Thailand

We completed a week in Thailand riding the east coast towards Cambodia.  After 4 days we arrived in Ban Phe and decided to call it.  We've found almost no campsites without lots of work, nothing much for signs in English, locals are extremely unhelpful (we did find 2!!), polite but not helpful, no one smiles (even the tourists) and it's hot, really hot.  Although I, Stan, can handle the heat it's been really hard on Sally.  We talked long and hard if we should head directly to Laos or backpedel and go to Indonesia.  Even tho' it involves two more flights (return trip to BKK) we'll head to Bali and try for Sulawesi for about 3 weeks.  Hopefully this will be the last of the flights until we come home.

Yesterday we took the boat over to Ko Samet island and rode the only road on the island 7km to the south end.  It was again hot but at least we were able to swim at 4 different beaches on the way back so that was nice. Place was full of tourists:  Thai, German, Russian especially.  A plus was we took the 6pm boat back and sat on top, although they didn't really like it, and got a sunset cruise out of it.  Accomodation was fairly cheap there but there was nothing to make either of us really want to spend any time there.

Our thoughts for now is once we get back to BKK we'll bus to Vietienne (the floods don't seem to affect transport this direction south or towards Vietienne) and bike to Vietnam.  We gettting tired of all the people and hope that once we escape here crowds will die down somewhat - although I'm sure we'll see plenty in Indonesia.  Mainly the hope is once we hit Laos it will be more rural and enjoyable.  Overall things have been going well, we are still healthy and bikes are running well.

Stan