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Diary
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Saturday, 7 September 2002 We are currently in Bangkok, Thailand. We have now been on the road for 123 days and we've covered 13 287 miles (21 259 kilometres) on our bikes. We spent our last day in Kathmandu ,over a week ago now, on mountain bikes enjoying what the Kathmandu valley has to offer. Unfortunately the traffic is quite bad in this area so the offroad sections were really enjoyed, away from the hustle and bustle of cars, trucks and busses. It's not easy to find the biking routes and we stumbled upon a temple on the river where the daily cremations were being held. We joined some other tourists and watched the process of stacking a pile of logs, very similar to that of making a braai, and then laying the deceased relative on top of this. Then it's a simple lighting process and away you go! There were 3 bodies at various stages of the process so we managed to get a full picture. This area is very sacred to the Hindus and even though this is happening around the corner, still people are bathing themselves 100m downstream! Quite bizarre really! Dom and Gary flew with Royal Nepal airlines to Bangkok early on Monday morning. The view of the Himalayas was short and a tad obscured by cloud but it's amazing that when you consider that you are at 29 000 feet and you can see snow capped peaks at that same level! Damian flew Thai air in the afternoon, he has since gone onto Perth to visit his sister, Rulan for a few weeks in Australia before coming back to Thailand for a week and then onto London. We stayed near the airport for 2
nights so as to be close to the customs/cargo area where we would have to
spend at least a day to get our bikes back to normal. It took us the whole
day of Tuesday to get our bikes out of the airport. The main problem is
not knowing where to start or in what order to proceed. It's quite a
frustrating process in that there are many touts outside the customs
office only too willing to help but we've heard stories of them requesting
100 pounds after they've done so! In order to avoid the confrontations we
decided to do things ourselves. We arrived before 9am and only managed to
ride our bikes away at 5pm. 1. First you have to split the airway bill if you have more than one bike shipped together. This is done at the Customer Service Centre, 1km south of the domestic terminal. The original document is provided (we only had a photocopy from our agent) and stapled to some other papers. 2. Then we went to the Personal Effects customs office. Here we had a tout help us but we soon ditched him when he asked for our passports outside at a dodgy looking table. But as he'd shown us where to go we found a customs officer, who willingly asked us to sit in his waiting room while he filled out some paperwork - about 5 pages for each bike! He asked for our passports and carnets. The carnets were only used for the engine and chassis number, they were not stamped at all. This took close to 3 hours sitting in his waiting room as he had to get his superior to approve his work. Among this paperwork was the Thai temporary vehicle import "white paper" (you sign to say that if you do not re-export the bike within the time stated you are liable to pay 500 000 Thai Baht - US $ 12 000 import fee!). 3. Then it's off to the Manifest Dept. Don't ask me what they do but there was some stamping and signing of our paperwork. 4. The final step is to pay the
airline for the clearance fee and service. This amounted to TB 545 (about
US $ 13) for each bike. You get 3 days free storage, which we hadn't
exceeded but it's about US $ 100 per day if you do store a bike there for
longer than that. 5. Once the customs official had re-approved all this paperwork, we headed for the warehouse located a further 1km south of the customs offices. You can catch a motorcycle taxi for about TB 10 (US $ 0.25) but have your wits about you! 6. Outside the warehouse we visited the office and presented our paperwork. This is again approved by their officials then passed onto someone who takes it into another office located inside the actual warehouse. Here it is delegated to one of the many forklift drivers cruising about the place. 7. In the meantime we handed in our passports in exchange for a security pass and entered the warehouse to find our long lost bikes! 8. Once they were delivered by forklift, to a nice spacious area within the warehouse, we started the uncrating process. The local workers there were really good and when we needed some extra help lifting the bikes up to assemble the front wheels they were only too keen. Eventually we rode our bikes out of the airport with smiles on our faces! The whole process is a longwinded one but with a little patience it's not too bad. The airport staff, whether working for the airline we used (Thai Air) or the government (customs) were very helpful and never once complained or held out their hands for money. After this taxing day we had an early night and then on Wednesday we moved into central Bangkok. The simple 20 something kilometres into the centre took us almost 3 hours to cover as the Expressways don't allow motorcycles on them. In order to find the equivalent roads taking you in takes some time, a lot of patience and a compass! We didn't have a decent map so it was guesswork but we eventually found a great place to stay with safe parking for the bikes. It's in northern Banglampoo close to the river next to the infamous Shanti Lodge, Sawadee Guest House. The next 2 days were spent looking for spares for the bikes. We caught a boat into town, a reliable "taxi" service used by most of the locals to go to work. We managed to find good quality Castrol oil and so took an afternoon to change our 10 000 km old oil. The next day was spent not looking for the actual parts but a reputable shop, which would cater for our bikes. The average bike here is a 125 cc so nothing like our monsters! . We needed tyres quite desperately as our wonderful Michelin T66's had eventually come to the end of their life. We found 2 shops, which were pretty good, but only 1 could provide us with what we required. A pretty informative website on bike shops in central Bangkok was all we used: http://www.oocities.org/bkkriders/shops It has a map of the area and also a description as to what the shop specializes in. The first shop we used, Riders Club
could only get some motorcross knobbly tyres but we decided to look
elsewhere. We found Dynamic Motors, also recommended on Horizons
Unlimited, but his service is shocking. He did eventually come through but
not without the (far too often) occasional nudge. Yong, the manager,
promised us we could come the following morning at 9 and the tyres could
be fitted. Only 1 set of tyres appeared after we had removed both wheels
from both bikes. We had to get the old tyres removed and new ones put on
at the car tyre shop adjacent, we had to catch a cab to the other side of
town to get the wheels balanced and we did all the labour! However, this
is Asia and we were glad to have new tyres provided in just one day. The
Michelins we were on, the reliable T66's were only being delivered in
November! So now we have new rubber: Bridgestone Trailwings on both bikes (TW47 front and TW48 back). They are a bit knobblier than the Michelins but with the monsoons and floods aplenty at this time of year, they may prove very handy! The front page of the daily Bangkok post is full of floods here and floods there so who knows what's in store for us up north should we decide to venture up there this week. Yesterday evening, after the bikes had been sorted out, we could finally be tourists again! We tried to find Patpong, the world renowned red light district of Bangkok but instead stumbled upon Soi Cowboy, a smaller version. We met Brian, a US expat, who took us to a show at one of the local go go bars. Here you feel a little uncomfortable for the first few minutes, but once you realize what's going on it's not so bad! The Thai girls that work in the bar literally throw themselves at you but once they realize you are only there to watch the show they are very friendly and are quite interesting to talk to. There are as many working girls as there are customers and half of them perform on stage while the others tend to the customers. This then changes every half hour. Today we visited Gary's distant relation, Lorraine out near Bagna on the road to Chomburi. This is an area where the expats live so is a completely refreshing change from the centre of Bangkok. It has huge houses, golf courses, wide-open spaces and we even spotted a monitor lizard soaking up the sun! It was a bit of a nightmare to navigate the Bangkok traffic but was worth the journey just to see how things operate on the roads. Once again the expressways were out of bounds but we managed, with Gary driving and Dom navigating on the back. It's very hot and humid here now and with the traffic lights taking between 5 and 10 mintues to change it was in the bikes best interest to switch off during stops to avoid overheating! We were treated to a lovely lunch and a swim and then we returned to the centre of Bangkok. Tomorrow we'll be full blow
tourists taking in some of the wonderful sights this place has to offer,
temples, grand palace, etc. We have also yet to see some Thai boxing so
may do that on Monday night before deciding what to do over the next 2
weeks (flooded northern Thailand or a sunny beach somewhere.difficult
decision!) Saturday , 31
August 2002 Our motorbikes were put to rest and we swapped them for mountain bikes to take in some of the hilly terrain around the area. There is a company called Raniban Mountain Bikes (bikes@raniban.com or +977 61 22219). They are not far from the center and they offer top quality bikes (Marin/Giant,etc.) at reasonable rates. They also had a guide who was great at finding the steepest and muddiest paths! We did 2 rides, one out to Sarangkot high above Pokhara where we had fantastic views, between the monsoon clouds, of the Annapurna range. The other ride was along the route where the Shangrila Airways plane crashed into the side of a mountain while we were staying in the area. We visited the site where 15 foreigners and 3 local people were killed. It was truly horrific and our sympathies go out to the families who have to endure this terrible tragedy. We did one motorbike ride out on the road to Baglung. It was raining and wet but after a few days of this kind of weather we decided that we had to get out and do something! A South African tourist, Greg joined us on a bike he hired locally whilst on holiday. The bike, a Yamaha XT250 was not in good condition with smooth tyres and no back brakes! Greg soon found out the hard way that this bike was not suitable as, while we were crossing a stream, he braked hard behind us and lost the front wheel coming down quite hard. The bike was ok but he fractured his ankle with an immediate swelling arising! We lifted him back to town while Damian rode the hired bike cautiously back. He had his leg cast in plaster Paris and still had to fit the bill for the damage! A warning to anyone hiring a bike when on holiday! We departed Pokhara late on Sunday, the 25th August hoping to reach Kathmandu before sunset, as it was only 200 kilometers. However, we were in for a bit of a surprise as, due to the monsoons playing havoc with the roads (landslides, mudslides, bridges being washed away, etc.) we were stopped soon after Mugling. A very recent landslide that was still in progress blocked the road ahead. Boulders the size of a small car were still tumbling down as we joined the locals spectating from a safe distance. It would be some time before a bulldozer would arrive and only when it was safe to do so, would he start to clear it. This could take anything up to 5 or 6 hours, so we decided to take the alternative route, firstly heading south from Mugling and then east parallel with the main road alongside the famous Royal Chitwan National Park. This route was good to begin with but once we started to head north again to join the main road we entered the mountainous Mahabharat range. The road was a mix of very windy, narrow stretches of mud, broken tar and gravel. The monsoons have really taken their toll on the road. We managed to stay upright the entire way but due to the fading light and mist it was a difficult task. Once we reached Daman it was a better road to Kathmandu and we eventually arrived, exhausted, in the tourist area of Tamel with the help of a local taxi at 11pm. We have now been in Kathmandu 6 days of which Wednesday was the biggest day for us! It was the day we sent our bikes from Kathmandu by aeroplane! Dom and Gary's bikes are going to Bangkok and Damian's to London. Damian has decided, for personal reasons, not to continue traveling by bike from Nepal so will be in Thailand for 1 month before flying back to the UK. His wife, Karen will be visiting for a week from 21 - 28 September and they'll fly back together. He crated his bike, which will sit in storage for one month in Kathmandu, before going to London. The crating process: Once you have driven the bike onto the base, about 5 inches longer than the bike and twice the width, the front wheel is taken out. There are 6 local guys holding it up off the ground and it's placed on its forks onto the base. Then it's strapped to the base using a ratchet type strap, one at the front and one at the back. The tyres are let down, the fuel drained, our panniers placed into position and tied down and the front wheel strapped to the side of the bike. Before any of this is done the local customs officials do a thorough inspection of everything that's going into the crate. Once all this is done, the carpenter puts the sides and top on the crate and away it goes into the warehouse. It is carried by the local guys, 4 each side and up and away! The paperwork is something that
takes some time to sort out and the agent is busy carrying your carnet and
passport back and forth while the bikes being packed. Ishowar was great throughout and very thorough about the whole process. We were a little nervous putting our bikes on a plane, but the process is quite simple and Ishowar made it that much easier with his professional attitude. He has done many bikes before and it showed in the way he handled things. Damians agent: Kishor Kishor is an extremely knowledgeable person and with 15 years experience in this business it shows! His managing director, Kiran Shrestha and Badri were all very helpful in the process of sending the bike to London. They are a large organization and are responsible for many of Kathmandu's exports. Damian met Kishor in Pokhara, as he spends some of his time there. After the bikes had been left safely in the hands of the airlines we headed back with a feeling of relief to the hotel. Over the last few days we've been out to dinner with the respective agents, who were only too keen to show us a bit of Kathmandu, the real stuff rather than the touristy stuff. Dom and Gary were treated to some traditional Nepalese food and then a men's only club where Nepalese women show off their talents! It's all pretty tame compared to the Western society we are used to! We have also hired mountain bikes and did some cycling today. Kiran from Universal was very kind in offering to take us up to Nagarkot in his van, saving our legs from an exhausting 30km, 800m ascent to the wonderful gem of Nepal. From here we managed to see most of the Himalayas and then we descended down some rugged offroad to Panuti and onto Patan. Tomorrow is our last day in Kathmandu before we fly out on Monday. Our bikes follow us on the afternoon flight so it'll be another day at the airport on Tuesday uncrating and assembling our bikes in Bangkok. We have not quite decided what to do over the next few weeks but we may either head north toward the Laos border in a bid to see some of Northern Thailand, or head south and spend the time on the beach before Karen, Damian's wife, and Kelly, Gary's sister arrive in Bangkok for a weeks visit. Our itinerary over the last few
days: Saturday, 17 August 2002 We are currently in Pokhara, Nepal. We have been on the road for 102 days and covered 12 933 miles (20 693 kilometers). Our pc has blue screened (no go Joe) so we will be unable to provide any photos till we get another in Bangkok in a few weeks. Please bear with us till then. Since leaving Mcleod Ganj in northern India, we went further north on the road to Leh but only got as far as Manali. It reminded us of the KKH in Pakistan as it's a very similar road winding it's way up the Beas river into the mountains. After Manali the tar ends and we attemped to do a roundabout trip across the east and down to Shimla but due to the rainy monsoon season the dirt roads stopped us in our tracks - a huge waterfall which we couldn't cross safely - so we turned back. This area also heads up into Kashmir so we decided not to venture up to Leh which was another option. We rode back down the same route the following day to Shimla where Gary had another puncture! We met a Danish cyclist who was doing Leh to Shimla over a few weeks and he got a puncture at the same time. He had hoped to reach Shimla that evening but after we left him we climbed a huge pass up to Shimla and we are sure it took him a few days to reach it! Nijababad was our next stop in India, a dirty, busy town bustling with the usual livestock and people. The humidity is not something to joke about in these regions and without aircon or an airfan little sleep if any can occur! We came to a decision that we'd rather enter Nepal via the Western border of Mahendranagar than spend another 2 weeks travelling south into India and then north towards Kathmandu. India was not doing us any good: the food is too spicy, the constant dice with death on the roads was getting us down and the rain/humidity don't help the situation. We spent 3 days at Corbett Tiger Reserve in Northern India, which boasts over 100 tigers, but, due to it being the monsoon season, it was very wet and we didn't manage to see the tiger we'd hoped. We did however use the time to relax and enjoy a different side to India. The jungle is very thick here and we did a 4 hour walk in the rain to see some of it. Unfortunately the view was obscured by low cloud, something we have become accustomed to now, but it didn't obscure the beauty of the park. The manager, Surinder Pal, was a really friendly chap and, as the only guests at the Corbett Ramganga resort (www.ramganga.com), he gave us 100% of his time. The food and staff were fantastic and the resort has a wonderful setting. We even played cricket against the staff but sadly lost 3 - 0 to some very good players! We departed Corbett in good spirits after 3 superb relaxing days. We only spent 11 days in India in total but were glad to enter Nepal after that. Nepal is a lot cleaner, the roads not as congested with people and livestock. The border crossing didn't take long and we stayed the night in the nearby town of Mahendranagar. We ran out of time to continue any further due to discovering another puncture (no. 3) to Gary's bike though this time it was front wheel. While Dam and Dom fixed it, Gary changed money, did the customs stuff and gathered info. for the journey ahead. The following day we rode into Bardia Natural Park, another wildlife sanctury with around 70 tiger, elephant, rhino, many types of deer and loads more including crocodiles! We stayed at Bardia Wildlife Paradise, a local resort run by a family. Krishna is the manager and Shanka, his brother, an experienced local wildlife guide. We spent 2 days here on our quest to see a tiger. We did a day walk with Shanka as our guide, into the jungle, quite taxing due to the heat and humidity but very enjoyable all the same. We managed to get within 10 metres of 2 rhino enjoying a local watering hole. They weren't impressed by our presence and soon moved off into the thick jungle. We saw all but the actual tiger on this day: We found the tracks, only a few hours old, the tiger faeces, teritorial markings, claw scratings on the trees. We even heard the monkeys sounding the alarm that one was in the area but it wasn't to be. After setting off at 7am we arrived back at camp around 6pm tired, hungry and hot. It was a great experience but now it was time to get on with life! We rode to Pokhara yesterday, a 600km trip which took most of the day but the roads in Nepal are fantastic. Once we turned off the main road from Butwal, the road became narrower as it wound its way along the river valleys upward toward the Himalayas. The views from the road are fantastic though we were running out of light so couldn't really stop to enjoy them! The last 35 kilometres we rode in the dark but it was not as bad as we had thought. We are going to stay in Pokhara at least 3 nights hoping to do some mountainbiking here. It appears though on a closer inspection that people cycle from here to Kathmandu. We may end up going to Kathmandu on our motorbikes and then flying back here. This way we can ride bicycles over some of the most beautiful off road the world has to offer. We have yet to find out if it's possible this time of year though...we'll chat to a local tour operator who was closed today. Our itinerary over the last few days: Tuesday, 6 August Wednesday, 7 August Thursday, 8 August Friday, 9 August Saturday, 10 August Sunday, 11 August Monday, 12 August Tuesday, 13 August Wednesday, 14 August Thursday, 15 August Friday, 16 August Saturday, 17 August
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