could plan our next step. We both wanted to spend Christmas somewhere nice, and since Carlos didn't have much time, yet still wanted to visit Laos and Cambodia, we decided to try to get to a beach in Southern Cambodia.

We set off East towards one of the border crossings with Laos through some fantastic mountain scenery down some very good small roads. Even the worse roads in Thailand are better than the best roads in India. They were only bad because they were being made into new roads and had a perfectly flat loose gravel covering. Feeling confident, I managed to drift a couple of times.

As it was getting dark we were in the middle of nowhere. Something flew out of a bush and hit me on my knee. I think it was a bird or a bat. We soon found a small town. There were no hotels but a grass common ground in front of a temple with a very randy dog where I asked a monk whether it would be ok to camp. It was, and we rode a couple of hundred metres to a restaurant to find some food. Since no one spoke English, and my Thai is limited to 'hello', 'thankyou', 'chicken' and 'pad thai', we had little choice in what was given to us - it turned out to be some rather nice instant noodles with fresh chicken and bok choy - delicious.

Afterwards we set off back the 200 metres to our camping ground. For some reason, Carlos decided to instigate colonial rules and rode on the wrong side of the road - to date he still doesn't know why. The oncoming truck that he collided with didn't agree. Thankfully they were not going too fast. Damage to the truck included a rather nice dent in the middle of the bumper. Carlos' mudguard was destroyed and his forks were twisted. We also found later that one of his brake disks seems to be a little out. The problem now was how to handle the tiny angry wife of the truck driver. Since we did not have insurance (3rd Party Insurance is mandatory in Thailand, but no one will insure a non Thai registered bike - Catch 22!) we could either bluff it using our European cover, or pay up. Lots of people turned up to watch this spectacle and the word 'Fallang' was mentioned many times. Thankfully a lady who spoke very good english was amongst them who informed us that they wanted 150,000 Baht for the damage. This equated to about 3000Euros. Yikes! After much further converstation it turned out there had been an error in translation and the sum was 15,000 Baht - 300 Euros, Better. I leant Carlos some money meaning he could avoid being lynched or a having to spend night in a police cell. I drafted up a piece of paper saying that the damage had been paid for and the matter was now closed and had both parties and a witness sign it - I felt like a UN amabassador.

We pushed Carlos' bike to the temple grounds and set to work making it roadworthy. After a good nights sleep, punctuated by various dog fights, we finished the work and could set off. We soon reached the Mekong and found two border crossings into Laos we weren't expecting. One was a brand new bridge not listed in Lonely Planet, the other was just a shallow river crossing. On the Thai side people sat in small shops selling every convenience imaginable. On the Laos side a woman washed her families underpants in the river.

The Unofficial road in Laos.

Whilst passing through a small village further down the road, I spotted a rather nice looking convenience shop and knowing how much Carlos likes to hang around drinking cola and smoking, decided to have a puncture on my front tyre. I repaired it in record time and once again we set off.

A little further down the road and at approximately 80kph and the master link on my chain decided it had had enough. The first I knew of this was when my engine cut and everything suddenly went silent... I knew what had happened and expected to slowly drift to a stop, instead things got interesting rather quickly. The chain locked up my back wheel and I came to a rather abrupt, yet stylish sideways skidding stop. Amazingly I had managed to stay upright so I turned to grin at Carlos. We dismounted to inspect the damage. Indeed the master link had dissapeared and a short search yielded no result so we made the decision to tow my bike with Carlos' about 1km back down the road to find a mechanic. My front tyre had also sprung another leak to make things interesting - I think the chain might have flicked forwards to do that.

The other way to stop whilst doing 80kph.

At the mechanics and they immediately knew what to do, cutting a link out and using one of the existing pins to fix the chain, only problem now was that it was too tight, so we ground the slot on the swing arm to allow the wheel to sit further forwards. Problem solved. I also got them to properly patch my tyres since I had had enough for one day. Total cost of work, about 4 Euros.

Once again we tried our luck at getting to the Laos border and made it to Nong Kai shortly after dark, a town seemingly exclusively populated with prostitutes and old Germans. We would head across the border the next day.

I am now in Laos and can't be bothered typing up much more so will update with further details of my adventures at a later date.

The Times They Are A Changin

I've just registered www.ktmdunk.co.uk, it will be easier to tell people that than the blogspot caffuffle, plus I can get stickers for the bike. I plan to just link it to here, so nothing should really change much. Just thought I'ld let you know.

Burning Japs, Tiger Brothels, Crazy Finns and Thai Biker Gangs - Thailand in a nutshell

So, we left Bangkok late one afternoon, when I can't remember, maybe a week ago. We headed out of the city on one of the highways we weren't allowed on but all the police were elsewhere. Once out of Bangkok, things quickly became more rural and we found some small tarmaced roads through the countryside. There are literally millions of small lanes around Thailand, all of them in good condition. You could spend weeks lost on them since they don't appear on any map or GPS.

We were heading to Kanchanaburi and the infamous 'Death Railway Bridge', an arrived shortly after it got dark, partly due to getting lost and partly because we keep setting off too late. The main street was full of Expat bars and hotels. We found somewhere to eat then a room and I went for a walk to take a photo of the bridge by night. I was unaware that for a week or two at the end of November/ early December, they have a big sound light and firework show. I turned up just as it had started and was rather reluctant to pay the 100B entry fee not knowing what was going on since everything was in Thai. I eventually succumbed and was show to a seat. The show was extravagant to say the least. Although I didn't have a clue what was being said, I gathered it told the story of the building of the bridge with lasers, lights and people marching up and down dressed as Japanese soldiers. At the end of the show a train filled with said soldiers rolled over the bridge before the finale - the destruction. There were fireworks, explosions, boats going up and down the river, men running around shooting guns then setting themselves on fire and throwing themselves into the water. It was all very American. I was rather glad to have seen it, but disappointed that after the show they lit the bloody thing up like Blackpool tower. Some of the softer lighting they used during the show would have been so much more appropriate.

The next morning we loaded up the bikes and headed on down to catch a glimpse during the day. I wandered along the rickety tracks on the bridge with other tourists. Suddenly a train whistled and we all had to dive for cover in one of the alcoves on the bridge whilst it came over. There was no railing and a rather long drop. Health and safety nuts would love it.

Back at the bike and random Thai tourists would come up to take a photo of themselves with my tigers. At one point I was caught by a family of 6 who all wanted an individual photo of me with their 6 individual cameras. None of them seemed to care who I was.

Our plan was to set off North to Chiang Mai, since Carlos does not have as much time as me and we were enjoying riding together. Once again we had set off late so were caught out at dusk once again a bit far from our destination of Tak. We decided to head to a nearby campsite in my Gps. 30 minutes later and we were in the middle of a jungle, in the dark, covered in mosquitos. We unanimously decided that it would probably be unwise to camp here and pressed on to a nearby city where we found a cheap room in a very nice wooden hotel. We even got a complimentary welcome pack, including the usual towel, complimentary soap, water, tea, coffee, noodles and .... complimentary condom... maybe we stayed in the wrong type of hotel.

We set off the next day to Chiang Mai, at first cruising on the highway. It's great to be able to travel at a decent speed without the fear of cows, monkeys, rickshaws and lorries hurling themselves at you. Despite what some people say, I find Thai drivers extremely courteous, especially when it comes to motorbikes. We stopped at a couple of petrol stations and 7-11's on the way. The girls who worked there giggled and waved at us. With all the conveniences, Thailand is a bit like America, but more friendly and less obese.

On the way to Chiang Mai we stumbles across Road 106. The previous video should suffice to elaborate. Carlos also created one, it should be over at www.sinewan.com. I'll link it when it appears.

In Chiang Mai we met up with Viviana, who has been stalking Carlos since Rishikesh in India. We went to the night food market, perched atop a rickshaw, not because the rickshaw was full, just because we wanted to. Every type of food imaginable was available at the market whilst a lone girl on a stage danced to some tradional music. Everyone ignored her. Later, kareoke started on the stage. Viviana and I sang New York New York to a not very enthusiastic Thai crowd.

The next day we decided to head off to, what I can only describe as, a Tiger Brothel. Essentially, the more you pay, the younger the tiger that you can pose with. Yes! You actually are able to pet and pose IN THE SAME CAGE as these man eating beasts. Most of us were apprehensive at first. I was, especially since I had spent 3 days in the jungle in India trying to spot a wild beast and knowing that a tiger can never really be tame. They are trained from birth not to 'play' with humans, but playing (gouging with their razor sharp claws) with each other is ok. It's a bit like Jurrasic Park with all the electric fences. At one point whilst we were in the cage, one of the 140kg adult tigers became rather engrossed in a 2 year old blonde boy on the other side of a fence. I've never seen an animals face just scream 'I WANT TO EAT YOU' before!

Although it was a fantastic experience, I'm still not fully convinced that it's right.

The next day Carlos and I went off on a little bike ride to the Phu Ping temple. I giggled because its pronounced Pooping. I enjoyed asking for directions.

We continued onwards since the GPS showed that the road eventually became a dirt track and continued in a small loop. We passed through jungle villages on a very steep track through the mountains. We met up with some mountain bikers who were rather surprised to see a KTM and Honda Varadero up there, let alone that we had brought them from Europe.

The track eventually led to a fantastic lake/reservoir with little huts on either side. Since we had essentially snuck in the back way we didn't have to pay the 20B entrance fee as I found out the next day. We had some food and napped in a hut. Carlos said it would have been extremely romantic if I wasnt there.

The night before my birthday we went out to celebrate. We became a rather mixed group from numerous nationalities and at midnight I had happy birthday sung in English, German, Italian, Thai and, my personal favourite, a personal rendition with a microphone in Finnish, by a guy who kept fishing cans of beer out of his rucksack all night and talking loudly about mushrooms. Most of the time we had no idea what he was saying but it kept us amused.

The next eve was a big biker meet in Chiang Mai so we popped along to have a look. There were mainly millions of Harleys there - the Thais love em. There was live music and lots of drinking. We were invited to sit with a biker group from Southern Thailand who we bumped into on the road the other day. They were fantastic hosts and we had a great time, especially since they were really interested in seeing the Helmet Cam videos from offroading, mainly because I stacked the bike 3 times.

Despite there only being 2 KTM's at the meet, mine and a 590 supermoto, I managed to find a stall that sold KTM T-shirts.

It was a great night. The live bands were apparently very famous. Later in the night a girl came over to our table and posed for pictures with everyone. We asked each other whether she was famous. She replied to us, in perfect English with and Australian accent, that yes, she was pretty famous around here, then stormed off. We still don't know who she was.

We are now in Pai. The first stop around the Mae Hong Son loop. 1000 odd km of perfect tarmac with 1800 odd twists and turns on it. Who ever counted them had nothing better to do. The road is fantastic, possibly better than anything the alps has to offer. Now I need breakfast so Adios!

Enjoy...

...the culmination of 6 hours late night hi-jinx with linux' crazy codecs and a woefully underpowered netbook.

Oh and the road was amazing too!

I've Gone Soft

Yesterday I Carlos gave me a lift to Red Baron. They had finished his bike, changed his tyres and oil and repaired his leaking fork seals.

When I arrived they had already checked my valves, repaired the leaking slave clutch cyclinder and changed the oil and filters. I set to work dismantling my wiring loom whilst my assigned mechanic set to work dismantling and rebuilding my frame. He did an incredible job, grinding down and redrilling sheared bolts and bodged previous repairs from Pakistan. Later it had transpired that they had done the oil change wrong (the reason why I kept insisting that I would help work on the bike) so we had to redo. When it was time to start the engine, and he saw that the starter motor didn't work, it took him 5 minutes with a multimeter to figure out the problem and modify the wiring loom with a small piece of wire. I was amazed since I had spent literaly hours pondering over the wiring diagram in a bemused state wondering where to start.

He made all sorts of small modifications to my bike, including turning my front axle on a lathe to make it easier to remove meaning I now longer have a need for the little bit of wood from the end of a broom that I carry everywhere to bash it out. He also modified my wiring loom to give more power to the starter motor and, after much explanation, made an addition to my radiator to give it a greater capacity - his insistent idea, not mine.

When it was time to fit new brake pads, I discovered that I have carried the wrong size all the way from England, thus I shall have to wait till the KTM dealers in Malaysia. Typical.

The total cost for 3 days work came to about £65. Normally I would pay that for 2 hours labour in the UK. I had to ask whether they had made a mistake.

Last night we went out drinking to celebrate, for a change. I lost a bet playing 'spot the Ladyboy' and am now sporting a rather attractive bright orange dreadlock. On my walk back to the hostel, about 2am, I was stopped by a policeman on a motorbike. Clearly he thought a man with a peculiar hair piece was up to no good. I decided to be polite and asked for his officer number and ID. He seemed taken aback that I would ask but complied, then asked for mine. I showed him my driving licence. He then asked to search me, I knew he was after drugs (Marc already has experience of the Thai police's determination to arrest people for possession) so let him search me. He prodded and poked and produced a tube of colgate toothpaste from my top pocket which I had just bought from a conveniently placed 7-11. He looked at me extremely suspiciously for this heinous offence then let me go. I think, thus far, I have been stopped by the police an average of once every two days. It won't be long till I have to pay a bribe for some trivial, self conceived riding offence.

I now have a pair of Ortlieb soft panners that I bought from www.k-trade-international.com. The owner, Uwe, was extremely helpful in trying to get the straps extended to fit my rack. Since it is a holiday, we were unable to find anywhere to do it, so I shall get it done in a few days in Chaing Mai. For now I will ride with the bags on either side of my seat, giving better weight distribution.

Tomorrow we will probably head off, first the the Bridge over the River Kwai (pronounced Kway, NOT Kwii) then further north.

Banging Around Bangkok

I was waiting till tomorrow to start working on my bike but Red Baron have started work without me and already cleaned my bike - it glistens, but probably not for long. They've also checked my valves. Hopefully I will be able to get most of the other things on my list done tomorrow before the public holiday on Saturday for the Kings birthday.

I've managed to find a shop that sells Ortlieb soft luggage (better for the bike offroad) so plan to invest in a set of those rather than the Pakistani 'Pouratechs' that I currently have - lesson learnt : Invest in decent stuff that you will be happy with before you leave rather than bodging your way around the World. My only concern is that they will not be as secure as the Aluminium panniers but I am also going to get a pac-safe locking system for my important stuff and will try to get a tankbag suitable for a KTM too, most things are too big without adequate fixings. They have KTM dealers in Malaysia so I may have to wait till then...

I have sorted a lot of my luggage out and reckon I have managed to decrease the crap I'm carrying 'just in case' by half. Instead of having 2 tool boxes and a tool bag, I have attempted to fit most things into a bum bag I bought, meaning that if I decide to go off road with no luggage, I can just take the essentials with me, or at least that's the idea. Now that I have almost repaired pretty much everything possible on the bike, I have a very good idea of what tools I need and what I don't.

I really feel at home in the guesthouse we have found. It's run by a Thai family with 'Mama' (grandma) calling the shots. She seems to approve of our bikes though.

The food here is absolutely amazing. Every 10 metres down a street is a small restaurant or barrow selling some awesome smelling goods. Every 20 metres is a 7-11. There are so many here that you can often be stood in a 7-11 on one side of the street looking at another on the other side.

Even the most basic stuff is much better than anything I ever had in India. I was really looking forwards to some good curries, but the best I had was a Jalfrezi in Pakistan. I had some noodle soup here the other day and had to spend 10 minutes picking out chillies, lemon grass and ginger with chopsticks before I could even start eating. I am slowly getting fatter and fatter. If I'm lucky i'll end up becoming one of those fat ex-pat old men who hangs around with a young Thai girl on each arm. I need to leave Bangkok soon.

I find it amazing that there is such a huge culture difference even though India is not so far away and the same resources exist in both countries. Here, people know that they don't have to work all the time to enjoy life. Over there, it's chaos.

I think that is all for my musings tonight.

I can't think of a witty title / catchphrase that vaguely describes the contents of this post at this precise moment in time.

So we returned to the Airport the next day, met our man who got us our passes then passed us onto one of his 'friends' who would show us to customs. We shook hands then walked off without them since I already knew where we had to go.

Upon arrival at customs we were eventually pointed to the right desk where a woman looked at our paperwork then sent us off for photocopies of various things. When we returned we had a problem. Since the paperwork for the shipping shipping of 3 bikes on 3 carnets was done in my name this would not do. We would have to get the paperwork modified to be in 3 names for 3 bikes with 3 carnets.

Off we went on a 2km walk to the Thai Air building where they didnt know what to do at first, then spent an hour doing what we needed. We then needed to go and get the storage bill split into 3, again they didn't know what to do and spent an hour doing it. In the end nothing was done so we returned to customs where the lady told us it was still a problem. I took the paper off her and put it in my pocket and told her that it wasn't a problem if it didn't exist. This seemed to make her happy and we were able to get a big pile of paper each which we signed in numerous places. No one asked for that piece of paper again.

Then it was time to traipse back off to the holding area to get the bikes. Upon arrival the guy in charge didn't know what to do with us so sent us to the Thai Air office upstairs, they sent us back downstairs where the same guy told us to go to another office where we got lots more stamps and signed the same paperwork again. Now we just had to get the bikes checked.

We now had a helpful guy who sorted out a fork lift to take the crates to the other side of the customs zone 1km away to be checked. When we all managed to get there we went into an office where they didn't know what to do. They told us we had to all go back, with the crates, to the other side of the zone, so off we went. At least I got a ride on a forklift.

Back where we had originally started we now went into another office where a man in a red t-shirt took each of our papers in turn, carefully removed all the staples, reshuffled them, then stapled them together again. We then sat in front of a short sighted old lady with a stamp for 30 minutes. She seemed very reluctant to stamp anything. I was also getting very bored so decided to wizz around the office on the swivelly office chair they had given me. Clearly this idea of fun had never appealed to anyone there and was greeted with much mirth.

Eventually we were assigned a young lad to watch us as we uncrated our bikes and made a lot of mess and noise. Lots of Thai's watched us but unlike the Indians it was a much more friendly atmosphere. We could even share jokes.

With the checks over we could get on with rebuilding our bikes. Marc stood on a nail, Carlos dropped his bike and everyone laughed at my tigers and squeaky toy horn. 3 hours later and we were ready to leave. In all, 7 hours doing paperwork and 3 hours rebuilding the bikes and we could hit Bangkok.

First we got petrol then tried to negotiate the 30km back to the guesthouse without going on any highways or bridges, since bikes aren't allowed on them.

1km from our destination, after taking a wrong turn, we failed and ended up going up a sliproad and onto a bridge. There was a police officer waiting for us. I was a bit miffed since there was no sign saying bridge or no bikes, also he stopped us in, what I thought, was a dangerous place, where cars were coming up the sliproad to join traffic. After playing the 'keep repeating where I'm going over and over again' routine, he demanded my international driving license and wanted us to turn around, again stupidly dangerous. I decided to leg it and made it back to the tourist area unhassled, despite a scare where I thought they had mobilised a couple of big BMW's after me, but I pretended that I was lost and nipped down some side streets. Carlos and Marc had to pay a small bribe for him to let them ride over the bridge.

After speaking to a British ex-pat, the done thing is to always have 100Baht (£2) in your international driving license and just to hand it over. This even works for speeding at 2 1/2times the posted limit and anything else they decide to stop you for.

Here is a sample of things to come with a short clip from 'Helmet Cam's' first test outing whilst on the way back to the guesthouse. It will be better during the day and also when I sing silly songs. Some editing also wouldn't go amiss.



When we arrived in the tourist area on the bikes we were surrounded by Thai girls who proclaimed that they 'loved us long time'. I tried to guess which ones used to be men.

My bike is now at the garage, I have to wait till Friday to go and start work, there's quite a bit to be done, but tomorrow is a Full Moon Party and I have Mr Mastercard to exercise some more as well as some artsy photos to take.