Happy 1556! Year of the Snake

Taking a holiday from our holiday: Chinese new year in the big city!

We left our comfort zone in Nong khai, after a week of doing..well..not so much..We've been playing tourist though and seen a few amazing Wats  plus the town big tourist attraction: a big sculpture park. It was absolutely worth a visit, what a place! It's hard to describe it by words, but we took a bunch of pictures, so have a look at the end of the post.

Took us some time to find a room when we arrived in Nong Khai,everything was full, luckly we got the last room at Joommalee G.H. Turned out to be a super nice place!

On our way to the market to shop veggies.

We've met some really interesting people as well, walked up and down the streets (the same ones, it is a quiet small town) and asked our self why we like it so much here..Guess it's super easy to fall into a "this is home" feeling as soon as you stop somewhere for more than one night. We unpack our few belongings and there you go, we have ourselves a house! We decided to leave the day after tomorrow though, after all, we did bring our bicycles, it's about time we use them again.. We have a very nice 300 km along the Mekong ahead of us, before we enter the mountains and the river takes a swing into Laos. We read on several blogs, that this particularly bit,should be some of the best we'll get to do.. We're both super exited to hit the road again -it is very much needed after this fairly long break.
After the 300 km we will enter the real mountains and not those sissy hills we've been riding through so far. Miki is jumping up and down, no need to say, I'm less enthusiastic, but still looking forward -it sure will be a challenge for me! We wont pass many real towns on the way so not sure we'll be able to update the blog til we hit Nan, witch should be in about 550 km..

Community gardens along the mekong, first to arrive gets the spot.

Anyways, back to the reason for this post: Chinese new year in Udon Thani.
From previous years in Thailand, we know that most town celebrate the Chinese new year in one way or another, so to make sure we got a real party, we went to Udon Thani, the capital of this region, about 60 km south of Nong Khai.
Lets say, it's pretty big, at least compared to the small dusty towns we've passed so far. We checked in at a massive horror-hotel, amazing place, just the way we like it! The owner spoke no English, but we managed to get ourselves a single room with fan for only 220 B, pretty sweet deal.

(To Per) Let's start collecting sticks and open our own building company!

Chinese temple

Now that's a REAL cup of coffee!

Gate to "the wheel of life" at the sculpture park.

Seven headed Naga

Not sure if u can tell but this statues are between 12 and 20 meters high!

Mikele:

That's it! Im going on holiday!

Udon is a pretty big city and not having bicycles with us, sure made the difference.
We did a lot of walking and i can tell you, I'm not use to it anymore!
Most of the happening, malls, cafes and night markets, where located in the eastern part of town and it was a bit of a hike for my taste to get there. On the other hand, our hotel was located over a big square/parking lot (hard to tell in Thailand) that turned out to be the big celebration point for Chinese new year.
From around 4 pm the whole street got cut of from traffic and turned into a long party lane with a huge night market.
At the very beginning was the serious part of the celebration with different altars to bring offers to and monks giving the blessing.

Our great horror hotel once again...

Plenty of rikshaw in Udon Thani

Further on, people where selling all sort of different weird things, from mobile phones covers to cactus plants, but certainly the big hit this year where ukuleles. There where at least 4 stalls selling them!
The last part of the long road where occupied by food stalls, a lot of meat of course such as a whole deep fried pig that was chopped down through the night, prehistoric looking crabs and a lot of insects! Sure not my favourite!
Looking and looking, we found some vegetarian noodles and just when we thought: "this is it for the night" a vegetarian  stall pops up selling papaya salad and all sort of deep fried goods.
In the middle of the road, there was a long line of tables and chairs to sit and eat, it was funny to battle around and get a spot, aiming for those without piles of food left either under, or on top of the table. Another popular trick was to park either the little kid or the grand parents at the table, while the rest of the families raged around the food stalls.

Last beer at the night market before new year

The very end the road was closed off by a red stage, where the local celebrities from town where performing, there we sat for most of the night.
The celebration started with fireworks and the dragon approaching the stage in a cloud of smoke, it made it very hard to take a clear picture!
We where all prepared for celebration, armed with shakes and a little bottle of Thai rum to mix with and after some performances such as a kid popularity contest and presentation and speeches from the whole Udon Thani town hall members we where pretty knocked out and ready to go to bed... it was 21.30.
Who knows what happened to all the performers wearing amazing costumes and corps painting, probably acted at midnight!

The celebration begins

The dragon

Waving it around...

...in a cloud of smoke from fireworks

The altars...

Raging for a sit

Undreds of different stalls selling multicolou food, mostly dead

Sushi

Giant frying pan

Mekong white fish

Squashed squids or bookmarks...not sure about this one...

Some preistoric crab

A Whole deepfried Pig!

Finally some vegetarian food!

And a greasy table

The end of the line, the stage, where we spent most of the night

Getting ready to face the road again

Bueng Khan to Nong Khai

1/2/2013 - Bueng Khan to Pak Khat 68km 3h 45min.

Today it has been one of those amazing shortcut days. The rain was gone but the clouds still hanged around, still we decided to go and take the Chance. Turned out to be a good choice since the sun started shining trough the whole day.  Just at the little town of Ho Kham we took a right turn and left the noisy highway for a tiny street with no number, the conditions as usual are not great but the scenery made us forget about the bumps...and perhaps made us hit a few!     Further on an unexpected surprise was waiting. Lunch time was getting close and we had to find a shady spot, on secondary roads like this one bus stops are not common and finding a nice rest could be problematic.

Not this time dough, a singe indicated a turn on the right towards some caves so we decided to check it out.

Right thing to do! I'll let the pictures explain the rest.

Great hut means a great nap!

Same as yesterday???

The view from Ahong cave and still we couldn't find any cave...

After a bowl of noodles and a nap we easily rolled the last 15 km into town looking for a place to stay.

We checked in at the first place we found, got a shitty room but at least we had a swimming pool!!!

We even found a fair in town

Damn! That water was cold! Plus the two lurkers sitting at the back didn't really made the experience pleasant

Guess

2/2/2013 - Pak Khat to Nong Khai 94km 5h 30min

Typical Thai coffee stall

Nothing special for today, we got a bit stressed out just riding along the HW 212 after the nice ride from the day before.

Cant be pleasant every day!

The traffic was really heavy, loads of  fast trucks and dust until we got on a secondary road which brought us into town without even realising.

Banana's heaven on the way to Nong Khai

Toughest day so far!

31/1/13 Bueng Kan 3km, but very wet.

Finally the bad weather from China stroked on us. We where all packed and ready to go,checked out from the dodgy hotel we where staying at and went to get a coffee at the market. The sky looked cloudy but we've seen that before the past days and didn't bother us but then, ready to intake my first daily shot of caffeine, it started poring down monsoon style.

I'm booooooreeeedddd!!!

waited under the bus stop in front of the hospital for it to stop, waited and waited and waited but no stopping.

After some hours and a bowl of noodles we took the decision to check in a nicer hotel and stay the day doing some Internet....right choice, it kept on poring till 6 in the evening.

The hotel turned out to be greater than expected and we took full advantage of the free coffee and abused the local vegetarian restaurant. You must keep busy during a day of rain!

That Phanom to Ban Phaeng

27/1/13 That Phanom to Nakon Phanom  56km.

"Where do we go now?"

This morning we tried a different breakfast, sticky rice with fruit and soya milk, it worked really well and give us plenty of energy.
The main highway 212 we'r riding on, but avoid any time we have the chance, is busier than secondary roads and any time a truck passes us leaves behind a cloud of dust.
Around 30 km outside of That Phanom ther's a small village, not pointed on our map, with a great coffee stall just at the entrance of the market. The owner, who speaks good English was a pleasure to talk to so here it came the perfect excuse for a coffee and banana brake!
The flat road went fast on and once at destination we checked ourselves in at the "First Hotel" (thats the name!) just behind the clock tower. The place is very retro with a big yard inside the building and a tv room where u can hang out all night long with the owner.
We got a great deal with the room we got (beside the price), ground floor, which means push the bike to the door!
Nakon Phanom turned out to be a big and alive town, found a morning and night market and a vegetarian restaurant. We loved it right away and decided to stay one extra day.

Totally from "Akira"

Mountains in Laos

Clouds are kickin'in!

Ground floor rules

Mini oranges

28/1/13 Nakon Phanom to Ban Phaeng  100km

This morning after a DIY breakfast we manage to leave early, around 8.15, have a long stretch ahead and we'll try to make it to Bang Phaeng.
We started riding towards a little town called Tha Uthen about 25 km out of the city on the highway 212, turned out to be a very busy town with some sort of fair going on, stopped for coffee and bananas and on we went.
The 212 got really busy with traffic so we decided to take a turn some 20 km out of town on a secondary road closer to the Mekong, this path was only shown on our regional Thai map.
From there on the traffic dropped to zero and the scenery got really amazing.
The road stretches the whole way to Ban Phaeng passing through fields and many beautiful villages showing some great rural Thailand.
The bad side of the story was the condition of the road which was seriously bad, muddy and bumpy.
Today was our first cloudy/rainy day it made the ride pleasant but a bit messy. We found out that this part of Isaan is subject to cold wind from China so one day to another the temperature drops, clouds fill the sky and the rain starts.
Reached the village of Si Sumang we got a bit lost and the only signs we could find brought us back to the highway which we followed for 10 more km before reaching destination.
Ban Phaeng was bigger than expected, we drew through the main gate on the right, all the way down over a little bridge. There we got the first hotel we found.
Very nice place, very under construction! Got a bungalow filled with unnecessary gadgets, a pinkie little house in the middle of a destruction derby pit. Drop our stuff and went off to the night market to find some food.
We took the day after off and decided to explore the area, bike around the fields and visit some national park. Really amazing place!

The shorter road is not always the fastest 

Mini banana 

Sunrise on the Mekong

Loundry bike

Destruction derby resort

1st. week on the road: Flat land, A sore ass and 1000 plastic bags.

Here we are, Nakhon Phanom, enjoying a restday in this beautiful place by the Mekong. We arrived yesterday around 13.00 after a super flat 60 km. The plan was to only stay for the night, but after a walk around town and a snack at the nightmarket, we decided to stay an x-tra day. Really, we don't have to be somewhere at a certain time, so why not enjoy the good places we pass..
The road from Khon Chiam has by most parts been really really pretty, with lots of different nature surrounding us. Traffic has been light and generally the roads have been in a good condition, though it seems like thai government put new asphalt very randomly. You go from driving the most nice road, almost like flying, til the shittiest of the shittiest, where you have to keep all your focus on the road to avoid the big holes.

Temple by the river, Mukdahan

It's been a super nice week and i really enjoyed the ride so far. A bit of everything and a smooth start when it comes to hills -from tomorrow on will start the hilly parts, but i'm actually looking forward, since the straight, flat road gets just a bit too monotone after a while..
Being back on the road is amazing and after travelling 2 years in a row in thailand with the backpack, it's nice to do it by bike again. You meet so many people and have a lot of none-sense chats with random people - it's great! It prevents you from feeling isolated as a "Farang" down here. We've been practising our thai  a lot and are able to say a few more politeness things and by the end of the day, it  really makes a difference in how people experience you.
Though quit a few people do this road by bike, it still seems like us passing by is the highlight of the year! So many hellos during a day, it leaves your mouth all dry! But also a lot of nice conversations about daily life and of cause the head subjects: Italian football (which we love as you all very well know) and the -17 degrees it is at home right now (do i even need to ask myself what i'm doing down here??)

Lunchtime!!

Doo doo the river, again again..

Love these old thai wooden houses, Khemmerat

On the  way to That Phenom

I must admit, i was a bit nervous about how this first week back on the bike would be for me. It's been a while since i did my last biketrip and my shape is not near as good as it was a year ago. Despite of that, it's actually been alright for me and besides from a preeeety sore ass from time to time, i'm generally feeling good. Yesterday was the first day my legs felt tired and even after the 96 km we did from Khemmeret-Mukdahan a few days ago, i wasn't too smashed. It's a great feeling and everyday when we're on the road i'm so exited about what the day will bring! You can never tell in this country..
After a few long biketrips together with mikele, we're soo sorted..We have all the gear we need, super nice bikes and comfy things such as computers, trangia and travel pillows (really, BEST investment. Those rock look-alike pillows they use down here, leave your neck all crooket).

Sunrise over the Mekong in Mukdahan. Even on our rest-days i wake up real early. that's the way it goes when your daily routine is getting up at 6.30 to hit the road early and passing out before 10 in the evening!

Mukdahan

Alot of people don't understand why we choose to go with a kitchen, but really, once you're on the road, it's nice to be your own boss and decide for yourself when to eat and most of all, what. As a vegan down here, there's a certain limit for how much Khao pad pak, mai sai kai (fried rice and vegetables without egg) you can consume in a day. With the kitchen we buy  veggies in the morning at the local market, cook up a fast noodle soup for lunch, get some sticky rice at the chicken-stall in the nightmarket and make a quick stir fry -how easy is that?!! Often we find small local vegetarian eating places as well and we always fill up, but you can never be sure to hit one at the rigth time.
All in all, it's been a really awesome first week on the road. In a few days we will start entering the mountains, so maybe i wont be loving it as much the next time you hear from me;)

Mukdahan-That Phanom

Wat That Phanom

shiny new place we stayed in That Phanom. Was the cheapest we could find. For 300 baht we got a big room with a massive fridge, hot water and wifi -how luxurious is that?!

Miki's favourite hangout spot at the night market: The Patongko-stall, aka chinese doughnots

Those thai people sure know how to get best out of everything, here it's an old petrol station turned into a restaurant!