LAOS - THAILAND BORDER CROSSING:
The next day, I wandered down to the customs house to get my carnet stamped and enquire about the car ferry supposed to take my bike across the river to Thailand. I was promptly told it was not in operation on a Sunday and, just in case I was inclining towards it, the passenger barge would under no circumstances take a motorbike. Extremely indisposed to waste a day in Huay Xai, a town, as Neil and I discovered the night before, of fierce dogs and little else, I approached a group of people at the wharf and managed to charter a small boat for the crossing. With the use of a plank and my two man crew, we see-sawed the bike onto the little craft, but, due to its small size and curved hull, were unable to put the stand down to stabilise it. As a remedy to this, we crossed with me sitting on the bike, legs outstretched against port and starboard to curb any risk of capsizing - it felt as though I was riding on the water.
Neil was fortunate enough to arrive on the passenger barge just in time to help us unload the bike. He then disappeared with an incredibly hospitable old Thai lady who had invited us both to tea - I unfortunately couldn't go as I was waiting on a truant customs official who in fact never turned up, causing me big problems later on.
CHAING MAI:
Intermittent monsoonal showers coupled with a very effective blow-dry, followed me on the beautifully undulating road to Chaing Mai, which I made in good time. Having been waiting around a good few hours for Neil to pitch up (and patiently resisting getting some supper without him) I began to get a little anxious of his delay, and, when he still hadn't turned up by 9 o'clock, I strode off to the bus station, bracing myself for news of a crash. Having (on an empty stomach) walked two miles to the wrong bus station and, at one point, very nearly been run over by some boy-racer on his Honda scooter, I was beginning to think Neil had better sustained some serious injuries for all the trouble I was going to. A moment later, a tuk-tuk rushed past me and I heard a familiar 'jaasssp!' as it screeched to a halt. Apparently all earlier buses had been booked up but all I ask is a little thought to leave a message at the guesthouse....
After a night on the sauce celebrating Neil's continued existence, we were up early for a day's serious activity involving trekking, elephant rides, white-water and bamboo rafting. The fact that we only started to sober up at about 3 in the afternoon made the day extra enjoyable (We discovered later that Beer Chang, our usual Thai drop, wasn't the assumed 5% but varied from 6-12%, with rumoured quantities of Formaldehyde). Muay-Thai (Thai kick-boxing) was certainly something that interested us both (to watch only) and, since there were daily fights in Chaing Mai, we decided to go along. Expecting nothing less than 'Bloodsport Part II' (shattered limbs and spraying arteries for those who haven't seen it the movie), we were a little disconcerted when the first two combatants who entered the ring can't have been anything over 6 years old. One of them certainly looked aggressive enough and performed his warm-up with fierce ostentation (Neil and I were careful to avoid eye-contact) while his opponent merely slumped in his corner with the kind of timid expression you would expect him to give his mother on leaving him for his first day at school (although, to be honest, he did look a little young to be going to school). A bit shocked and ashamed that we'd payed money to see a small child get pulverised, we each ordered another beer and waited for the entertainment to begin.
In the end it was our favourite who got pulverised, his frightening warm-up being the extent of his repertoire. Although playground fights hadn't been exactly what we'd expected, the violence was supposed to increase with each fight, building up to a grand finale for the tenth. There was also a quite hilarious half-time ritual whereby eight young fighters were blindfolded and put in the ring all at once, to wave punches around madly in the hope of occasionally making some connection. Much to the crowd's amusement, more often than not it was the referee who got smacked to the canvas.
By the tenth we'd seen bigger boys and girls but, disappointingly, the ring was still free of blood or discarded digits or limbs. When, for the tenth, a big, athletic-looking Englishman (Jean Claude Van Damme aka Frankie Dux) entered the ring, things started to look promising - all that was needed now was a worthy opponent of the ilk of Bloodsport's ruthless Chong Li.
Now, Thai kick boxers are invariably of a steely, wiry build, so, when a severely overweight boy of possibly ten years his opponent's junior stepped into the ring and set about warming up, Neil and I thought there must be some mistake. The fight, sure enough, ended in a convincing win for England (although the chubby kid was undoubtedly tough), and although we'd had fun, we went away still wanting of seeing a properly competitive match. SUKOTHAI - BANGKOK:
The ride down to Bangkok (via a cultural excursion to the momentous Sukothai Historical Park) was exceedingly wet and miserable - the usually intermittent showers gathering together to form one constant downpour which decided to follow me all the way to the capital. My temperament was not improved by the fact that, after Sukothai, my bank card stopped working, meaning that I wasn't able to but any food en route and had to pay for petrol in dollars (an awkward business as they generally aren't accepted, although an already filled tank gives them little choice).
Arriving at Bangkok's outskirts 9 hours after leaving Sukothai, soaked through and starving, the city's ridiculous traffic and nonsensical signs were not what I particularly felt like dealing with. Having taken the wrong turning once already and ended up in a hospital for half an hour, while a bunch of nurses argued over the best directions to give me, I finally found my road, only to be pulled up by the police moments later. My crime was that I was on a causeway prohibited to two-wheelers who were only allowed on the smaller side-roads.
As he was writing out my ticket, I pleaded with him that I was new to Bangkok and didn't know the rules, adding the entirely relevant question of what football team he supported. With exclamations of 'No way, that's my team too!' and blurting out one or two players, his smile broadened and he waved me on my way, telling me to keep to the by-roads. Not wanting to dishonour his kindness, but knowing full well that keeping to the by-roads meant delving headlong into a stinking morass of unmoving traffic, inscrutable signs and jumbled streets, I nipped back onto the causeway at my first opportunity, confidant that my run-in with the police had been nothing more than an isolated instance of bad luck.
Five minutes later, I found myself once again being guided into the side of the road, madly trying to muster a countenance of utter innocence and surprise. Very luckily, the exact speech I'd just made worked a dream for a second time and I hurried away, worried that my original detractor might, at any moment, catch up and give the game away. Having been caught and escaped twice, I decided that I'd probably ridden my luck out and took the prudent option of diving headlong into the labyrinth of streets and traffic. An hour and a half later, still sopping wet and starving, I finally stumbled into a youth hostel, got some food on credit, had a shower and went to bed.
BANGKOK:
I had a lot of admin to get on with in Bangkok - I had to order a new passport (mine was full), arrange a cargo vessel to take my bike to Japan (after much investigation I'd discovered it was only possible to ride in China as part of an organised and very expensive tour) and take my bike in for a much needed service, whereby I discovered that that funny noise that 3rd gear had always made, but hitherto been ignored, was actually a very serious problem which could soon end in one of the relevant cog-teeth snapping off within the engine (not good). I therefore decided to submit my bike for some serious engine surgery and looked forward to the novelty having a usable third gear.
TIGER TEMPLE:
With the customs clearance for the bike's shipment only possible with my new passport, due in two weeks, and my bike awaiting parts from Japan, I headed off on a train to Kanchanaburi to meet up with Neil and Steve (a wandering cockney we'd met in Chaing Mai). Having rented out scooters (really made me appreciate my bike) we made our way 40km outside of town to 'Tiger Temple', a Buddhist monastery turned tiger orphanage.
KANCHANABURI:
Kanchanaburi is also home to the infamous bridge over the River Kwai, first constructed in 1942-3 by British and Australian POWs under the brutal supervision of the Japanese, causing the deaths of 1740 prisoners and many more local workers. It was fascinating to take a walk along the bridge, imagining all the terrible hardships people endured to get it built 60 years ago. The cost of the struggle to engineer the 'death railway' as it is called, can be enumerated by the thousands of memorial plaques set in Kanchanaburi's immaculately kept war cemetery, each plaque personalised by an engraved, heartfelt final message from the soldier's family.
KHO TAO:
Mecca to underwater junkies and beach paradise-seekers, we headed off to Kho Tao, a truly idyllic tropical island off Thailand's east coast. A week of unrivaled luxury was spent partaking in a mind-blowing 4 day scuba diving course, a days barracuda fishing followed by one of the best meals we'd ever had, snorkeling with black-tip reef sharks, relaxing in the hotel pool or on the absolutely flawless beach, and being entertained by insatiably raunchy Americans in the atmospheric beach bars. An amazing week.
Having said my byes to Steve, an extremely agreeable travel companion, and seeing Neil back in Bangkok in a few days, I hurried back to the capital to hopefully pick up a new passport and a motorcycle with a sparklingly revamped engine as well as clear my bike through customs to have it packed for shipment to Japan. I had a flight booked to Hanoi, in northern Vietnam, from where I intended to continue overland on trains to Shanghai, via Nanning and Hangzhou, and to board a ferry for Osaka to meet my bike as it came into port in Tokyo on the 15th June.
Things were cut very fine allowing absolutely no leeway for delays, so, when I arrived at 'Dynamic motors' to pick up my motorbike, I was a little alarmed to find only a hollow shell, with its engine lying unattended beside it, splayed out like a mangled organ. Despite having repeatedly told him about my immovable deadline, the chief mechanic still showed a little surprise when I insisted that the job had to be completed by tomorrow. Restoring a bit of my confidence, he assured me that he would get the job done even if he had to keep his mechanics going till midnight. As it happened, he did have to keep them going to midnight, with me nervously looking on, making sure no shortcuts were being taken.
Without small relief, I managed the next morning to get my bike to the customs house at Bangkok port, and meet my freight forwarder to immediately get on with our first objective - getting the bike cleared through customs.
For some odd reason, Thailand don't accept the carnet de passage when bringing a vehicle into the country, instead they give you a sheet of paper which you must present on exit before your visa runs out or risk incurring a fine of $12,000. When I entered Thailand from Laos, the dozy customs official had been off on a break somewhere so I asked immigration to give me some proof that my bike entered the country on that day. I filled in an 'Information of Conveyance' form and got it stamped, thinking this would be sufficient paperwork for exiting. When the customs officials at Bangkok port discovered I didn't have the correct entry form (although what I did have fulfilled exactly the same purposes) their simple solution was for me to ride the 2000km round trip back to the Laos border post to go and fetch a form.
Absolutely aghast with this ridiculous solution, I told my forwarder that if it came to it, we were going to have to go up to the official's office and, with my forwarder acting as interpreter, get on our knees and beg him to be reasonable. Fortunately, we were spared this indignity and received news, with tremendous relief and gratitude, that the customs official had decided it might be more sensible to just let them fax the document.
Having cleared the bike, I rode it round the corner to the port where we were expecting to find our crating agent. Unfortunately, he called to say he couldn't get to the port before evening but to leave the bike and my bags in a pile to be crated later on. I was extremely unhappy about leaving all my stuff unguarded in a port full of dodgy looking characters and insisted that it should at least be stored for the day in a container. I wanted to stay myself but had to get back into town to order a Vietnam visa before 6 o'clock, the last opportunity to do so in time for my scheduled flight to Hanoi. And so, once again, I was forced to abandon my beloved bike and all my stuff, only able to pray that it will be safely loaded onto the ship and and arrive in Tokyo port on the 15th, when I'll hopefully be there to collect it. With a resigned attitude that accompanies being left at the mercy of fate, I met up with Neil, back in Bangkok to catch a flight to Sydney, and shared a final day with him in Bangkok. I'd been in South-East Asia nearly 4 months and was definitely excited to be finally moving on. Traveling around with Neil and Meryl had been an absolute pleasure and, on the point of saying goodbye to Neil, I knew I would heartily miss his company in the weeks ahead (even if he does drone on all the time about how expensive everything is). So it was with fond farewells that I got in my taxi to the airport, animated by the prospect of new adventures ahead, and nostalgic with all those that South-East Asia had provided.