Travelreport 31

Bangkok (Thailand, 24-04-2002) till Betong (Thailand, 18-05-2002)

The flight was without any problem and Marie Louise only had chosen the wrong line to clear Immigration as it took her 15 minutes longer to get through than it took us. In Bangkok we were happy to see our bikes again. We sorted out all our luggage so Marie Louise could take our excessive luggage with us. After a nice Sushi meal we went back to the airport to say farewell to Marie Louise. After she went through the door Jeannette had a difficult time, as expected.

Route through Thailand; 24-04-2002 / 18-05-2002

After Marie Louise had left us it was time for us to resume traveling again, but now with two motorbikes. Together with Jeannette’s bike we received a lot of extra luggage which had to be packed somewhere one of the bikes. But first our attention was focused on the bikes themselves. Jeannette’s bike needed to have some modification to get it fully prepared as an over landing bike. The bike was checked and the intercom was installed so we could communicate with each other during driving. Martins bike needed some minor repairs which were on the list a long time already and (finally) in Bangkok there were good motor shops so we decided to repair it here. A shop was recommended by other over Landers but first of all the repairs took 4 day instead of the promised 1½ days and the price was quite high as well. On top of it we later found out that they hadn’t done all the things in the way we had asked them to do. So when you go to Siam Super bikes make sure they do their job properly. But nevertheless the bikes were ready to go.
The luggage was another thing to worry about. Marie Louise had taken home lots of our excessive stuff but we still had too much. And in Ao Nang (South Thailand) we also had some things left behind. We wanted to leave Bangkok desperately, so we decided to simply load everything somewhere on the bikes and drive to Ao Nang and sort everything out there.
In Bangkok we also bought a notebook computer after being considering it for months. It's quite bulky but the advantages are huge as well and now we were driving with two bikes it had to be possible to store the computer somewhere. Now we could download our digital photos ourselves from our camera.
So we left Bangkok at 30th April at 6 am. as Jeannette didn’t want to drive her first kilometers on her bike in Bangkok’s rush-hour. We left the city without any problems and drove down south with the necessary stops. Everything was not completely new to her as she drove Erik’s bike several times before, fully loaded as well and the intercom system was highly appreciated. After 400 kms. we stopped at Bang Saphon at the beach. The next day we had an unplanned stay as my eye was lightly swollen and watering. When we packed our bikes the next day we discovered that during the last night they stole both my tank-side bags. Except for some food, toilet paper and a water bag also my intercom transmitter was in it. They had cut the wiring. A single transmitter is completely useless to them but to us as well. So we had to continue our trip without a communication system which was especially hard for Jeannette.
We drove through the mountains to Ao Nang (20kms. from Krabi) where we were back in the same place where we started our trip together, 9 months before. Here we ‘celebrated’ my birthday but I was in bed the whole day as I had been throwing up the whole previous night. So my birthday cake was served a day later. It was amazing to see how this place had deteriorated in only 9 months as the roof had holes everywhere as well as the mosquito net and worst of all we had sand flies in our hut. We cleaned out our hut completely ourselves but this didn't help a thing. So we decided to move to another place and found a nice place in a quiet area.
Here we could service our bikes as Jeannette passed her first 1000 kilometers and mine needed a major service. Servicing my bike was no problem but servicing Jeannette’s bike had to be done while reading the manual as it was new to us. There were no difficulties at all. Some things we did at Tjops place, a really nice guy with a bike shop where we had been before. We checked the valve clearance together. Now we had the cylinder head removed we decided to remove the restrictor as well. According to Dutch laws Jeannette her bike had to be restricted to 25 kW but she thought her bike was too slow now and we were far away from Holland so together with Tjop I removed the restrictor (just a matter of adjusting the throttle-cable) and then the full 37 kW were available and this made a huge difference as I found out during a test ride!
After the bikes were ready we had to sort out our luggage and this was a serious job as we had to repack EVERYTHING. Both my panniers were completely repacked as well Jeannette’s ones together with all the luggage rolls. And the new structure was good but to me it was a major switch over as I couldn’t find anything anymore after 2 years traveling with a different structure, but this was just a matter of time.
Our accommodation was getting to look like ‘Faulty Towers’ as our German host got troubles with the Thai authorities and had to disappear for a couple of days. So we had the whole hotel to ourselves and had to cook our own food in kitchen but fortunately the fridge was fully stocked.
We left Ao Nang and decided to drive to Songkhla were I had been before. We followed a nice secondary road along the shores of a nice lake but we had problems to get back to the main road and this is where Jeannette got her first off-road experience which she handled extremely well except for that her bike got very muddy. The Amsterdam Guesthouse in Songkhla was run by Paula who just had returned from a holiday in Holland and so we could read the latest Dutch magazines.

Where is the rhino in Songkhla?

After 10 months on and off in Thailand it was time to leave this country definitely and to experience other countries. Along marvelous mountainous roads we drove to Betong at the Malay border were we spent our last night in Thailand at Betong. The next day we drove to the border and experienced no problems at the Thai site despite the note saying that there was a departure-fee when leaving on weekends and it was a Saturday after all.