Dedicated to a wonderful Mother Jean Noble 31/5/1929 - 20/8/2007 - may we never take our mothers for granted. - Goodbye Mum

THAILAND PAGE 17 NOVEMBER 2008

“PEELING BACK THE LAYERS” - PAGE 7........

As you can see from the preceding six pages, entitled “peeling back the layers” I have tried to combine pictures with words, to give some insight into the peoples lives. We welcome any feedback, criticism or suggestions, via email or Guestbook on this format.... Thank you for the feedback. One may be asking how do people get our email address – its simple we reply to most people in our guestbook, they then have our email :-) We do not put an email address in our web site because we cannot cope with the spam it generates. Under normal circumstances we could, however, we are usually on such pathetically low bandwidth connections, that we must do all we can to reduce the download.

Friday November 28th Buayai – suburb of Cocksuann
Approx. k's Average Speed kph Cycling time Hr(s) Min. Max speed. kph Max temp we recorded °C
Terrain: Road Conditions: Overnight Accommodation: $0.00. Standard, Stay with family.

OUR CYCLING IS TO RE-START WITHIN TWO DAYS..... On to LAOS. We are excited and sad... Sad to leave Lee's Grandma, whom I have also grown very fond. She has moderate to severe Alzheimer's so may not miss us for long... She was VERY tearful as we were packing our bikes today, so is aware we must move on. At first the packing was overwhelming.... But as the day wore on we fought over what to take, leave and give away. It was dark when we eventually finished this tiresome job.

No shortage of little “helpers”.....

Her name is Em, she is 7yrs old, the daughter of our odd job man..... A little terror :-) and one we are both very attached to....

We have decided to not take our main tent... instead a cheapie ($25.00) more suited to this climate and much lighter than the rubbish Vango.

Our job here is done to the best of both our ability and resources. The Traditional Massage service is functioning well and has earned around 10,000 Baht ($AUD435.00 $US285 in the first three weeks, this is a larger salary than most ordinary labourers would earn in a month. However, it is not NET. One interesting thing, the clientele is about 80% female, we did not expect this... ALL ages and the majority coming just to relax, few needed the more therapeutic styles on offer. Maybe it is our low introductory price? Hopefully as it becomes established and with careful management, it will grow to afford a comfortable living for Lee's family. We certainly hope so.

The troubles in Thailand are getting quite serious, as no doubt those interested in this part of the world already know. It is clear the issues are now coming to a head... To date there has been some loss of life. There is currently greater potential for even more loss of life. It is a pointless exercise extrapolating my/our views here, as it is very well covered (From both sides) on the internet. Regardless of which side you feel is right, it is dividing this nation... We can only hope for a speedy resolution.

Saturday November 29th Buayai – Sida (ON THE ROAD AGAIN)
Approx. 17.68 k's Average Speed 13.01 kph Cycling time 1 Hr(s) 21 Min. Max speed. 21 kph Max temp we recorded 28°C
Terrain: Virtually Flat Road Conditions: Excellent Overnight Accom: (250B) $11.00. Standard, Clean family run resort

We of course, left late with all the goodbye's.

Two choices confronted us stay in this town or cycle a further 30 (or so K's to the next one.

We opted not to push it the first day back. And were content with 17k's. We had intended to start Sunday, but, could see no compelling reason to put off the departure.

We pulled into our home for the night... An excellent room for 250 Baht per night. ($11.00 Aussie or $10.70 Singapore dollars)

Despite the sadness we have left the family in the best shape possible, within our means.

We will continue on route 2 until we get to the Thai/Lao border........ About 7 days – or so

Catchya Later.....

Sunday November 30th Sida to
Approx. k's Average Speed kph Cycling time Hr(s) Min. Max speed. kph Max temp we recorded °C
Terrain: Virtually Flat Road Conditions: Excellent Overnight Accom: (250B) $11.00. Standard, Clean family run resort

Having thought we had said all our goodbye's we got the inevitable “phone calls”, sooooo we decided to stay in Sida, in our room, for one more day. Our friends are coming to visit us today, hopefully, after today, we will have said all we need to and can move on. Not that we do not care – we do VERY much. We are running out of everything, time, money etc..

There is so much we still want to do.. Laos is certainly one of them and Cambodia is very much on our wish list. Going to lunch now with friends...

Happy at having met up again.. we are now hopefully, free to go. We will miss deeply all the good people we have met.

Monday December 1st Sida to Phun (Pronounced Pun)
Approx. 31.62k's Average Speed 13.32kph Cycling time 2Hr(s) 22Min. Max speed. 33kph Max temp we recorded 28°C
Terrain: Undulating Road Conditions: Excellent Overnight Accom: (350B) $15.50. Standard, Clean NEW family Hotel

Having now (surely) finished our goodbyes :-) We headed to Phun, only 30k's or so – not wanting to push ourselves to early. Found a fantastic NEW hotel with no English signs, to rest up for the night... Today we had our strongest headwind since Singapore, however, it was great “air-conditioning”. The Thai's with their enterprising ways took full advantage of the strong wind, by offering for sale, literally thousands of kites....

Beautiful colour's, littered the highways

We pulled into our Hotel after a fairly uneventful day..

Mentioned to the owner, the lack of signs in English and the (potentially) missed tourist dollar. She had recently visited Germany on holiday so was interested in our comment. Not much more today so Catchya Later....

Tuesday December 2nd Phun to Baan Thai
Approx. 35.06k's Average Speed 14.25kph Cycling time 2Hr(s) 28Min. Max speed. 35kph Max temp we recorded 28°C
Terrain: Undulating Road Conditions: Excellent Overnight Accom: (350B) $15.50. Standard, Clean family run resort.

Route 2 is a major artery with a dual carriageway and all manner of people trying to make a living. This lovely young girl is selling Honeycomb, harvested from the wild. We talked about how this was harvested and was told, they get “stung” a lot getting the stuff, however, poverty compels them to continue......

There were lots of sellers of honey, at about 100 Baht a 750ml bottle. A “honeycomb” cost's between 20-50 Baht ($1-2.50), we bought one for Lee at 30 Baht... It is an awfully long day, standing under an umbrella for very little return.

Our resort is very nice, big rooms, air conditioning, hot water etc... and very good value...

Inside the room it is tasteful and free coffee all day, plus local fruit -free, today's fruit was banana and orange.

Well that's about it for today... on to the chores.... Catchya Later.........

Wednesday December 3rd Baan Thai to Nam Phong
Approx. 58.93k's Average Speed 15.28kph Cycling time 3Hr(s) 51Min. Max speed. 38kph Max temp we recorded 28°C
Terrain: Undulating Road Conditions: Good Overnight Accom: (350B) $15.50. Standard, Clean family run larger resort.

We cycled on a very uneventful route 2 approaching our preferred daily average in k's. Stopped at an interesting café for lunch all meals less than 30B ($1.50).... The guy has secured funding from “Bill Gates”... (about US1,000,000 from what I can gather) Some themes..

and some more..... You get the idea??

However there was much more than coffee & Condoms... He is also finding money for clean water systems... for small villages (such as Baan Don Khun Ta).. For around AUD$23,000, US$15,000, €11,500 or ₤10,000 a clean water filtration system can be installed in a village – the system is large enough to sustain around 100 homes. Many other innovations come from this enterprising guy..

This happy looking chappy, was all the more happy having met us... On a quiet stretch of road he had run out of fuel on his way to work. He had pushed his bike over half a kilometre and looked a bit distressed, I stopped and asked what was wrong..

We gave him the fuel from our stove, and the contents of our spare bottle. About .75 litre, He was delighted... We were glad we could help..

Not much else of importance today... Catchya Later....

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