Na Haeo to Bang Khok

This morning was really fresh, it often happens when we are close to the mountains, sometimes at night it's even cold, probably because we are use to stand 35 degrees during the day, so when it drops to 20, it feels like it's freezing! Fortunately we had a warm cup of coffee brought to our doorstep, which often happens at resorts in Thailand.     We rolled back into town and bought some rice for our usual "rice and banana snack" after 30 km of cycling; and then left a bit worried, if what we had was enough calories, to keep us going through the hills.

The mountain is waiting for us!

We rode through some villages and flat land at first, it was almost as if the landscape wanted us to forget about the mountains ahead...All of a sudden we noticed a pickup truck on the side of the road, with a lot of plastic bags hanging from it. Local people and flies where surrounding it, giving the impression something very much needed was sold there!

The very well appreciated market pick up

Once close to it, we found out it was a rolling market, passing from town to town selling veggies, and not so great looking meat and fish -that's what the flies where on to! I guess this is the way to keep fed all these small villages that has no markets.

The locals wondered what business two like us had to do there, but once they saw we knew what it was about, they started pushing their products.

It really saved our day, we got a big bag of veggies, well as big as you can fit on a bike, and got two meals out of it.

There it was at km 20, the wall was waiting for us, it was hard to get to the top but for some reason , maybe the good experience from earlier on, we got on it and got rewarded with an amazing view and a sign telling us we where on a pass 1115m high. (hard to believe once i biked 4 time as high as that  with my good friend now home with a flat tire ;) all my love dude).

The 4 km downhill that came afterwards where pleasant too, after the experience, the rest of the day seamed like nothing.

We got to the village of Romklao, another nothing, and pushed through to the botanical garden, where we knew we could camp.

To get up there tough, we had some crazy steep 2 km to go, which we were not ready for, but once on top another surprise: toilet, showers and even Internet!

Camping at the botanical garden, what a luxury

The day after, we finally had some luck with the hills starting with a long descent, which brought us to a police checkpoint on a intersection, i noticed a boiler under a roof and told Stine, we may get some water out of the cops for a warm coffee. Once we stopped, we realised the place was actually a tourist stop where coffee was available for free and from the pictures on the wall, other cyclist passed by and camped there.

The intersection, free coffee and accommodation, only happens outside the western world

Our new friend, a cop , who would have ever said!

The cop in charge was really excited and took lots of pictures, could tell he loved it, exchanged some words and let us rest a bit. We both thought that the next time we come through,  we'll skip the camping uphill and go straight for this place!

From here on we biked through a long stretch of beautiful, green jungle, passing  waterfalls and having great view of Phu Soi Dao, a big mountain in a national park overlooking the area. This is one of the very few places in Thailand, where tigers can still be found and riding around it, i was  glad it got turned into a national park because once out of there, not a tree is left standing.

Instead pineapple plantations rule the landscape between one village and another. Lunch time was getting close and once again a pickup shop saved the day.

Phu Soi Dao waterfall provides another amazing camp spot...just mind the tigers...

Some jungle riding pictures

Cooking under a bus stop, we noticed some people taking something down from a tree, using a long bamboo stick. It was a red ants nest, a great construction, the size of a coconut made of leafs somehow glued together, something you would say a bird made.

Once on the ground, it was laid on a tray and let to rest for a while, until the angry ants had left in panic, i felt like the bite of this insect was pretty painful and the distance those people where taking from it, confirmed my fears, i guess a whole nest can seriously injure you!

Finally the ants abandoned their house and by shaking the nest, a woman was getting larva out of it, it looked like spelt grains, i often seen it sold in markets, but i would never have guessed what it really was!

What an emotions packed day! Now we only had some few km left before getting to our first "big town" in a while. We heard this place was bigger than other villages we previously passed and people loved to remark, "it even has a supermarket!".

16-2-2013 Ciang Kham to Na Haeo

1000km pictures, finally

Two days it took us through this two towns, very ready to leave Chiang Khan and excited about the hills ahead.





The firs day has been pretty confusing, we took a couple of wrong turns and had different opinions about what to do.
Beside that the road has been very interesting, lets call it a dirt track more than a road!
We had to cycle on a very rough surface, i didn't think this could happen in Thailand, and the second day the climb began with three hills to go over.

The road got pretty rough this couple of days

To me  the first one was the killer a 3 or 4 km climb with some of those typical Thai up hills that u can barely cycle on, i wish it was possible to capture it on pictures; but every climb was  rewarded with a descend, hard to enjoy though cause we had to keep concentrated in avoiding the many holes or not sliding on the gravel.

Fire along the road completely out of control was burning quite a big area, at least the flames weren't too high

On the second one we found a bush fire as if it wasn't hard enough to catch your breath, the smoke went straight down your longs.
On the other end we had a great shelter for our afternoon brake with a nice view over a valley and big rocks sticking out from the ground.
Day two we where in Na Haeo and had planned to stock up in food for the following couple of days since we dint know if we would make it to a town or had to camp, well, not much food there! Just a shop and a restaurant, at least we made it there, shop what we could and kept on going...

Amazing lunch spot

Could take a rest day in this shed!

The road made it hard to enjoy downhills

The end of the day in Na Haeo

When the going gets tough.

What a week it's been!! Some crazy days on the bike, driving through fields, jungle, plantations, national parks, nothing-ness and small villages. It's been amazing and it's been hard. There's been some looooong downhills and some unpleasant steep uphills (i even had to get of the bike a few time and push).

1160 m high, no wonder my face is so red.

 I know my shape is not the best, but damn, those thais sure spank that steepness sometimes, now i even have to change my break pads!
Well, enough wining, cause really, it's been totally worth the pain and sweat getting on top of those hills, enjoying the mountain views (to go downhill and then doing it all over again).

Yez, sorted once again; The veggies wagon has arrived!

The scenery has been priceless and we finally found some of that Thailand we both thought didn't exist anymore. It's such a different world out there among the small villages, far away from tourists, 7 elevens and tescos, makes you wish the whole country was still like that. How many times we didn't get invited for food, people brought us drinks or snacks, even though they don't have much to give. You wish you could give people something in return, but usually we don't carry much else than some veggies (witch looks like something you pull out of a Copenhagen dumpster on a hot July day), bananas and piss warm water -not exactly what you wanna offer people. Everyday we talk about what would be nice to bring down to people next time, but what do you bring from Denmark to such an exotic place that has everything? Rugbroed?? Maybe some Java Bov?? Yak!

Going downhill, weeeee!

And going uphill..hmm..

Well after a week in this amazing adventure, we're hooked on some more and are now planning where to go next. We have to make a visa run to Laos by the 6th of marts and after that, we'll probably stick around the north for a while, doing some more of those rural areas. 
As for now, we're taking a few days of in a small town called Nam Pad, trying to recover from a minor shitting disease, before we head north to Na Noi and Nan, passing through a water reservoir (sirikit dam) and some more hills.

This is just one of the type of jugles we passed, fresh and green.

13/2/2013 Nong Khai to Chiang Khan

Hard to get out of bed after such a long rest!

Narrow and busy 211 highway out of Nong Khai

Tobacco drying along the road

The first part of the day started a bit boring, on a narrow highway with no shoulder and too many trucks, but that's what happens usually when getting out of a busy town. That changed fast, soon we where back on a nice quiet road, bit of hills, but nothing scary and by 60 km we sat down at our beloved bus stop, ready to cook lunch.
Half way through our bowls of noodles, a line of pickup trucks stuffed with pineapples, pulls over next to us and get in the yard behind the bus stop.
A couple of people came out right away and started making conversation in a mix of Thai and English which we replied the same way.

Stuffed! And happy!

They where very nice. We asked about their work, they asked about us and we gave them a demonstration on how our cooking stove works, one of the men was really amazed!
Shortly after they brought us water, ice and a tray with 2 sliced pineapples (which we fastly stuffed down the head hole), the chatting went on for a bit longer, then we all went for a nap.
When we were about to leave, they came out with a bag of four pineapples, then continued to work. That added a bit of weight to the convoy but we couldn't say no! Especially after getting just a pic out of the huge bag of tamarind they offered us before!

The pineapple ninjas squad

The experience really gave a good start to the ride,besides that, for the next while, the road got really narrow and quiet, this time riding close enough to the Mekong to get the feeling we where actually following it. The river got really wide and slow, letting weird rock-formations and big sandy islands emerge.The accommodations got amazing too the next couple of days, in towns of Sangkhom and Pakchom where the view got spectacular and we could have easily spent a whole day staring at the water running by; but we had in mind to take that day in the old city of Chiang khan and riding hard on a bumpy 211we got there before lunch.

Town wasn't what we expected, accommodation wasn't worth for what you got and the town was really run down by tourism. we biked around for a while hunting down a cheap room away from the expensive waterline or something that would make us change our mind about the place...
It fast came, Mr Prayap, a teacher who runs a home stay, saw us riding up and down the road a few times and decided to give us a shout and offered us one of the rooms in his house for a very fare price!
A home stay is kind of an experience you are in people's house and that create a very nice atmosphere. We had a kitchen to cook in and spent a nice evening, sitting down with a nice man, exchanging stories and drinking coffee.

A very home made bridge connecting the restaurant to the bungalows

The amazing bungalow with river view we got in Sang Khom

They sure wanted to make you feel comfortable when they built this place

Chiang Khan by day

Cooking in Mr. Prayap's kitchen

Chiang Khan by night

The hills are waiting ahead

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