Author: Tim

It’s been a challenging past week for us as we’ve made our way from Mawlamyine to Yangon, and we’ve learned a lot about ourselves in the process.

Our big take away is that it’s time for us to pause or slow down for a bit, to put in perspective the huge jumble of experiences that we’ve experienced over the past year, figure out what is next for our trip, and re-energize after many draining (but rewarding) experiences of being cycling nomads for so long.

The roads after Mawlamyine got much better, with the road between Hpa An and Kyaiktiyo being an almost-completed widened highway, sometimes wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic in each direction. The traffic was moderate, but with that much space, it was easy to stay safe and out of the way.

But the biggest challenge for me was when my Montezuma’s revenge turned into full-blown food poisoning in Kyaiktiyo. When we arrived in town, the only hotels we could find had fogged out windows and little ventilation (except for the A/C), and I felt like I needed some more fresh air to settle my queasy stomach. So we found a “resort” on Google 3km outside of town but with almost no other info, so we took a chance and cycled out. When we arrived it looked quite nice but on the expensive side. Even so, we decided it would be a good place to relax for a night so we booked a room.

From 6pm for the next 40 hours, I was horribly ill, even worse than my last food poisoning incident in Bulgaria. Steve gave me a lot of space and brought me water and whatever else I needed, even though little of it stayed inside my tummy for very long, and I had absolutely no appetite. In the meantime, Steve booked us another night there and also started trying to find us a way to get to Yangon. I knew from past experience that it could be 4 days stuck in a hotel room, and it would be nice to have at least something more interesting around and also medical care in case it got worse.

It was during this time that we also chatted and decided that we needed a little break from cycle touring. The challenges that at first made this a fun adventure are starting to grate on our nerves after a year, and we are both in need of a bit more stability and time to reflect for a while. So with that, we decided to cut our trip to Myanmar short (we will come back, but maybe not by bicycle), get a 60-day visa to return to Thailand, and then find a place to rest for a little while, perhaps Chiang Mai.

So now we are in Yangon, my stomach problems continue (but are improving each day), and we’ve gotten our visa and will return to Thailand by Sunday, with the idea to then cycle to Chiang Mai.

So that’s the big picture. Now here are the little pictures!

Mawlamyine

This monk asked for a picture with us, so we asked for a selfie in return!

One of the main stupas in Mawlamyine at the top of the ridge that runs through the city.

Ornate metalwork on all the temples glints in the sun. It’s really breathtaking at times. Some of the stupas glitter with brilliance as you move past.

Leaving Mawlamyine, we saw a chance to avoid riding on the main road in exchange for what looked like a ferry on Google Maps. Actually it’s a little longtail boat that goes back and forth all day, so we joined the locals for a lovely 2-minute ride. We were not the only bicycle, surprisingly! Another local threw his on next to ours.

Ogre Island

There’s an island off the coast of Mawlamyine that’s just had a bridge built to it about 6 months ago and only has had electricity for about a year. Before that, it was extremely rural and difficult to get to. Now, it seems the whole island is under construction with new roads upgraded houses, reservoirs, and much more being built everywhere. It’s fascinating to see a region change so quickly and suddenly; your visit will undoubtedly be different from ours because things are changing literally every day.

The island is known throughout the country for its many handicrafts, so we took a guided tour to see many of these being produced.

(As usual, sorry these are all mixed up, the WordPress app seems to get worse with each update in terms of uploading photos; it’s extremely tedious now.)

There are still many buildings constructed with traditional materials like this, but many of them are now being rapidly rebuilt with concrete, stainless steel, and other modern techniques now that the bridge makes it easy to transport workers and equipment.

Locals from the mainland love to walk through the sunflower fields here to take selfies!

Our excellent tour guide and driver, arranged by Princess Hotel.

Driving through the farmland in our large tuk tuk.

Slate is a small industry on the island for making school blackboards for kids to use. The slate on Ogre Island is one of the highest quality in the country.

Brooms being made from natural material; we see brooms like these all through Asia.

Rubber is another big industry, with a lot of rubber being exported to China to make into car tires.

Slate pencils.

Rubber bands being hung to dry before cutting.

Rubber drying on sticks to form tubes to cut bands from.

In between spools of thread for making longyi (traditional clothing), each strand has to be painstakingly attached to the next one. (The makeup she is wearing on her face is called thanaka; it’s a traditional, all-natural makeup that also acts as sun protection. Some woman make beautiful patterns with it, and many apply it simply in circles.)

Rubber discards, sold as kindling.

In this metalsmithing shop, the bellows is run by a hand crank on this big wheel. The metals used are reclaimed from old bicycles and other scrap.

Amazing to see these completely manual looms made almost completely out of natural materials, wood, bamboo, and rope (a few plastic rods too!). It looks like tough work, and each woman can produce 4-6 longyi per day, which retail for around $4 each, at least that’s what we paid.

This ancient Japanese engine is still ticking just fine at the metalworking shop, running the grinder.

Metalsmith putting an edge on a new blade.

We also visited a potter and toured the kilns; these are some of the final products.

Hpa An

Workers unloading fruit in Hpa An.

On the road out of Hpa An, we ran into this German with a solar-powered e-bike! He’s got a knee injury but refused to let that stop him so uses the electric assist to compensate for his bad knee. He says the solar keeps the batteries charged just fine. Pretty awesome!

Yangon and Other Photos

You can find these noodles everywhere. They are often tasty and always really greasy. We quickly got tired of eating these as it’s often all we could figure out how to order in places that don’t have a menu and don’t speak English. The restaurants also usually have pots full of mystery curries with a thick layer of oil on top, which looked even less appetizing.

The best tea leaf salad we’ve had, maybe even better than Burma Superstar in San Francisco.

Most dishes are served with this side plate of potent, natural, antimicrobial vegetables (aka chilies and garlic), which seems like a very wise idea given the lack of food hygiene and refrigeration here. Unfortunately they weren’t strong enough to kill whatever got in my tummy.

Our new Thai visa! NB: we do qualify for a visa exemption on arrival at the land border, but it’s only a 30 day stamp (not 60), and you can only get a visa exemption twice per year at land border crossings, as of a recent change in the Thai visa rules. So we figured let’s do the legwork to apply for the longer one in Yangon. Very simple process, took 10 minutes to drop it off and 15 minutes to pick it up from the Thai Embassy.

We saw two Discovery Channel vans go by. Maybe they are filming a special on Myanmar?

The first item is the fried noodles! Other than that I have no clue. The numbers are all Sanskrit-ish, quite different from the Arabic numerals (0-9) used almost everywhere else in the world.

Betel nut and tobacco chewing is very prevalent here, it seems more so than in India. There are red stains everywhere on the ground and on cars and walls, and many people have red-stained teeth and mouth decay. We all have our own vices, but it’s sad to see this is so prevalent in the poor who can’t afford the dental work or medical care needed to repair the damage done by this habit.

Steve graciously offered to squeeze in with the bikes in the back seat so I could relax a little with my upset stomach in the front.

That’s all for now! Our next post may be from Chiang Mai, and we’ll let you know if we’re going to stay for a little while.

Awestruck at the number of stupas everywhere. It’s like icing on an already-beautiful cake.

Mae Sot

We spent a few rest days in Mae Sot before crossing the border to Myanmar, partly because we needed to make some minor repairs (new chains, sew up some holes in my shorts, find an electronics repair shop to fix my horn who’s cable had snapped, etc.). But also, we ended up meeting up with a really interesting guy who’s settled in Mae Sot for almost 20 years working with Burmese refuges and teaching.

Ton had some great recommendations for cycling in Myanmar, and while we were hanging out with him, we also ran into three other cycle tourists in town, all going the opposite direction, leaving Myanmar. So we had several meals together and traded stories and advice. One of the most fun random gatherings of cycle tourists we’ve had since Belgrade.

Here we all are at the excellent night market in Mae Sot.

Tea leaf salad, a famous Burmese dish, served at the co-op Ton works with, Borderline cafe, which also sells handicrafts made by Burmese refugees.

Wall art at Borderline cafe.

The road between Tak and Mae Sot was brutal in spots with the shoulder missing due to construction and 12% grades (over 1500 meters total climbing) so we walked a lot of it to keep out of the heavy truck traffic. We will find another way to go on the way back into Thailand.

He needs some work on his upper body, what do you think?

Myanmar Day 1

The cycle to the border and border crossing was really easy, just some paperwork to fill out. 10 minutes and done. On the way in, we met a Chinese cycle tourist who spoke almost no English, and we used Google Translate to say “let’s ride to Kawkareik together.”

We picked up some money at the ATM and bought some SIM cards. Our new Chinese friend had trouble translating what he wanted for a SIM card, so I helped him out and we got it working. As a thank you, he took us to breakfast at a Chinese restaurant, where he was able to order in Mandarin.

The chicken feet weren’t quite to our Western tastes, but we enjoyed the rice, cabbage soup, and stir fry (either liver or coagulated blood sauteed in veggies, not sure what it was but it was tasty).

These women saw us at the Chinese restaurant and asked us to go swimming with them. We had a long way to go so had to turn them down, so we did selfies instead. It’s like being in India again, where we get a lot of waves, thumbs up, hellos, and “mingalabar” (hello in Burmese). Being so new to foreigners and tourism, people are very genuinely interested in us, and it’s really refreshing and fun.

The “tourist police” checkpoints are a bit annoying. They stop us randomly and ask for our passports. I was suspicious at this one because his uniform looked cheaply made and when I asked for ID, he laughed and said “no ID”. Also, cars were driving by handing them 1000 kyat ($0.75US) notes, which seemed fishy. But it turns out it’s legit and we didn’t need to bribe them to get our passports back.

Our new Chinese friend wanted to continue further than Kawkareik, so we said good bye and friended each other on Facebook! We hope he has a great ride and some amazing experiences! Safe travels, 宇文之! Keep in touch.

In Kawkareik we met Su Su, an aspiring tour guide who speaks excellent English, and she was an absolute angel to us, helping us find a guesthouse, showing us a noodle factory, taking us cycling to a monk cremation ceremony where we were served free curry and rice, and even making us breakfast the next morning. We can’t thank her enough for easing our worries and making our introduction to Myanmar a more positive one.

The best hotels in town were full because of many Thais coming for the monk cremation festival, so Su Su found us this budget room.

It seems $10 doesn’t get you as much in Myanmar as in Thailand. We have been a bit spoiled I will admit, so this was a little challenging for us, but we were lucky to get one of the last rooms with its own bathroom, albeit with a squat toilet. The power was out so the fan didn’t work, and it was 100 degrees, so we decided to take a walk around town to be cooler.

Burmese text on a tablet near the town temple.

Entrance to the temple. Coca Cola really is world wide, isn’t it?

The cremation festival was really interesting and upbeat! The monk was in his 90s so it felt more like a celebration of life than a funeral. This structure houses the monk’s remains, which they will later burn that evening. People were buying small pieces of bamboo, walking up to the center, and making a pile there. Maybe it burns with the monk later. Around this structure was a huge market with many things for sale from mattresses to food. We were the only Westerners at the festival, so we got lots of greetings from other guests and vendors. We felt very welcomed. Su Su brought us to an area where free food is served to any who ask for it. The very low tables had us sitting nearly on the ground along with many others on the same bench joining in the feast. We had a lot of rice, some pork curry that was very greasy and fatty but flavorful, some fish broth that I didn’t care for, and some delicious sweets. The people were very generous to us, even finding a cloth napkin for us to wipe our hands. One man sat down next to us and had a conversation towards us, but none of us knew what he was saying; Su Su explained later he was speaking a local Kayin language that she doesn’t know.

We rode our bicycles to the festival, and Su Su asked her friends here if they would keep an eye on them while we walked around. They said sure, as long as they could have a photo with us. Our pleasure!!

Ride to Mawlamyine

The next day was one of the most challenging days of our trip so far and made us seriously reconsider our trip, not only in Myanmar, but overall.

The first 20+km were along a busy, narrow, poorly-paved road. With the aggressive and undisciplined drivers honking their way past us, forcing us off the road several times, and driving quite recklessly, we did not feel safe. The steering wheels are on the wrong side of the car for driving on the right hand side, so they overtake without being able to see if anyone is coming towards them. I was very thankful to have gotten my horn fixed in Mae Sot, as I used it dozens of times to warn oncoming traffic not to overtake. At times I had to hold out my hand to warn cars behind me not to pass me because they couldn’t see that it wasn’t safe! It was very stressful and dangerous, and I vowed not to continue in Myanmar if the roads continue like this.

Halfway into this mess, we ran into this brother/sister duo from Germany. They grew up cycle touring with their parents and are now out on their own. They originally were headed to Hpa-An, but when I told them about the possibility to get off this busy road and go instead to Mawlamyine, they quickly decided to join us. Ton and Su Su had given me instructions to take a ferry across the river in Kyonde and then cycle through rice paddies on the much less busy roads.

The ferry was more like a raft, and Su Su had written us a note in Burmese asking for directions, so I showed it to a gentleman on the raft and he smiled and pointed down confirming it was the right one!

It’s amazing what they take across on these things! Good thing for the life ring.

The road after the ferry was amazing for 5-10km, an elevated paved concrete road through the rice paddies and small villages. But it soon gave way to a long section of very rough dirt roads. It was better than being on the highway with traffic, but we were quickly all covered in a thick layer of red dust and dirt.

Once we made it to Kawt Bein, a small river side village, the road was again paved the rest of the way. We found a small restaurant that made us a delicious bowl of noodles. There’s a noodle soup I’ve fallen in love with here called oh nu khao swè, similar to Thailand’s khao soi soup. It’s a rich soup with chicken stock and coconut milk served on yellow noodles with lots of toppings. So good! These noodles were quite similar but more dry, less broth.

Some stunning and curious temples everywhere around.

Thank you Ton for warning us about the slats in this bridge where he crashed a few years ago. We safely walked across. If you zoom in here, you can see my bike and me are now covered in a thick layer of red dirt lol!

After such a tough day, we opted to hole up in a hotel that was well above our budget, but we needed to decompress and reconsider what to do next. If the roads continue to be this bad, we can’t continue; we don’t feel it’s safe. We are also feeling like our tolerance for adventure has decreased, after nearly a year on the road and a challenging time through India. Maybe it’s time to stop for a while to recharge our batteries and try to make sense of the huge jumble of experiences we’ve had and renew our thirst for adventure.

After speaking with some other cyclists who have been or are in Myanmar, we learned that the section between Kawkareik and Mawlamyine is one of the worst we will have to deal with, and we got a lot of encouragement to not give up. So, we decided to recharge a bit in Mawlamyine before continuing. We also decided to lessen our ambitions in Myanmar and skip Inle Lake and target Yangon by bike and then Bagan by train. After Myanmar, though, we are starting to consider taking a pause for a few months in Thailand to learn Thai and settle down for a bit.

So, we took a very lazy day at the hotel, only leaving once to meet up with some other cyclists whom we’ve been chatting with online. They are on their way from Vietnam to destinations unknown, about to continue a meditation course for another two weeks before heading back to Thailand and Malaysia. Talking to them reminded us that the best experiences happen when we don’t have a plan and we take everything day by day, and we hope to keep our options more open as we meander through Myanmar.

I’ve got a bit of Montezuma’s revenge going on (maybe that free pork curry is to blame??), so we are taking even a few more days in Mawlamyine and hiring a guide to show us around tomorrow when hopefully I can leave the toilet behind for a while. After that we will continue towards Yangon but we are doing our best to avoid having a strict schedule and instead just wander in that direction to see what we see.

Myanmar is slowly figuring out this tourism thing. It’s really interesting and fun to see their approach to tourists, which is often informed only loosely by how tourism works elsewhere. Servers hover awkwardly immediately after delivering a menu, rather than give you time to decide. Staff in hotels and tourist-friendly restaurants struggle to follow obtuse scripts designed for snooty British millionaires. But they relish any opportunity to practice their English and light up with smiles whenever we speak a word of Burmese.

It’s extremely refreshing to meet people who are so eager and genuine to welcome foreigners to their home, even when their ingenious and novel approaches to tourism sometimes feel a bit strange or naive. We can already see the big hearts of the Myanmar people shining through, proud of their country and eager to share it with those who are interested. We are really looking forward to seeing more and making friends and sharing our experiences here.

So we learned that the biggest Chinese New Year celebration in Thailand was happening in Nakhon Sawan, a town that we were planning to ride to 2 days before the big parade. We adjusted our schedule a bit to arrive in time to see the parade and had an amazing time.

There were very few farang, but everyone was happy and having fun and we mixed in with the crowd as best we could, enjoying the food, parade, and finale. It was an amazing night! I made a little video showing the highlights.

Running into these local events are the highlights of our cycling trip. We’ve seen German festivals in Italy, Hindu temple festivals in India, Gay Pride in Zagreb, Croatia, a wine festival in Novi Sad, and a summer festival in Dubrovnik, all by chance.

The past few weeks have been filled with fun adventures, a few failures and mishaps, amazing food (duh), heartwarming hospitality, and eye opening experiences.

After our stop in the Amphawa floating market area, we cycled inland towards Kanchanaburi, home of the infamous bridge over the River Kwai (pronounced like it rhymes with “eye”). We met up with a fellow cycle tourist who has settled in Thailand for the time being while waiting to continue cycle touring through India. We exchanged tips for India for tips in Thailand and had a really fun time getting to know him and a friend of his.

Too many Sangsum (local rum) and Coke for us, and too many mocktails for Steve! This is a huge sugar cane producing area, so we saw huge fields of it and truckloads full carrying them off for processing, growing along the many canals that fill the area.

Monn introduced us to kuay tieow gai (chicken noodle soup) made fresh every morning right by his house by a little old woman, and it was amazing! Those chicken meat balls are to die for.

The bridge over the River Kwai.

A Chinese cemetery, where there are perfectly laid-out family burial mounds with beautiful patterns in front.

We are not in tourist areas anymore! This restaurant we stopped at was really busy but not a bit of English was spoken or written. I tried my best but finally just ordered chicken fried rice. I’m getting better at deciphering menus since this, but it’s still a challenge.

I think probably 90% of the cables in Thailand are dark but everyone is afraid to tear them down…

We ended up staying a few nights in the backpacker area of Kanchanaburi and working on our bikes, relaxing, and meeting other travelers. Our cheapest room in Thailand yet, at $11 with a river view. Great place to spend some time, cockroaches included! We met a couple who are living in Myanmar and came to Thailand to renew their visa… It used to be the other way around; you’d go to Myanmar to renew your Thai visa, but with tourism picking up in Myanmar, it seems that some foreigners are calling Burma home now.

I had a small accident a few days earlier slipping and falling in the rain, and it was nice to give my road rash a chance to breath and heal, so we did a whole lot of nothing, in addition to sewing up my torn clothes and bags from the fall.

The bridge.

There are still bullet holes from the war.

Bangkok, city of Angels

After leaving Kanchanaburi, we had big ambitions of making it to Bangkok in one day, ambitions that were quickly ruined by a tedious day cycling on highways through endless sugar cane plantations, followed by following quaint but slow-going canals with intersections every few hundred meters and lots of dogs to dodge just sleeping in the street, mostly just ignoring us, but a few who wanted a bite of our juicy legs. Finally we gave up the ghost and found a cheap guest house that turned out to be near a university of some kind so was full of foreign students. Good news for us, as Steve needed to get a haircut, and I needed some antibiotics for my road rash, which had started to grow a bit funky. Steve found a Thai hipster barber shop that did a reasonable men’s cut. Generic antibiotics are over the counter in Thailand, so with the help of my doctor back home, I found an appropriate one and started taking a course. All the funky stuff went away within a couple of days and it’s healing nicely now.

Across the street from our hotel was a food court full of international students, which can mean only one thing, cheap tasty food! We had an amazing curry and some noodles for a few dollars. The next morning breakfast was a simple but incredible chicken fried rice, but the owner specializes in duck, so he threw in some duck soup for free, which was dark, rich, and flavorful. Yum, have I said how much I love Thailand yet??

The ride into Bangkok was just horrible. I absolutely do not recommend cycling into Bangkok. You should take a train or bus or something. But we hate those things, so we grumpily managed carrying our (fortunately light, bike packing) bikes over three pedestrian bridges to cross highways, braved nonstop (but slow) traffic, and joined a crew of locals for a taxi boat ride across the Chao Phraya river. The fare for locals was written as 3.5฿ each. I’ve never seen anything smaller than a 1 Baht coin so was hoping to get a 0.5฿ coin, but it was not to be because apparently foreigners with bikes get charged 10฿ each. Altogether it was an experience I’m glad I can talk about, but I wouldn’t repeat it.

Life in Bangkok is vibrant, chaotic, and wonderful. Where else in the world are there (numerous!!) street vendors selling nothing but various kinds of brooms?? And half the taxi cabs are pink!

We didn’t make a reservation for a room because the quantity of hotels and guesthouses in Bangkok is totally overwhelming. We messaged one, and they said we had to keep the bikes outside during the day. In a city of 8 million? No thanks. So we showed up with a few places in mind and our first choice, At Smile Guesthouse had an indifferent guy working at the front desk who didn’t seem thrilled to let our bikes in (shoes aren’t allowed, according to a big sign), but also didn’t appear to show any other kinds of emotions as we carried them up the stairs. And for $25 for a double with a private bath, with an attached bar, 1 block from Khao San Road in the middle of season, it was a really good choice.

We walked to the Golden Mount one day to ring the various bells for good luck and admire the city views.

We really wanted to eat at the Michelin star street food stall of renowned Jay Fai, but the waiting list is over 2 weeks. Next time we come through, we will reserve in advance. If you haven’t heard of her, YouTube it! I caught a picture of her with her signature goggles and wood-fired stove.

Instead, next door is “the best pad Thai in Bangkok” at Thipsamai. It is definitely the best I’ve ever had, for 90 Baht ($3) and a 45 minute wait. Highly recommended!

More bells at Golden Mount (sorry these aren’t in order, the Android app for WordPress really sucks).

Temple close up.

On the road to Bangkok we stopped at an Amazon Coffee; it’s like Thailand’s version of Starbucks. Every Amazon Coffee we’ve been to that has parking also has bike racks. How cool is that?? Starbucks, take note!

After having a good khao tom (rice soup) for breakfast one morning, we passed this shop selling nothing but steamed buns. If you’ve had dim sum before, you’ll recognize the pork buns with the pink dot. They also had different flavors, but when I saw them, I said, “we have to come back here for breakfast tomorrow.” And we did, twice!

Say what you will about Khao San Road, notorious backpacker party hotspot and center for counterfeit goods of all kinds. But it is a must-see place and definitely entertaining. It is not Thailand; it has grown into something totally unique. And that’s why we spent a few nights here with friends who happened to be in Bangkok when we were (we were going to miss each other by a few days but we made it happen!). So that’s how Angela came to taste a scorpion! Photo below (again, WordPress yadda yadda).

Cocktail bars are a huge thing in Thailand, it seems, and this bar had some amazing ones. This delicacy of passion fruit and chiles was delicious and quite provocative… What does it look like to you?

Dragon vs… flamingo?

The inside of that pork bun, with a little nugget of egg yolk. I could eat this every day!

These, on the other hand, are gross. It sounded horrible (sweet bean and salted egg, really?), but I was hoping for a “lost in translation” moment because they looked so good. But no, it tastes exactly like beans and (a bit spoiled, quite dry) egg. Blech.

She said it was pretty good! I dunno, I tried crickets last time I was in Thailand and did not care for the legs that got stuck in my teeth.

Here’s that “best pad Thai in Bangkok” served wrapped in an egg. You have to try it!

Ringing the bells!

So my SD card died and I bought a new one. I had some suspicion that it could be fake, but do people actually waste time counterfeiting a $20 product? Yup!! Yes they do. Ran a test on it… Actually capacity, 1GB. Actual speed, unusable. Don’t buy electronics in Thailand, lesson learned.

Our bikes nice and cozy in our Bangkok hotel.

Ancient Capitals

Leaving Bangkok, we’ve been making our way north though the ancient Thai capitals towards the border crossing with Myanmar. One we got out of Bangkok, the cycling has become amazing, lots of quiet country roads through fields of rice paddies, sugar cane, and other crops. Random aggressive dogs too, but so far only one or two have nipped at our heels; 95% ignore us, 4% bark, and the 1% bark and chase.

We decided to stop and let this herd cross since we weren’t in a hurry. The cattle herder yelled “thank you” to us for stopping. We had intended to climb up those mountains towards Khao Yai national park, but after 20km on an 8-lane busy highway, we called it quits.

We love the night markets where you can get the most amazing Thai food for the best prices. But I think we end up spending just as much as at a restaurant because our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. The little bags of curries are the best because they are premade for the Thai pallet, so you know you are getting a really authentic meal, something that’s impossible for a foreigner to order in a restaurant (unless you speak really good Thai!). Unfortunately it also means it’s made with the parts of the animals that foreigners don’t usually eat. My bag of pork stir fry had an amazing flavor and tremendous spice but the pork had bits of indigestible tough skin still attached to it. This stall in the picture was making all kinds of egg pancakes; the grumpy woman didn’t like farangs with cameras; I don’t blame her.

Super fresh seafood everywhere.

For Valentine’s Day, we found a resort in the foothills of the mountains with a Chinese style cottage. The little floor cushions are surprisingly comfortable!

Lopburi is one of the ancient Thai capitals, and we stayed at the backpacker favorite, Noom’s Guesthouse. It was a perfect choice, cheap and right in the middle of the old city, where there was a festival happening for King Narai.

Our Valentine’s Day cottage.

Ayutthaya temple ruins, one of the ancient Thai capitals.

King Narai festival in the ancient palace in Lopburi. Locals dress up in traditional outfits.

Narai palace, Lopburi.

Palace ruins with an event setup; they hold light shows and traditional performance art events here during the festival, I believe. All the info online and on posters is in Thai so it’s hard to find out what’s happening when. If you ask a local, they’re likely to say it’s something that farangs wouldn’t be interested in.

Lots of people in very traditional dress with photographers following them around.

So cool to see these ancient ruins superimposed on a busy modern Asian city in the midst of a festival.

More locals in traditional dress with guards.

They had music, speeches, and fireworks in this plaza all night long. (And big blow-up minions!!)

We learned that it’s Chinese New Year’s and the biggest celebration in Thailand is in Nakhon Sawan. By slowing down a couple of days, we will be there for the big parades! So we’ve been meandering around the area, finding small boutique hotels set amidst small banana farms, and cycling along the many canals. Sunday we will arrive in Nakhon Sawan and see the parade and enjoy the festivities (and food!).

And yes, the year here is 2561, not 2018! That’s talking some getting used to… Even Google search shows 2561 as the date, so weird!!

Thai food continues to astound me. Especially the street food. We have been enjoying the most amazing food we’ve ever eaten, and it’s everywhere! At each city we stop in, we head for the daily market or night market and find the most amazing things, each one for 50c-$1 or so. We can’t help but stuff ourselves every day! We need to start riding around in circles or else we will gain 20 lbs, damn!

Grilled lobster and seafood in Hua Hin.

Amphawa floating market – there are many boats like this with fresh seafood cooking up all sorts of Thai dishes with huge prawns, squid, crabs, and other seafood.

Another boat kitchen.

We had lunch here.

Amazingly fresh!

Some of the biggest and tastiest prawns I’ve ever had. (Though I still dream of the prawns of Denia, Spain, by far THE best prawns I’ve ever tasted, sorry Thailand…)

Amazing pork noodle soup for 20฿.

Grilled scallops.

Floating market in full swing.

Dried fish and other snacks for sale at the floating market.

Egg custard pies, very similar (but not quite as good) as the famous pastel de nada of Portugal.

Some of the engines on these long tail boats are all decked out… Love the Michelin man on this one!

For dessert, coconut ice cream in a coconut shell with fresh coconut pulp carved out, topped with sweetened mung beans, peanuts, and sticky rice. Yum!

Non-food pictures

Zoom in on that critter towards the bottom of the photo. That is a monitor lizzard! We see them popping up in the rivers here from time to time, swimming around, flicking their tongues, and then ducking back underwater. Creepy! I asked a Thai guy if they bite, and he laughed and said, “no eat”. So I’m still not sure… Either Thais don’t eat the lizzards, or the lizzards don’t eat people. It could be an important distinction.

Really interesting temple we cycled by.

Another cycle tourist we met near Hua Hin on an unexpected enjoyable separated cycle lane paralleling the highway, riding a folding Bromptom bike on a few week tour of Thailand. He’s been all over SE Asia and gave us some good advice for our upcoming route.

Our guest house near the Amphawa floating market is immediately on the canal. Waters are very high right now. Riding in, several of the roads were flooded and we had to make some detours, running across highway medians carrying our bikes, and braving cycling through a few deep puddles in flooded streets due to the washed out roads.

Not really sure what this guy is up to in Hua Hin.

Intricate tiled elephant tusk statue in Phetchaburi.

Will try to post fewer food photos next time lol!

I’m going to bring this flavor back home, hot chili squid! It’s really good, who’s with me? I love the play on Thai/Latin letters in the Lays logo. It reads as “lay” in both Thai and English because of the way they write the letters, pretty cool. Lay vs. เลย์

After a short break in Surat Thani, we headed out at sunrise towards the Ko Samui ferry, aiming to catch the 11am one. It was a stunning quiet ride through palm groves and marshland. A few muddy dirt tracks after the recent rain, but all good. Some of the local dogs chased us a bit, but we’ve found that our super loud horns we picked up in India seem to give them pause, and so far none have gotten anywhere near enough to feel threatening.

Ko Samui

We waffled about whether we should even go to Ko Samui at all because it’s super touristy and more expensive, but we finally decided to give it a few days so we could chill on the beach some more and also we needed to get our visa extended, and Ko Samui has one of the better immigration office to get this done at.

We made great time on our ride and got to the ferry before 10am. We said Ko Samui at the ticket booth, and they rushed us onto a boat (“2 minutes!” they said). Only after we got onboard did we realize it was going to the wrong port on Samui, so we ended up having to cycle 25km more through another rain storm once we arrived. But, we made it and got a decent last-minute deal on a bungalow on the beach and enjoyed some more leisure time.

I probably had too much beer…

More fire shows on the beach.

Busy beach at sunset…

Ran into a friend and her wife on their honeymoon who I met on the AIDS/LifeCycle bicycle ride over 7 years ago! So random and awesome! The love bubble continues worldwide!

It’s that kind of place, I guess. Who washes their feet in the toilet??? Gross!

This kitty is living the island life.

We actually had an amazing hamburger on Samui. I almost always eat local food when I travel, but Samui is so touristy anyway, it’s hard to find the really local stuff, though we did find a food steamed pork bun for breakfast and a decent night food market.

Who wants a rainbow unicorn pool floaty?

Thailand’s visa system is so complicated and always changing. Here’s the latest on the allowed extensions. They walked us through the forms, photos, and passport copies needed.

We also applied for and received our Myanmar e-Visa! It’s much easier crossing from Thailand to Myanmar than from India.

Gulf Coast

After Samui, we cycled north up the Gulf of Thailand coast, roughly following the same route that I rode with an organized ride over two years ago, but stopping to smell the roses much more.

The view from our great homestay in Prachuap Khiri Khan, run by a really friendly and interesting French/Thai couple.

We cycle by temples all day long and decided to check out this reclining Buddha.

This bridge looked impassable until we watched a tuk tuk drive over it. We walked, thank you very much…

Stunningly beautiful teak temple with intricate woodworking.

Can you get tired of cycling by views like this all day?

One of our funky little guesthouses had weird themed table and chairs. Nice cheap bungalows right on the beach but with grumpy staff and stand-offish European guests, though we met four Germans staying there who are doing their own two-week cycle tour along the coast.

I was going to go swimming until I saw this bad boy… I think that skull pattern indicates that this is a box jellyfish, one of the most deadly creatures around, killing swimmers every year. Many of the local hotels have warnings up about jellyfish here. No swimming for me, thanks!

Friendly kitty watching our bikes for us.

I was crazy enough to let Steve rent a scooter so we could drive out to a national park to do some hiking. Scared me to death! I was a horrible back seat driver too… Steve loved it.

It’s quite a hike to this cave, is it worth it?

Sweating like crazy!

Yeah, totally worth it. Damn!! I can’t understand how they built this temple inside this cave. You have to hike over two huge rocky hills (1400ft tall) and then down into this cave, which has no way out except the hole above the temple. So everything was carried in. For scale, you can barely make out a few tourists in the bottom right.

We cheated on the way back and hired a long tail boat to save us the last small climb.

And next we continue north away from the coast and towards the Myanmar border crossing, which we should reach in a couple of weeks.

It has been such a huge contrast riding in Thailand after nearly three months in India. Suddenly there are cycle lanes on many of the roads, well-paved shoulders, quiet country lanes with no traffic, no honking, and only a few motor bikes riding the wrong way against traffic. Life on the road seems amazingly civilized here, and yet I remember how chaotic I thought it was last time I cycled here over two years ago. Perspective is a funny thing.

Phuket Town

Before getting back on our bicycles, we had one more day in Phuket Town, where a friend from California joined us.

We hiked up “Monkey Hill” to get up and close with the nearly-domesticated monkeys that locals and tourists have been feeding for years. Steve loves them, but I keep reminding him that the wild monkeys we see elsewhere can be mean and bite and steal water bottles and other food. A monkey bite means two weeks in the hospital getting rabies shots. But these guys were super sweet and tame, spoiled by endless bananas and peanuts.

Our wonderful hosts at In Phuket House, a budget hotel in Phuket Town, this sister and brother couple went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed.

Phuket Town is full of Sino-Portuguese architecture.

Also some beautiful temples with crazy intricate carvings.

Chinese red lanterns are a sign of prosperous business; here is one of the more fancy ones in the Chinatown of Phuket Town.

The sun glints off the golden outcroppings on the temples. Buddhist temples feel very approachable and welcoming, very peaceful, clean, and open. We’ve been told that many temples will allow cyclists to camp on the grounds if you ask nicely. We are regretting a bit sending our tents home, as it’s becoming clear that Thailand has some fantastic camping opportunities in temples, parks, and beaches.

On the road to Khao Sok National Park

In Khao Lak is this police boat, a monument to the tsunami of 2004 that killed hundreds of thousands in Thailand, India, and throughout Asia. The movie about the tsunami, The Impossible, was based and filmed in Khao Lak.

Randomly on the side of the road are piles of discarded spirit houses, known as spirit house graveyards. Doing some reading and asking around, what we can figure out is this… When Thais build a house on some land, they also build an elaborate miniature house called a spirit house, to appease the spirits whom they are displacing from the property. The spirits take up residence in this house and don’t bother the people living in the main house. When you need to discard a spirit house, there’s a very complicated and elaborate ritual that has to take place to keep the spirits happy (usually involving building the spirits an even nicer spirit house to inhabit). But some people ignore that ritual and discard of the old house in these spirit house graveyards. These graveyards are seen by many as haunted because the very unhappy spirits living in the houses have been forcibly relocated. Spooky!

We didn’t see any elephants…

Our adorable bungalow in the middle of Khao Sok national park.

We did a little hiking on the trails.

Lots of bamboo. There’s lots to see in the park, waterfalls and streams, but it was too late in the afternoon to start a serious trek.

The landscapes through the park are stunning.

Rubber is a big product of this area, and we rode through endless rubber tree farms.

A huge dam in the park and the hydro-electric generator. A lot of people hire a long tail boat to tour the lake, but it was too late and too hazy/rainy to make it worthwhile.

Dam selfies!

This year will mark Steve’s 50th in July!

Finally we are starting to meet other cycle tourists. This is Tim from Florida, also on a long-term tour.

And a woman from Germany who started at home 9 months ago.

We spent a rest day in Surat Thani, where we relaxed and enjoyed the night market and waited out the rain before catching the ferry to Ko Samui. More about that in the next blog!

Okay it’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I’m going to start with the good stuff, the food!

Aside from the one order of larb moo (spicy grilled ground pork) that ended up having pig entrails grilled in with it, and aside from the challenge of a farang trying to get spicy food, the food has been unquestionably amazing. From night markets, to side-of-the-road holes in the wall, to street vendors, to fancy places, we’ve been in foodie heaven.

Restaurants

We could both eat shrimp pad Thai every single day, but we are doing our best to branch out and try new things.

We rotate through the various curries, red, yellow, green, and panang. There’s also a jungle curry but we haven’t tried that one yet. Always ordered phet mak mak krap (very very spicy), but usually received phet nit noi (a little spicy)… Luckily for spice lovers in Thailand, every place has “plic nam pah”, a mixture of Thai (birdseye) chiles and fish sauce, and you are expected to doctor up your dish to your preferred level of saltiness and spiciness.

Adding a fried egg on top of your Thai food is a real thing here, and you have to try it!

Every region of Thailand has their local specialties that you can’t find easily outside. In Phuket Town, they are known for their Malaysian-inspired (formerly Chinese-inspired) noodle dishes like the Hokkien noodles at this local place, Mee Ton Poe. And of course, you can add an egg on top, and you should. The noodles didn’t blow me away but were full of flavor and really cheap.

As we were cycling near Khao Sok National Park, a woman with a small pond-side restaurant called out to us, “hello!” I asked Steve, “are you hungry?” “I could eat,” he said. So we turned around and pulled up a plastic chair. It was a small place across the street from a construction zone and several locals stopped by for a quick bite while we were there. They didn’t speak a lot of English but were all smiles and seemed tickled that we’d come back to eat with them. They had a pot of broth boiling, so I pointed at that and said, “soup?” The chef nodded and then pointed at some noodles, three different kinds. We chose the wide ones and then she motioned for us to sit. She poured the hot broth over the noodles and then added chunks of grilled sliced chicken, sliced fish cake, meat balls, and something that was either bone marrow or chicken liver. For condiments, we had bean sprouts, green onions, cucumbers, cabbage, chili flakes, and chili paste (like Sriracha). It was a perfect lunch for 30฿ per bowl ($1).

Another chance delicious road-side meal, we were leaving Surat Thani early in the morning to make the ferry to Ko Samui. There were shops and stalls everywhere with all kinds of food. In this area, it seems to have a lot of Chinese influence, and so there were lots of dim sum places. We stopped at one and the lady there waved us inside and spoke quite good English and explained we should pick out several dishes (all raw, under a glass deli case). I picked these three, pork balls with mushrooms, pork ball in fish cake with carrots, and my favorite dim sum item of all time, a pork bun! The dishes are then put in these bamboo containers and steamed. The pork bun, for me, was better than the ones you pay $5+ each at Yank Sing in San Francisco. (The other two dishes didn’t knock my socks off but were tasty enough for 50c.)

I had this whole “white snapper” deep fried with spicy sauce, and it was delicious! We’ll be leaving the Gulf of Thailand soon, so I wanted to make sure to try some of the fish while I can.

Street food

Surat Thani has an excellent night market, so we visited twice on the two nights we stayed there.

These little dough balls of octopus or shrimp are cooked through and then covered with spices and seaweed.

Skewers of meat, fish and meatballs are everywhere. You can choose a sauce to put on top.

Tasty small grilled veggie cakes. Some may have had fish or meat, not sure! You kind of just have to go with the flow and point at whatever looks good unless you can read Thai! I think this would be a lot more difficult for anyone with dietary restrictions.

Seasoned fish cakes on a spit. This time, I know it was fish because I saw “ปลา” on the sign along with a dozen other Thai letters and know that’s “plah”, the word for fish. One woman mixed and formed the fish balls, and the guy (off-picture) furiously spun and moved around the skewers over hot coals to get exactly the right level of doneness, even snipping off bits of char to keep it from burning. We waited 10 minutes for ours, and they were worth it.

The classic mango sticky rice but with colored rice was delicious but a bit pricey at 50฿. Look at us complaining about $1.65 dessert.

Convenience store food

I always like to see what’s for sale in the convenience stores. It’s usually a weird mix of local favorites plus what they think foreigners miss from home.

Sorry but no… We had some amazing cuttlefish pintchos in Spain, but these don’t look good.

I don’t think this packaging would fly in the US. A bit explicit, I think? Maybe it’s just me.

Is it going in or out of his mouth? Either way, is this appetizing to anyone? I do like roasted seaweed though.

Mango lovin’!

Two aisles of ramen and cup o’ noodles, but they don’t have any Snickers bars.

I hope you are enjoying my food posts, I’ll write about our recent travels soon!