Beaches everywhere

December 16th I stay in a youth hostel at the beach. Strangely enough dormitory is as expensive as a cabin, although the cabin is more like a hut with a bed and a bench. I decide it is time to have a shave, the few moustache hairs I have start to fall into my mouth once in a while. I have no running water, no mirror and shaving cream. I put the water in my pan and use the soap I bought to clean my clothes in Tunis. After half an hour scraping I get the idea I have finally have rid me of the unwanted hairs. I take a picture to verify the results. At night karaoke is organized and because I have a strong dislike of it I flee to the beach. I finally have rented a place to sleep, I still end up sleeping on the beach. The next morning I try to get my free included breakfast. To my opinion the thing I get is not registered as breakfast, one bad coffee and 2 toasts with jam and butter. Swiftly I check out and head south.

My 3 weeks of not cycling and differently shaped saddle is taking its toll. My crotch is aching and my left ball has a huge blister on it. I tape it with duck tape in the hope this helps. The 18th I end up cycling to Ranong, much further than planned, but towns before it I did not really like. The next morning I cycle to the port to catch the ferry to ko payam an island recommended by one of my drinking buddies in Bangkok. When I arrive I am welcomed by a fellow cyclist. He turns out to be Dutch and is here with his wife, they have stayed at the same place I had. His name is Willem and his wife’s is Annette and they have been traveling on and off for the last 12 years. When we arrive on the island we promise to have dinner one night. It turns out that I have all my dinners with them and also a few other meals. Willem and Annette are full of stories and it is great to spend the evenings together. Apart from eating and talking with Willem and Annette, I take it easy. I rent a sea kayak for half a day to peddle to the next beach, this turns out harder than expected and when I can see it, I decide I am close enough and turn around. When I return I meet a woman whose husband took the luggage to the hut, but she was not aware where that was. When she and her son arrive at my place the owner affirms that her husband has arrived. But when she checks the cabin, it is empty. Her son has left with the scooter when he heard they had arrived at the right place and said he would return somewhere in the evening. I hope they were reunited later.

December 22nd I leave for the mainland again. I still have a long way to go to Malaysia and my visa will run out the 6th of January. I have my chain cleaned at a place recommended by Willem and then I head to a guesthouse. Here I meet the Israeli who occupied the hut next mine on the island. He has bought a bike and wants to visit the international rainbow festival. We decide to go together the next day. We arrive after dark after climbing rocks on the beach with our gear and bikes. In dark we search for a little spot to set up our stuff, my mosquito net and his hammock. I don’t want to stay, so I leave the next morning. I end up sleeping on the beach again near Takuapa, but now I have the whole beach for me alone. Probably the first Christmas eve I am totally on my own. In stead of having a nice dinner I have forgotten to eat since noon and I don’t feel like leaving the beach, so I end up hungry. I should start traveling with some food on me again. On Christmas day cycling is tough, I guess because I have not properly eaten the previous day. Today I feel I need energy, but I don’t feel like eating anything. I end up buying a lot of bananas and eating them. In the afternoon I start feeling better and when I arrive in Phuket city I am fine again, except for my crotch, which has still not fully recovered.

Bangkok by air

On the morning of the 8th I take a flight to Bangkok. Gisi an Austrian girl is so kind pay for the taxi from the airport to the centre. Dylan from Hawai joins us as well. Dylan knows a cheap guesthouse near Kaosan and we end up there. In the evening we meet Gisi again, who spent most of the day in a swimmingpool, before she flies back tonight. The 9th is dedicated to rhyming, my family celebrates Sinterklaas tonight. All rhymes are finished except the one for Iljoesja, sorry Il! The next few days I use to look for bikes, but not to fanatical if it was not for Vlad a Czech in the same Guesthouse I probably would still be looking. In between my searches I meet Eric, from the beach in Myanmar and with him I go on a trainride to the southeast of Bangkok. The train almost goes through peoples houses and when it stops in town, people go in on one side and leave through the opposite door, because they do not want to wait until it leaves. Just before the end point the train goes through a market. The stalls and the merchandise have to be moved everytime a train passes. Fortunately for them not that often
I also bump into Roger, I met him and Mireile in Kunming and although Mireile is not feeling well we have dinner and a lot of beers (only with Roger). The 14th I finally leave Bangkok with my newly acquired bicycle. On advice of the boys at the guesthouse I have been drinking with the last few days I take the train until Petchaburi. Because of excess alcohol consumption I fail to catch the two trains in the morning so I end up taking the one at 13:00. When I arrive in Petchaburi I cycle 100 meters and then ask for directions to a policeman. At that moment two motorcyclists collide and one ends up in my front wheel. I have in total not cycled 5 km with this bike and already it is ready for repairs. When I remove the front brakes I can still cycle and for the nex hour I follow the policeman around town for someone who can repair the front wheel. The only bikeshop is closed for a few days, because the daughter is getting married. Eventually we find someone who does an excellent job. He does not want any money for it, not even for the coke I took from his shop. It feels good to be cycling again! Later that night I am invited for beers and dinner by a group of boys all working in the same icecreamshop. In the morning finally cycling really begins I end up at a deserted beach, with a restaurant nearby, an ideal combination. Unfortunately to get from my musquito net to the restaurant I get attacked by dozens of musquito's. I can kill most of them, but quite a few managed to get some Bart blood. I had hoped that they would be quiet when I leave the safety of the net for a midnight pee, no such luck. The next morning I am invited to watch some cock boxing fights in a small homemade arena. I watch two fights, but I am not able to see, who wins. On the road top Thap Sakae I loose my map. When I try to buy a new one I meet a man who advises me to go to Ban Kruit, it is about 20km and the man is waiting at every crossroads to direct me in the right direction and at one point he holds a can of coke out when I pass, it feels like I have a support car with me.
I am very lucky with the wind. It is coming from the northeast and blowing with force Bf6. This makes cycling very easy most of the time. When I get lost, because I forgot the name of the city I was supposed to be going to, I have a few less nice stretches of road.

Exit Sambi

On November 20th I reach Magway. A boring town, but fortunately with a bikeshop with a fork for my bike. When I try to fit it on the bike it proves to short. Welding the old tube to the fork is no longer possible, but I get hold of a new tube, and someone to weld it to the fork. I have a bike again! The next day I delay departure to halfway the morning because of stomach problems. Still not feeling great I leave for the beach. Three times I am directed in the wrong direction and when on the right road I am stopped by the police, no entrance for foreigners. I head back to Magway, but do not want stay again in the lousy guesthouse. I set up camp a few km east of the town, not after throwing up after which I feel much better.

Just after lunch I ride through a very small hole, this however is to much for Sambi. Again the fork breaks, now outside the frame, which makes me tumble forward over the handlebar. After a while I get up and check my wounds, nothing serious. At the same places as last time, but this time at the left side, I am in balance again. When I drag the bike to the side of the road I decide I have enough of it and I will leave Sambi behind. I take of my backpack, panniers and the tires, they are still good and when everything is packed I stop a pick-up truck to the next town, taungdwingy. I try to check in to a guesthouse but at both I am not allowed to stay. When I am drinking a soda at a cafe thinking of what to do next I am visited by the immigration police. They want to know all about me. The end of the story is that I am not allowed to stay in the town. When I tell them that there are no places available on the busses, they make a phonecall and all of a sudden there is a place. The 12 hour busride is not a nice re-introduction to public transport. The woman next to me vomits half the busride, when doing so, puts her kid on my lap. The people in the chair in front of me, put it back as far as possible, I have no place to rest my head and as ice on the cake halfway during the night a rat climbs into the bottom part of my trousers, he does not stay long though.

In Yangon I go to the White house hotel where I am allowed to use the breakfast, although I only pay for coming night. Here I bump into Hilton. The both of us stay for the full 2 hours that the well assorted buffet is open and eat almost enough for the rest of the day. When I go outside I see Helen get her luggage out of a taxi. After a brief exchange of news I invite her to join dinner with Hilton and me. At the end of the day we end up having drinking beer with the largest part of the group from Bagan. When we enter a bar I am surprised to hear a local band play to my knowledge an Engnlish version of a Dutch song Suzanne of "VOF de Kunst", but maybe it was originally English. The next morning I find a little package at the reception. Helen has brought some bandages and stuff to clean wounds. It gives a good feeling that someone has thought of my health. Then I head to the busstation to take a bus to the beach on advice of a German couple I met at breakfast. The first night I camp on the beach, but in the morning I am told it is not legal. Later that day I rent a little hut at the beach next to Eric, an American I had met in the bus the day before. Although I have to make rhymes for my family for Sinterklaas I do not find the time to do this, instead I do nothing or play football on the beach with a few locals. We win, but most of my wounds are open again and I even have a new one on my shin. Fortunately I have the stuff from Helen.

On the third of December I take the bus back to Yangon. To my surprise Jake, I met him earlier in Tunis and Istanbul, has already arrived, he had told me he would only arrive tomorrow. I manage to fill my days with almost nothing. Every day has the same routine. I have breakfast from 8 till 12 and chat with everybody around, then go out for a while like the market or the famous Shwe Dagon Paya. Have a few snacks, then dinner on the street or in a restaurant and I conclude with a couple of beers. It is nice to take it easy for a while, but I already start missing the bycicle.

Smiling people

November 17, I head into Myanmar. The Chinese side gives me a hard time, because of my visa extension in Shanghai, which seems to be extended 10 days late. After half an hour they finally let me go to the Myanmar side. Here I call the number I received and after a while Mr. Tonka shows up to get me into the country. Once in a while I am asked to sign something and after more than an hour I am in. My bike already was on the roof of the taxi. I only have to pay the absurd amount of 150 euro to the travel agent of which the largest part will go to the regime I am sure. Then a taxi takes me and mr Tonka, who is a small fragile guy, instead of the big bulky association I have with this name. If I want to stop somewhere I have to ask Mr. Tonka and he will decide if we can. At the end of the afternoon I am released from my babysitter when I am dropped off at 1 of the 2 hotels I am allowed to stay in Lashio.

I have not noticed much of the regime, we had 2 checkpoints, but it seemed they could have been avoided if I had wanted to if I had been cycling on my own. I saw a university in the middle of nowhere, Mr. Tonka told me the regime deliberately is placing them there to move students out of the city, as they are the main source of its critics. The next day I am so happy, I sing, hum, whistle and greet people non-stop. The people seem to be happy to see me, before I see them they greet me with “hello”, “good-bye” or “ok” and all are giving me a big smile. Even the group of people working on the side of the road, with 2 guards with semi-automatic watching them, give me a warm welcome. Not far before Hsipaw I cross a bridge with next to it another bridge on the bottom of the river, the truck that probably caused the break still on it. When I try to make a picture I am told to keep on cycling. The guide had told me a nice place to stop was Hsipaw, he pronounced it as “chebor” so when I went trough Hsipaw I did not recognize it. When I ask for directions to Hsipaw 10 miles later the guy thinks I am nuts, I decide cycle 20 miles more for the next town. There I am invited by a kid to sleep at his house. He and his friends take me out with their scooters, to a place where a band plays (very badly) and after that to hot springs.

The next day I pay a visit to Mr. Thapa, the boys’ English teacher when I head in the direction of Mandalay. He is glad to see me again and offers me an instant coffee. Nearly everything is instant in Myanmar. After 15 mile I have to go steep down to the river, I can already see the road up after the river. When going down I can not avoid cycling over a snake that also was going down. It was making big s’s and made a launch for my rear tire but it was to slow, probably injured as well. This reminds me to be careful when I go off the road.

A couple of miles before Pyin Oo Lwin I see a beautifull Paya on the top of a hill. I decide to put in the extra effort and have a closer look. After only 10 meters my rear wheel hits the frame. Initially I think one of the bolts was not tightened enough, but this does not seem the problem. The ax is broken. On foot I cover the last 4 miles, to the city, I decide to skip the visit of the paya. It already is dark when I arrive at the bicycle repairman. A 12 year old kid puts in a new ax. I think he does a lousy job, the owner tells me to return the next morning when it is light and he will do it properly. The first four hotels I visit I am not allowed to stay, because they do not have a permit to accommodate foreigners. The fifth does allow me. In the evening I am invited by a bunch of girls to join their dinner. I get these honours because they think I am handsome and want to be my girlfriend. It is good for the ego, but after a while I get enough of it and leave. When leaving the restaurant I nearly break my knee as I drop one and half meters down in the sewer right outside. Fortunatly only my shoes are covered in shit. One of the cool things of Myanmar is that transportation relies still very much on animals. In the western world you would see this kind of transportation only used by tourists, here it is widely used by the locals.
In Mandalay I manage to play a game of football again with some local kids. We play barefooted on a sandy field covered with rocks. Winner remains on the pitch. After an hour, still undefeated I leave with hurting feet. I book the slow boat to Bagan which leaves the next morning at 5:30AM. In and around Bagan I make a little trip by bike with fellow travelers through to look at some of the thousands of paya’s. At first Hilton, an Aussie, takes us on a route to where we see no paya’s at all. If it had not been for Helen, from Norway we would have cycled a couple of hours without seeing one. Now we turn and go down the hill to places where there are paya’s in spades. Here we are reunited with the English couple we had lost earlier, they knew where they were going. At the end of the afternoon we are racing to get to a paya we can climb to see the sunset from. Now we loose Hilton, but we all meet again in town. Helen is leaving at 4:30AM next morning and decides not to go to sleep before that. Hilton and I decide to keep her company aslong as a couple of beers join the company as well. Before we know it is time to say goodbye. The harder part of travelling. I go to sleep for a couple of hours, before I leave also. Before I can leave I have to try to solve the problem with the middle sprocket. It's tooth seem to worn to grip the chain. Ofcourse I cannot do anything about it and leave anyway. After a few km the largest sprocket goes too, which leaves me only the smallest. In combination with the use of only the 3 lightest ones at the back, makes cycling a maddening experience, especially downhill. At the end of the afternoon I finally find a man who has something lying from an old bike. He puts it on and tests it for me. Considering the options he does a good job, but I am only able to use only the 2 smallest sprockets and the crank is bend, which makes pedalling a bit incoonvenient. Still it beats cycling in the lightest gear all the time. It is already dark when I am invited to stay at someones house. Half the village comes by to have a look at the white guy. Unfortunately also a government oficial comes by and I can see he makes my host uneasy. I decide to leave. It is pitch dark and I do not see anything. I cycle in some potholes before I finally find a sandy spot to put up my musquito net. I am afraid to stop in a grass because of the snakes. The next morning I check my front fork and what I expected is true, broken again. I can still cycle with it, but obviously have to be careful with higher speeds and bumps. I decide not to brake with the front brake. Without much problems I manage to reach Magway.