Sorry to read about Cat's spill. I know that road too and it is a little tricky. What is your time frme to make Aus? We may be back there and can look after you if you come to Melbourne.

Well, the 200km day never happened as Eddie and I went out for a “few” whiskey and coke’s and all of a sudden it was 4am. It was a fun night though - we went to the Reggae bar where we met another French group and hung out with them most of the night.

The next day was a funny day, I woke early and grabbed some breakfast with Eddie and said bye as he was heading back to Chiang Mai and I was going to go to Laos. Then I went back to bed for about 2 hours and woke up about 1pm (well I AM on holiday ;-) ) and I decided to have a shower to help me recover from my hangover.
I was in the shower washing away and I turned around to see what looked like a snake on the tiles! It made me jump but then for a minute I thought it must be painted on, then quickly I could see it wasn’t but I thought I was dead. Then as these thoughts were going and coming at the same time the bloody thing moved and slid over the tiles onto the door frame and into my room! Shocked, but to be honest a little confused and wondering if maybe I had drank more than I thought the previous night, I got a towel and held it up, blocking the area where I had seen the snake, and slowly went back into my room.

Sure enough the snake was still there! It was brightly coloured black and yellow. I pondered for a minute and then thought I better get some help as I was not sure if it was poisonous and either way it was not supposed to be in my room!! I went to reception and said to the very friendly girls would they please come to my room and have a look at what I found (I figured if I said come to my room and look at my snake it could all go wrong – this is Thailand after all!)

One of the girls moved to come and I said no no you will all want to see this, so the 3 girls followed me asking what it was, chuckling saying I was scared of big geckos. Then when they saw it they could not believe it and they got the handy man to come get it. It wasn’t big: it was about 50cm long but it was thin and it turns out it was a Wolf snake which is also not poisonous. But still it was an interesting morning and my hangover had disappeared!!

But not feeling great I just took a day off and relaxed around the cafes in Chiang Rai. That evening I went home and had an early night after getting some pasta, then I packed my stuff and planned my route out of there and went to bed looking forward to exploring Laos.

............................

Sh*t F**k C*** Bas***d.

Woke up early, packed the bike then had breakfast with a big smile on my face, looking forward to leaving. There were some German guys around on hire bikes all going into Laos as well. They spoke a little English and I only speak a little German but we had a nod and point and a smile. After breakfast and a joke about snakes in my room, I jumped on the bike and fired her up: it lasted until the end of the drive way before the oil light came flashing on with the cam chain making a clunk clunk clunk sound which would not go off.

I turned the engine off and went to call Eddie but I had no credit so I pushed the bike around the corner to the 7/11. I got some phone credit and rang Eddie explaining the symptoms, he said start her up so I did and everything had gone back to normal, but either way I was going to head back to Chiang Mai to get her looked at properly. It seems something is telling me not to get to Laos right now!

On the way back she switched from solid oil light to no oil light to a flickering oil light, this combined with some cam noise or no cam noise all at different times. The bike was running ok and it was only 150km to Chiang Mai so I carefully rode her back.

So here I am, to be honest thoroughly annoyed and over it, now a month behind my plan and after talking with the mechanic and going over it with Eddie and looking for known faults, it could be as simple as a spring and ball bearing, or it’s the oil pump, or it could be more serious, either way it’s not going to be looked at for 4 days – then, say, 2 days to find the problem, then order parts which take about 2 weeks to get here then another week for Herman the German to find a day to fit it in and do the work, so it’s looking like a I’m going to be another month behind!!

The good news is Cat is going to fly back out. I have had a couple of days moping around feeling a bit sorry for myself, and yes I know I’m on a good thing but we cannot be happy all the bloody time!! The current plan is to go to Ko Tao in the south and do some diving which we WERE going to do after Laos and Cambodia, then depending on if the bike is fixed, maybe go to Cambodia and Laos and back-pack and hire bikes to do day trips etc. But for now I have hired a little KLX 250 and I’m going to run afternoon trips out on the dirt track, then Thursday which is also my birthday I get the best present ever with Cat coming back and then we can pan to leave to the south by Saturday/Sunday.

Tuesday was great fun: I took the little KLX off and had some fun for 5/6 hours. I was nackered and at one stage I thought I was stuck - the only thing that kept me going was that it didn’t look silly far on my Sat-nav and it seemed like I was over half way. It was the dry river beds that were killing me: I could see others had used them in the past as there were some big single track tyre marks but they were so steep, 3 or 4 times I fell off trying to get up the bank the other side but it was a lot of fun. I know this is the bit normally where I stick photos up, and I did bring the camera, but left its battery on charge – what a wolly!!

The following day I told Eddie about my route and he suggested we head out in the afternoon together and go repeat it. I was keen also as I had not taken any pictures or videos and with the 2 of us there it would give me the opportunity to do both. So about 1pm we met and we rode back and hit the track again, a bit more confident this time, knowing there was someone there if I got stuck. We hit it a bit harder and got through it quicker without any small falls. It was a relief when we reached the dirt road the other side and it was a fantastic ride back to the city.

We stopped again in a small village and had a nice strong coffee. There was no one else there apart from the Irish guy who also lived in Thailand and we got chatting before we headed back.

That evening I chilled out and at midnight it was my birthday so Tim from Thai 1 On bought me a few drinks and I hung out there and chatted with the guys and the 2 girls I met from Vancouver called Wenny and Samantha. It was a nice evening and at the end of the night I said would be around the following day as Cat was coming back.

The next day I woke at about 10am and my original plan was to just spend the day relaxing but I decided I would go for one last ride before Cat came back and I would have to spend a couple of weeks off the bikes. I asked Phil from Rider’s Corner for a route and with a sly smile he said you like your river crossings, so do this one and gave me the route. I packed the bike up and put it in my sat nav before saying I was only expecting to be a couple of hours, Phil smiled and said I think you will be longer than that, but I didn’t think much of it!!

The beginning of the interesting stuff was about 60km out of town, it was so pretty and to begin with I was thinking that the route was very easy going, being mostly packed down mud or loose tarmac. But soon this ran out and became single track before becoming very muddy and then I hit the river. It must have had 30 river crossings and at times the route WAS the river, sometimes for up to 500 meters or more, it was a tiring day and I was nackered!!

At one stage though I very nearly came a cropper!!! Basically I lost the trail and was trying to figure out what direction it went in. There were 3 options, across in front of me, up and along the river again or a very faint looking walking trail. I went up the river but it was too deep to get to the bit of bank on the other side so I guessed it was back, it really did look like the direction and I thought I could see a couple of bike tracks which by this point I had been following for a while. The river was pretty deep to get up the bank so I took a bit of a run up: in the water up the bank on the power and then blasted into the trail then bam I was sinking up to my knees in mud whilst on the bike!! SHIIIITTTT!!
I quickly got off, well dragged myself off whilst the bike seemed to stop sinking. I could not stand as it was making me sink to my knees quickly. The bike was stood up and appeared not to be getting too much worse and so I managed to get myself 3 meters away to the bank. There was some big sticks and bamboo and after a minute I built a little platform to stand on and life the bike out on to, to give myself a bit of time. Problem was I would lift the front and then the back would sink, or visa versa!!

So I got more bamboo and made a platform to lift the rear wheel onto so I could then pull the front round. Anyway after a hour of pissing about moving bamboo around I managed to make myself a ramp into the river and finally got back to the other side. I was totally spent and lay on the floor for a minute thinking about Phil’s sly grin!! I was thinking about heading back but I could not imagine it would be that much further!! So I decided to have some water, took a video of the mud and me sweating lots and then headed onwards.

The rest of the route was still a big challenge and I was nackered! I came across some crab hunters or fishermen in the middle of nowhere, I was surprised to see them and they were definitely surprised to see me, laughing and I think saying I was crazy!! They told me it was 6km to the road. And so I pushed on and eventually hit the 4X4 track again and soon found some tarmac to ride out. It was an excellent day and I was sooooo tired and looking forward to getting back. So I rode home, had a shower and then had some food and a before heading down to Thai 1 to meet Eddie. The girls from Vancouver were there and I had a drink with them before Sam and I went back to meet Cat at Rider’s Corner. She turned up earlier than I thought and we had a few drinks back at Thai One before we headed off and had a relatively early night!!
The next day we moved to another hotel and a bit of a birthday treat for me for 1 night before booking in some fishing at Dreamlake!! I was excited as I love my fishing and when we got there I was very pleased with the set up. I was not hoping to catch much as I knew it was a hard lake, but 1 hour on the bank and BAM I had a huge run which nearly pulled me into the water. I had hooked the fish and was away then all of a sudden bang, the line went even though the reel was set properly! Annoyed and disappointed I went and got a new rig, the owner explaining the lake is 8 meters deep and there is a few boulders in it!!

Anyway to cut a long story short, this happened a second time and I was not a happy camper having probably lost 2 fish that would have broken my 77lb record. After that first half day I didn’t get another run like it, I did get about 15 fish in total: I caught a Siamese carp, a Mekong catfish, some Talipia and some Mud carp, none of which were bigger than about 5kg apart from the Mekong which was about 10kg. This said it was still a stunning place with food and drinks served to the bank and I think when I get back to Chiang Mai in a months time I’m going to go and have another go.

So whilst fishing we discussed our plans and we decided we would either head out to Laos or hire a car and drive down south if the girls from Vancouver were up for it, cos it would be much cheaper than flying there and back. When we got back we went for a drink with the girls and they said they thought hiring a car would be a great idea and so we went ahead and did it the following day. Pop gave me a brand new Toyota with only 150km on the clock and we drove to Burma so I could do a border run. The drive was nice but a bit long as I left the city the wrong way. We got to Burma in the afternoon and so we only had 2 hours before we had to leave again, which was a shame as it would have been good to have a proper look around. __________________

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Hey guys!!

Not sure yet prob about 2 months until we get there maybe even 3!! But we are currently planning on coming in at Darwin the heading to Perth one way or another as Cats family is from there. Then Depending on Time and Money we will see if we can get over to the east coast to see other family and friends!!

I will keep you posted!!!

J

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Road Trip and Ko Tao!

Our first day of the road trip was great fun! We went to Thai One to meet the girls for breakfast and then we loaded up the car and headed for Mai Sariang. We stopped off at a waterfall and at a huge Buddha garden with a massive reclining Buddha, it was such a pretty place. We also stopped and had a really really yummy coffee at a roadside/forestside cafe, and 4 coffees and some treats came in at 160 baht (about £3). There were lots of monks there as well and they were as interested in us as we were in them even though we could not speak to them. We arrived in Mai Sariang and found a beautiful place to stay by the river. Cat and Sam went for a “swim” in the river but it was only ankle deep so they waded around and then gave up!



It’s so nice and chilled out and has given me time to update the blog and website as I have not done it for a while!! And also to think about our trip as we’ve not been very bike-travel-orientated in a while.




After Mai Sariang we went to Sukhothai, the old Thai capital, now in ruins. It was a pretty impressive place and we walked around with Sam and Sumo to have a look at the crumbling temples. We have now seen a lot of temples but these were very interesting as they were pretty different to the others we have seen in Thailand so far, so we spent a few hours driving round looking at them and stopping off to investigate the bigger ones.

After the morning’s sightseeing, we did a big drive day all the way down to Chumphon, and stayed overnight to catch the fast ferry in the morning.

My first impression of Ko Tao was not a good one: there was a lot of hassling when we came off the ferry and once we got to Big Blue diving centre their grounds were a little messy and as we came to the beach the tide was far out and it looked like a parking lot for boats, plus it was cloudy so the water was not sparkling and everything looked kind of dull - not the beautiful tropical island I was expecting and both myself and Cat were very disappointed. We walked up and down the beach and eventually found a great little hut to stay in for about £10 a night, and it was right on the beach.

We have now been in Ko Tao for 9 days and it has been fantastic. The place is a lot cleaner than it first looked and I have not seen the tide go anywhere near as far out as that again since we have been here. I finally got around to doing my open water course and then in the last 5 days I have been diving 9 times seeing some of the most beautiful and biggest schools of fish I have ever seen without question, including thousands of barracuda which swam all around us. I also saw some big stuff including Giant Morwray eels (2m in length) and turtles, for which Ko Tao is names after. No whale shark but I would have been very lucky to see one even if they were around!!

We have had a lot of fun. Serena, my Dive Instructor, was fantastic, and Wenny and I really liked her, there was only 4 of us in our group and so we got to know each other well. I also met Owen who is from England but lives in Canada who is mates with Serena back home and so we had lots of nights out with the whole group. Having a bit of time off has also given me time to look back over the trip and discuss it with Cat. It’s been one hell of a journey but we are getting near the end of our desire to be on the road. We miss our friends, our family and business and we are looking forward to getting back to leading some sort of a normal life. Today is our 8th month on the road, and as we look back at the trip this is what we think.

It was great to set out with no agenda as such. But I’m also very disappointed that I was not more aware from the charity point of view. India has changed our lives forever; the children in India and Nepal and some of the other poor areas we have been in break my heart and I must at some point in my life help somehow – and yet I don’t know how!!

Iran was fantastic and I cannot believe what I read in the papers and see on the news, it has made me realise how manipulative the media is, and how the “people” can suffer under the hands of greedy and evil people in power – which let’s be honest is something we all know about, but to actually see it happening in the year 2012 is not something we should still be having to deal with in a modern world.

I feel a bit silly looking back, there are lots of reasons why but I take it as a massive positive that we have learned so much and seen so much and I so happy to have seen so much of the world and I encourage anyone who is thinking about doing a bike trip to do it!! I know that I won’t do another big bike one for a while but I also know that at some point I won’t be able to resist!!!

Anyway Ko Tao was great – we volunteered for a beach and dive clean up for one day: we spent 2 hours in the morning cleaning the beaches which look alright at first glance, but once you start picking bits up, you see they are covered in straws, cig butts, and scraps of paper! The biggest worry is the bars on the beach really don’t give a shit about how much mess they make, which is fine for now but don’t be surprised if there is no fish in the sea in 10 years time – and ironically no one will go there if there is no diving!!

Anyway we then moved on to the dive site clean up – it was amazing what we found! We went to the main port area and split into teams of 4 or 5 and then headed out with bags, I didn’t know what to expect, the water isn’t dirty but there are lots of bottles and things on the bottom. Believe it or not, glass bottles are not too bad for the environment under sea as they make great houses for fish and other creatures. But there was lots of plastic, some sheeting, I personally found 3 pairs of board shorts - 1 pair had really damaged a pretty piece of coral and I got to thinking what kind of ****ing moron throws bottles, crisp packets and boardshorts off a ferry?!

I have since decided that if I see anyone do any of the above I am going to presume it’s an accident and that they really need that item and I am going to give them a helping hand off the ferry to recover it and I encourage you to do the same. “Dear shit for brains - Next time you think about doing something that ****ing stupid take a good look around and make sure you can swim!!”

Right, rant over!! So, after a damn fun night out on Ko Tao, and Owen deciding he fancied a bit of a road trip back to Bangkok with us, we decided it was time to pack up and go – that and the fact our Visa was expiring again so we needed to go to Burma to do a Visa run.

On our last night in Ko Tao we got the best send off ever, we watched Arsenal go 2 nil down to come back and beat Tottenham 5-2 – now I don’t mention football too often and I’m sorry if I just made you roll your eyes into the back of your head, but man it was a good game (if you’re a gooner) and so we went to bed happy and laughing!!

We left Ko Tao on the ferry in the morning – don’t worry no-one misbehaved so I didn’t have to throw anyone (I mean “help” anyone) in – and soon we arrived back in the mainland and onto the craziest jetty I have walked on, I thought it was going to collapse at any moment!! Then we jumped in the car and drove south west to Ranong for the Visa run before heading up to Bangkok all in one day and arrived at midnight, not bad going!!

We were so tired when we arrived, and went for a after check-in, but after 2 pints I was falling asleep whilst talking so we called it a night. The next day we woke late, grabbed some brekkie and did some shopping before Cat decided she wanted to take me to the VIP cinema. It was bloody cool, the best cinema experience I have ever had and then we headed back to meet Owen who had pointed out it was his last night in Bangkok and so we made up our minds to have a big one!

Owen was already on his 3rd cocktail (Strong Island Iced Tea) when we got back at 6pm and had lined us up one each. We had a drink, Cat went and got changed and then we got some spring roll and chicken (well I think it was chicken) for a snack, then we hit Khao San Road to find a bar.

We actually walked along it back and forth a couple of times, drinking street and mucking around with the people selling tat. We were all in good moods and there was a good crowd about, we then decided to go play pool and they gave us talc instead of chalk, this lead to some pissing about and ended up with Owen covered in blue chalk spots and Cat covered in talc!! The bar staff laughing their heads off and the waitress sneakily drinking with us!! Then we moved up the road to another bar and Owen wanted someone to play pool with so this bubbly young Thai girl volunteers. The game was fun and after me and Cat won, we went and joined the group of Thai girls and carried on drinking before it was suggested we go to a nightclub.

It turned into a good night and it was lots of fun. The music was great, as evidenced by Cat’s non-stop rave-dancing, and the Thai girls were so much fun so we hope they had a great night too!

Needless to say the next day we had sore heads and so it was a pretty uneventful day where we said bye to Owen – hope your hang over on the flight was not too bad!!
The following day we decided to drive to Chiang Mai and so we are back to our old haunts Rider’s Corner and Thai 1 On. It’s weird as this place almost feels homely now!!! This afternoon we get the bike back, I’m going to take it for a blast and then tomorrow we plan to pack and leave for Laos – cross your fingers, rub a buddha head, pray or whatever else sends us some luck so we can move on to the next stage of this trip!!

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Hi James and Cat,

what a journey! After reading all this I'm not sure if you are coming to Australia or not. If so, we have a Horizons Unlimited Travellers meeting in 8-10 June 2012 in Queensland and would love to see you there.

Regards,

Shane

If i have to push the bike we will be there!!! (prays he does not have to push it)

Where abouts, We are coming into the Northern territory with the plan of head to the West coast as we have done the large part of the east in a camper van some years ago and cats family are from perth.

But if it was within 2/3 days of riding and if anyone else was coming down from Darwin then a wee rideout would be alot of fun!!

Let us know the details.

__________________
Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Well we have made it through Laos, and all the way back to Bangkok, not exactly how we had planned though ………. all will be explained!

The ride to the border covered a lot of road I covered with Eddie before but it was nice for Cat to see it with me as well. It was also great that I got to stop off again at the fantastic coffee shop that’s in the middle of nowhere and right next to the coffee and tea plantation. At the border we had a quick stop at the customs office where lots of smiley Thai woman ran (literally ran) around the office sorting out the paperwork for me to help me get on my way. Then we went down the ramp and loaded onto the ferry which we paid 500 baht for – I think it should have been free, but it’s the first time in ages we have been ripped off so we weren’t bothered!


Once on the Laos side, it was very easy to get the bike into the country. They used the carnet and it literally took 2 minutes with lots of smiles and Welcome to Laos being repeated, then we were told to ride 1.5 km through the city to go to the passport office. Yes, in typical laid back Asian style we were already in the country but we had to ride through the town of our own accord to get the stamps in our passports and our visa sorted. It would be so easy to just not bother and carry on, but we felt it best to do the right thing, after all you don’t want to get banged up in a Laos prison!!

It was late afternoon by the time we got everything sorted, so we soon found a nice little guest house for about £10 a night, which gets you a very nice room here and breakfast included.

The following day the plan was to head to Luang Prabang, about 550 km from the border town we were in. It’s actually only about 200km away along the river, but the only tarmac road does a big loop to the north close to the China border, via Luang Namtha and Oudomxai, so we followed that. We woke around 9am and we were on the road by 10.

Laos is so much better than I expected: the people are all smiles and waving at us as we go past. It’s very poor in places like India, but it’s much cleaner than India and I realise that makes all the difference. It is how I expected India to be before I left home I think.


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The bike was running well although a little hotter than I expected to the point it had 6 bars lit up out of 7, but it was a lot of first and second gear corners. I wasn’t feeling great, and neither was Cat and it meant we were banging heads a little. At one point we stopped to have a quick look over the bike and a water break and who should come around the corner but Phil from Rider’s Corner and owner of www.rideasai.net! He was with his wife and had his KTM, they stopped for a minute and had a chat. I explained that my confidence in the bike is a little low at the moment which is a shame but I have decided really it’s just in my head and I need to stop worrying. It’s probably only hot from the constant slow speed cornering.



Once we reached Oudomxai (pronounced Oo-dom-sh-eye) I was feeling very irritable and Cat told me she wanted to stop, as we still had 200km to our planned destination. I decided we were carrying on, but got 30km up the road which then turned into bits of gravel and pot holes and was very twisty, and with only 2 hours of light left, I re-decided the smart money was really on heading back. We turned around and found a hotel that Phil had told us about, again coming in at about £10.

Cat and I were both a bit ratty with each other but both putting it down to feeling a bit ill and being tired. We had a drink then some food, all the while I was feeling very apprehensive and unsettled, then just after we ate I knew I needed to lay down so left Cat to pay the bill and rushed upstairs. We managed to watch 1 episode of Spooks on the laptop before I rushed into the loo and tried to push my intestines out my mouth. Never have I been so ill! I ended up going back 5 times until I had nothing left in my stomach. On the 3rd time to my horror it started to exit from the south too, but at 10 times the normal speed with a tenth of the normal warning, so I was a very sick boy, and I f**king hate throwing up!!!



Cat felt really bad for me, I think she had thought I was not feeling too bad and was just a bit grumpy. Lucky she was straight on it, calling cousin Mike the paramedic and posting on facebook to see if anyone had any remedies, whilst being on google and after about 50 minutes (or a lifetime for me), she said ah-ha we have those from Nepal and rummaged around in the pill bag to bring out some stomach pills we had bought in Nepal, thinking we might get sick there or in India.

I took 2 of them and threw them up 1 hour later but this at least stopped the puking after that stage. She also gave me some valium to help me sleep during the night. I had to sprint to the loo twice but other than feeling sick I wasn’t sick again. The next day I felt weak and crappy so riding a bike was off the cards. We spent the day in bed while I recovered, slowly eating more stuff (it being a very local town, the only things I found that were identifiable were some seeded biscuits, a packet of crisps, water and oranges. Not even any bananas in the town which I found weird since we passed so many banana trees on the way!), with my loo breaks growing more manageable distances apart and getting more predictable. More pills and by the end of the day I managed to eat some duck and some rice.


After that day of rest, I woke with a still upset but predictable tummy, so we hit the road. My energy was a little sapped so Cat had to work a bit harder helping me get the bike on the centre stand etc. But on the plus side, the drive to Luang Prabang was beautiful. I love this country it’s just great, so many smiling happy kids waving and shouting all excited to see us, wooden villages with 100s of house without a brick in site but all with a big old-school satellite dish outside!! The roads are ok, part tarmac part sand/stone for about 70% of the way then the last 80 km was good tarmac, although the new bits had laid stones in places that were very deep so I had to be careful not to wash the front end out when cornering.

We arrived in Luang Prabang and it was a bit hard to tell where the city began, as it’s bigger than we expected, but we quickly started to see the odd western face and soon we came on to the main street. It’s very very beautiful. It looks like a French village in the south of France, all the old houses and buildings have a real French feel and the whole place is extremely cool and very beautiful. But the guest house game is a bit of a joke here - first places we looked at wanted 70 – 80 dollars a night, and weren’t really worth it, but in the end we got a place for 13 dollars just off the main street which is far nicer than some we looked at for 30 dollars in other places. So if you come here make sure you have a good look around!

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We booked in for 2 nights, and then ventured out to the city. They have a great night market on every night, so we found a little bistro and sat with a cup of chai while we discussed our plans for Laos.

......................


We enjoyed our 2 days in Luang Prabang, mostly wandering around the city and taking in the sights. One morning we went to the nearby Kuang Si waterfalls which were so beautiful. It’s more like a natural park where families can have picnics. The falls are in all different levels, you can wander right through the forest, up to the different tiers and can swim in the pools. There’s also a bear rescue centre at the foot of the falls and they’ve got a big open enclosure with about 10 rescued asian bears who all look pretty happy and healthy.


We had quite an eventful morning the day we left LP. I had snapped our only ignition key the day before, but not a problem – KTM told me over the phone how to start the engine with a screwdriver, and I was able to pull the seat up enough for Cat to slide her hand in and pull out the tools. But it wasn’t until we got to the petrol station that either of us remembered that we also need the key to open the tanks! So we parked up, got out our tools, and got to work trying to get the tanks open. We managed to use the broken key shaft in one tank to turn the lock, but it wouldn’t come out again, so I unscrewed the lock from the inside to try to get to the key barrel. I couldn’t, but in the meantime, I dropped a tiny spring (or two) INTO the fuel tank. So off came the side of the bike, Cat found a bucket to tip the fuel into, and we shook the tank while looking for the springs. We found one. And after investigating a bit more, we are pretty sure we’re missing a second spring, but can’t HEAR it rattling inside the tank, and it doesn’t seem like it will either be sucked through the hoses or cause an obstruction, so we just put the bike back together.



We now only run on 2 fuel tanks (lucky we had the third one installed!) and start the bike with a screwdriver.

Non-deterred, we headed east out to Phonsavan which is where the Plains of Jars are. The city’s a pretty small and dusty place, with only a handful of westerners around, but it was fine as a base for exploring. We had a walk around the city before dinner and discovered the local night market, complete with sideshow games, rides and a bouncy castle. But I wouldn’t have got on the ferris wheel if you paid me! We then found a small restaurant called Bamboozled run buy a Scottish guy and decided we would eat there the first night.

The food was very good and we sat and planned out the following couple of days. We are both really enjoying being back on the bike again and slowly my confidence is building back up in the KTM. We rode over to the Plains of Jars the following morning, visiting the 3 main sites and tacked on a bit of sightseeing – some of the old Russian tanks still litter the roadside, and we went to a village where they make bits of bombs into recycled spoons and jewellery. It’s run by a charity and there are several villages like this, to help them make money for local people and to make a legacy from the bombing.


The Jars are very intriguing things - there is a lot of publicity surrounding them and they simply don’t really know when or why they were put there, so it makes them very interesting. The most common theory is that they are used for burials. You also get an idea of how badly Laos has been treated in the “Secret War”, in fact there are bomb craters all over the place, and even a lot of shells still lying around in the villages. People are still getting killed by live unexploded bombs and unfound landmines, in fact we found out that Laos is the most bombed country in the world, even though they never actually fell out with anyone.



After our exploring we visited the MAG (mines advisory group) centre in the town, and made a donation to their cause. It’s a huge job that MAG are doing and the north-east and south-east of Laos are a far cry from the touristy cities like Luang Prabang.

Anyway we actually had a really great couple of days and were looking forward to exploring the rest of Laos and at this point decided we wanted to do some of the Ho Chi Minh trail in the south. The following morning we woke early and headed over to get breakfast at the place run buy the Scottish fellow. We were toying with the idea of riding the dirt road to Pakxan rather than going via Vang Vieng and Vientiane, but it had rained in the night a little so we were unsure of the condition of the road. We decided we could do 200k then turn around and come back if it was bad and spend another night here. But as we headed for the south road, the clouds gathered above us and it was clearly raining over the hills in the distance, so we spun around and headed for the tarmac road we came in on, which was very very twisty. (It was on this road on the way into Phonsavan that we found a blank distance marker on the road, and wrote our story. I wonder how long it will stay there?)

It seemed to go quicker than when we headed in and the clouds were dark above us but no rain as yet. We soon hit the turning point and were headed for Vang Vieng. About 50 km in, much to my horror, the cam chain noise came back and the oil light came on! I pulled over, took all the gear off the bike and laid the bike on its side, opened it up to have a look at the oil filter and it was all misshapen - the exact same symptoms as before! I took it out and cleaned it off with some petrol and put it back. It lasted about 20km so we were still 30 out of Vang Vieng before it came on again, only now the rain decided to come, monsoon style! We had to pull into a service station for some time, and then slowly push on until we reached a town with phone signal. I spoke to Herman the German mechanic in Chiang Mai who was surprised and baffled, but I had a sneaking feeling I knew what it was.


We got a hotel in Vang Vieng and I started to google the symptoms, and spoke to KTM Hemel Hempstead who again were super helpful. I took the clutch cover off and it was full of a white goo and the oil was milky coloured......... water pump seal, as expected. I spoke to Herman the following day, needless to say I was pretty annoyed - I'm not sure about anyone else but I don’t believe in coincidence and I think he just didn’t want to do the job in the first place, I had told him I thought it was the water pump seal and he said it was a big job and he didn’t think it was the problem. It's a shame as it's not the bike that has been letting me down, it's the mechanics that touch it!!

So I got the online "how to" guides and after a couple of days of chilling out went to work on the KTM. It took us ages, it is a very fiddly job but by 5pm I had the new seal and shaft fitted. Problem was the engine cases and exhaust were still off and it was getting dark, I was starting to rush and then I slipped and dinked the engine case on the floor, BUGGGEEEERRRRR!!!!! I had managed to crack it!!!! All that work had messed up something I had done a thousand times!!!!!!!!! I was so pissed off but Cat got the superglue and we glued the snapped part back on, then just fitted it all back together and left it until the morning. I still needed to clean the oil filters and replace all the oil, so after another day of chilling out (Vang Vieng is very good for chilling out), we came back to the bike and started her up, but she just pisses oil out, so I have managed to cripple the bike!!! What a wolly!! The good news is it was easy to get a truck sorted to take us to the Thai border, but we get on really well with the crew down at Gary's Irish Bar so planned to stay here chilling out until Monday (after St Paddy's day)!!


We went tubing, which is what Vang Vieng is pretty famous for, it's not the prettiest side of Laos but as I have worked in nightclubs all my life I am always interested in how a good party works. This was very interesting and it's amazing really as you're never going to be able to do something like that in the West as Health and Safety would have a meltdown. We went to a few of the bars along the river and slowly made our way down the river, and who should we bump into but the owner of Ultimate Party from Cairns in Australia - someone who we have not seen for over 6 years! That day we had a few drinks but didn't get hammered and had an early night as it was St Pat's day tomorrow. St Pat's day was a lot of fun, there was a great atmosphere and it was good to have one last night to have a few s with Gary, Mikey, Johnny, Paulie (or Whiskey Joe as he is sometimes known) and the others.



The following day the van picked us up (actually it was more like a tuk-tuk), and we had to put the bike in backwards as the roof was really low and the bike didn't fit all the way in! It was a lot of fun and we got lots of help from locals getting it in, I bet it looked pretty crazy going along in a Songthaew with a KTM hanging out the back! The road to Vientiane and the border was a mix of broken tarmac and sand, it was very very dusty and bumpy. It took 6 hours to get to Vientiane and we thought we may have to settle there or at the next closest town to the border, but very quickly we found another truck and driver willing to take us straight to Bangkok. I must say if you are considering doing a trip like this, and if like me you can just about give it an oil change and re-fuel it then you should be confident knowing that no matter where you break down there will be a guy with a truck who is willing to help you out for a few American dollars!! In this case it cost about $250 to take us the 600km to Bangkok, which is not bad considering we didn’t get there until 1.30am. KTM were great and the security guard was waiting for us and showed me where to store the bike over night.



So now we are in Bangkok and expect to be here for a week or so, the good news being the bike will be fit again once we leave. Our plan is to head to Cambodia to visit Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) and Sihanoukville, the beach town.
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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Great story so far, nice pictures, what an adventure!

Cambodia - Siem Reap

The two weeks in Bangkok has been hard work, not because Bangkok is a bad place to be, it's great, but we have been in Thailand for a long time in total and we are keen to move on. It's VERY hard to stick within our budget in the city as we end up bored, drinking coffee or eating in western places. One of the things we are finding about traveling like this especially recently, is that one of the toughest things to do is to have nothing to do: you don't realise how much you get up to in normal day to day life, especially me - I'm very social and when I have free time in England I'm out with friends, on the bike, fishing or doing track days and this takes up a lot of my time. Now we're stuck in a strange city trying to spend as little amount of money as possible and not wanting to commit to anything long term (such as a side-trip) as the bike MIGHT be ready soon. It's a little frustrating to say the least, especially when we were finally in a place where we were consistently coming in under budget week after week eating local foods and generally impressing ourselves!!

This said, Bangkok IS a great city, the cinema is cheap, we have been 5 times in 7 days and caught up on most the movies we wanted to see or have missed. I bought a new Mac since the cheap sony laptop got dropped, simply because there about £200 cheaper here than in the UK, but trying to keep it in mint condition until we get home is going to keep me awake at night!!



We have started using the BTS (rail) network to go everywhere, it's REALLY good here, and as the taxis are mostly rip-off artists, it's by far the cheapest and fastest way around town. I'm still annoyed at the fixing of the bike in Chiang Mai, 2 weeks I left it up there to be fixed - obviously he decided to cut corners (unless someone else can explain all my identical symptoms) and now it's cost me a small fortune waiting for parts and the putting of the bike in the trucks. It's very very annoying. I really wanted to do southern Laos, I'm such a big fan of that country, I'm half in the mind to go back and carry on when it's ready, but money is a working factor and so I need to be conscious of how long we have been on the road and how much time we have to get to our destination. I figure maybe in a year's time I will come back here after I have worked for a bit, maybe the end of 2013 with a mate and we can hire a couple of 250cc dirt bikes and really give Laos a good going over on the dirt stuff.

After a couple of days in Lub'd, a boutique hostel in Siam Square, we moved around the corner to a much cheaper one (A One Inn) to save on cash. We went for a meal with Geoff Thomas (Poorcirculation.com) and his girlfriend and he took us to a fantastic place called Condoms and Cabbages. What a great place! The food is good and it's not too expensive, there are decorations all over the place made out of condoms and the idea behind the place is to help spread sexual health awareness among the local Thai population, particularly the sex workers.



We had a good talk, Geoff has become one of Jupiter's Travellers and has lots of usual info and tips around traveling. We also talked about the option of carrying on, it is something that is on and off the cards, money is a big factor, that and the fact we don't want to get "behind" in our careers as we want to be able to have a family soon and not struggle to pay the bills. But I have to remind myself I'm not 40, I'm not even 30 yet and I have got myself to a unique position and seeing the world is on everyone's "if I won the lottery list" and so I should probably stop worrying and just do it while I can!! Geoff was adamant we should carry on, he is such a great bloke and an inspiration to motorcycle travellers all over the world, doing his trip, and on a very small budget.

Then we also met up with Allan Roberts (THE HARD WAY HOME) He spent 899 days on the road, riding through africa, asia and down to Oz, a truly long way home and has a lot of stories. The interesting thing about Allan is he was our age when he did it and is back to his "normal" life so to speak although he's out there living still, doing rallies in Dubai and has big plans to compete in the Dakar rally after beating Simon Pavey in the Dubai desert challenge!! We also had the "should we continue" chat with him and he had also only planned to be on the road for a year or so but ended up extending about a year and a half and rolling into Oz with his last $5 in his pocket, and suggested we do the same. But of course it's tough for me to think like that as I love my job and working in general, always have and always will do, so for now and over the next 2-3 months I need to mull over my options before we reach our planned destination of Australia!

After 2 weeks I was able to go and collect the bike. I found that the bearing had also gone in the water pump seal but it was all repaired and ready to go. So gingerly I got on it and rode it back. We packed our stuff up and had a bit of a clear out and hit the road early the following morning. Getting out of BKK was pretty easy, you find a lot of people say the traffic is crazy and its dangerous, I don't think it's too bad, well no worse than London can be, and certainly nothing like India!



We got to the Cambodia border, Poipet, pretty quickly on a boring motorway ride. We left Thailand to smiles and waves of the officials and entered Cambodia, far less organised and immediately saw clear corruption going on as an Iranian traveler was copping a lot of grief off of a officer. He was accused of not telling the truth, then he was lead off to another room where we could no longer see, and emerged 5 mins later, wallet in hand, shaking his head but clear to move on.

Our visa was sorted for $20.00 (standard price, no bribes paid, we've done this a few times!) and then told we needed to go to customs for the bike which was 2km in the town on the left. We drove in and talked our options through as Phil from Rider's Corner always told us never stop at customs in Cambodia as it will be a lot of hassle and you will end up spending a few dollars to get it all sorted. When we arrived at the customs building, they told us the customs guy was sleeping, we asked him to wake him up, the guard just shrugged his shoulders, said can you come back tomorrow? We said no and he just shrugged again and waved us on!

And so we just rode into Cambodia! We were a little apprehensive to begin with but we have since found out that you get a bit of paper that is no real help anyway and some travellers had paid as much as $50 for it. The police here are MEGA corrupt, they stop bikes all the time and you pay fines for nothing, it's a max of only $2 for any motoring offence but new tourists are often threatened with prison and part with much more cash, up to $10 in some cases, when in reality nothing is going to happen. This said, people who spend any real time here soon cotton on to the scam police and so don't stop when asked. Some wave a stick at you, some even swing it at you but in reality they don't care, they are just looking to earn easy money out of stupid tourists!!



After we cleared the border we saw an amazing thing: 3 pigs, alive, strapped upside-down to the back of a moped, I have seen some crazy stuff on mopeds but this is in my top 10!! (It must be a unique thing to Cambodia - haven't seen it anywhere else but saw many more like this here!)

We were headed for Siem Reap, hoping to make it all in one day. It's a pretty boring ride to be honest, the roads are in ok condition but it's flat and straight. You would think this means I can hum along at 130kph but the traffic is pretty bad, the worst we have dealt with since India. Only 2 weeks ago 5 people were killed on a tourist bus as the driver lost control on a bend after going too fast, and they speed along here easily doing 120kph or more, overtaking where they want regardless of what's coming towards them, very very scary stuff. But I took it easy and stayed very alert and we soon made it to Siem Reap and home of some of the greatest temples in the world.

We drove around the town and found a fantastic little guest house, there were a few people around and as usual the bike struck a bit of interest from people who noticed the side panniers and the various flags. We chatted to a few of them and got the low down on the temples and the best way to deal with things. The following day we woke pretty early and headed off to have a look at the various temples. Cambodia is quite the hustle: people telling us we couldn't take the bike and needed a tuk-tuk, but we rode to the gates, got a ticket and were allowed in no problem.



The temples are breathtaking, we saw Angkor Wat, the main one, plus Bayon, with the faces made from stone, and Ta Phrom, the one with all the trees growing out of the stones, where Tomb Raider was filmed. But we feel a bit bad as I'm sure if we had come to them first we would feel even more blown away, because we have seen so many amazing temples on this journey. Cat and I keep joking that we are looking forward to watching the discovery channel to see which ones we have been to and to compare notes!!


After the temples, we rode out to have a look at a small landmine clearing charity that also had a school attached to it to help orphaned or injured children. Landmines are still a huge problem here and in Laos with an expected 100 million still buried in the ground. People are getting killed daily and even in places where you would not expect, for an example a car pulled off the road only 5km from Siem Reap and got blown to pieces by an anti-tank mine only 3 weeks ago!! It made for some sobering reading and makes you realise how horrible we can be to each other!!



Anyway, that evening we came back to town, relaxed and had a few drinks and some Cambodian food. We tried out the fish feet thingy for the first time and found it very tickly, but our feet were so clean after! We ate that night at a traditional Khmer bbq restaurant where you have a hotplate on the table and cook our own food. It's VERY cheap here with s being 50 cents and very good food being around $4 a dish. The food was great and Siem Reap has a really good atmosphere, we thought about hanging out for a few days more but decided we would rather do that by the beach. Plus I had read that BigTom was down in Sihanoukville and so we made the plans to ride the 600km from Siem Reap to there.

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Cambodia - Otres Beach and Off-Roading


We woke early and
hit the road, not a lot to report as it's flat and boring most of the way, until we hit the hills near the coast, over which we got caught in a storm. It was a bit of a mission to find Otres Beach since we arrived in the dark, and there's not a lot of signs anyway, but so worth it! Straight away we found Tom, then went to find somewhere to stay and met Jade who recommended Done Right, and this is how friendly everyone is: before we'd even unpacked and gone back to meet Tom at his place, we'd made friends with the owners and other guests and had planned a 3-day dirt-bike adventure for the weekend!




Otres Beach is FANTASTIC, so chilled out and we have become part of the family here. We have now been here for a week and it took only 2 days - cat has been enjoying cheap manicures and pedicures and we have been to the weekly pirate party and the guys to all got time off and 7 of us to have a HUGE ride for 4 days though the jungle! Cat stayed on the beach with Ali, one of the girls we had met on our second night, and made friends wit
h the rest of the beach.



We all rented 250 XR's or Baja's and we left around 7am in the morning. The first thing that happened was my bike packed it in before we even got to the town and so I had to take it back and we all waited for 2 hours until another bike was returned! The good news being it was in much better condition than the previous one.



Finally at 11am we left Sihanoukville but we were behind so in a bit of a rush. We followed the coast along, hitting as many trails as we could but nothing any harder than a dirt track. Then we turned off the motorway to follow the trail for about 80 km north west to Chi Phat, a small village by the river. We had a small rest at a shack a coke each and watched the family gut a buffalo for dinner! After a couple of false starts, the road started to have less and less joining points and we soon picked up the main trail as we hit the edge of the jungle.



Boy was the riding getting hard and it didn't stop getting hard! Myself and Chris and sometimes JD took the lead as we were the more experienced guys. The bloody trail was getting very rough indeed, and the jungle was soon thick around us. Rocks, mud, rivers, ditches, downed trees…

we were hitting the whole lot and the trail was not taking us in the direction we expected according to the Sat Nav, which soon died.

We all came off at some stage, be it in deep mud or on very slippery rocks which were covered in a green moss/algae on the other side of a crossing: you could not touch the brakes unless you wanted to kiss the dirt!! Slowly we all worked our way though, we had fallen trees to get bikes over, bamboo to cut our way though and at one stage had to slide the bikes underneath a section of fallen trees, one bike at a time, working in 2 muddy exhausted teams.

We were stopping for breaks from time to time and we were a little disorientated being in such thick jungle, the one thing we all knew after about 3 hours was we needed to get a move on as it was going to be dark in about 2 hours. The problem was we didn't know how far from the end we were and we kept getting small clearings every 30 minutes or so, giving us false hope but this would be followed by a deep river crossing or fallen trees and that hope would soon slip away. We WERE reaching the end of the trail, I thought, we must be since we have covered over 60kms.


Lucky, just as it was getting dark and we had switched our lights on, we emerged from the jungle for real. We were all tired and very hungry having not eaten since breakfast. We regrouped in the tall grass and tried to work out which direction we should be headed in, the good news was
there were small mountain ranges both sides of us so we tried to stick to the middle. Big problem was we were losing light fast and had nothing other than a small track to follow. We were also running out of water and in the 40 degree heat we were starting to dehydrate and get very hungry!!

Nearly an hour of riding went by in the tall grass and cutting in and out of small sections of forest before we hit a wide river crossing. Hats off to Chris who just went for it in the dark and after slipping all over the place made it to the other side! I was next across, I tried to follow a similar path to Chris and ended up slipping big time on the wet/greasy rocks and the bike came down on top of me. I had fallen the other side of a rock and the bike had trapped my leg, I had managed to hold the bike up but I was slipping fast and my strength was sapped from being dehydrated and I was struggling to stop the full 100kg or more of bike crushing my tibia/fibula.

Help! I shouted to the guys over roaring engines, HEEEELP!! Then some of the guys slowly dismounted and I shouted HELP - LEG waited 5 second then shouted HELP my ****ing LEG!! Then 2 of the guys dropped their bikes and ran over, realising I was approaching a bad situation. They lifted the bike off and I was relieved to get my leg out from underneath it. I got the bike started again and we all got across the river. Two of the others also crashed in the river and it meant we all worked together and it tired us out even more. Very exhausted now, we regrouped and Chris led a discussion about stopping the night next to the river where we had running water. But we decided we would do another hour or so and if we hit more thick jungle turn back to the river and sleep there.

Again we pushed on and hit a VERY deep river crossing, more of a very steep ditch, but it was very wet/muddy and deep. Deeper than the height of the bike. We all got past it after a bit of a fight with the mud on the exit, then we looked at the sky ahead of us and saw we had a huge thunder storm brewing. Not good. We moved on along the trail and the grass got shorter and the trail more clear to the point it looked like it was used by 4X4 or trucks.


Then much to our delight we came across our first proper sign of civilisation - a fenced-off area/field. In the pitch black we stopped as the trail seemed to go in 5 direction into the dark. Over the bikes and forest sounds I thought I could hear a loud thumping of bass DUF DUF DUF!! The other guys agreed and we decided to ride towards it. After a few minutes we came to a river, a wide VERY deep river and that's when we realised we were only about 1000 meters from Chi Phat, a small village with guest houses and restaurants, problem was there was a big deep river and no bridges across!!

In the dark we doubled back to try follow the river along and find a crossing. We dipped into some forest and I lost sight of Chris. The track forked, I went one way with JD and Marcus, and Chris, Nick, Sam and Ryan must have gone the other way. It was 5 mins before we stopped and it was in my head light as I went to turn around that I saw a structure with a big plastic tarp. This we could sleep under and stay dry in our hammocks.



We headed over to the structure thinking the other guys would come. Marcus went for a walk and found the river and another crossing point but it was only by boat and the guy would not take the bikes. But we explained we were hungry and soon an old drunk guy appeared rambling out of the night and just 200 meters away he had a small wooden house on stilts. Marcus speaks a bit of Khmer and he tried to explain our situation. We rode the bike towards the house and the man and old lady looked on confused, "we are staying here" Marcus said, we couldn't get any sense out the old man but we needed to sleep.


Whilst Marcus was off hunting round we had been trying to signal the other guys, beeping horns and flashing lights, we knew they were close but it was impossible and none of us wanted to go on our own to explore incase we got lost in the pitch black and it was about to poor down with rain. I thought we would set the hammocks up under the house but the old guy seemed to show a small amount of clarity and showed us to a porch area where there was some food in bags and some old tools, basically a shed on stilts. He moved a couple of bags around and we got the idea he was happy for us to stay there.

It was pouring with rain by the time we unloaded the bikes and we were praying the others weren't looking for us or still stuck in the rain, in a weird way we also hoped they had not found the crossing, as we were so hungry, tired, and thirsty, and JD and I were suffering with really bad cramps, so the idea of them eating good food and drinking would be enough to make us cry!! We got into our sleeping hammocks on the floor pretty quick, there were a few creepy crawlies around but we were all so tired we didn't care. Just as I was settling down, JD remembered he had a small pack of Oreo's with 3 biscuits in it, so we had one each, then Marcus gave us a multivitamin - it's amazing how much of the edge those two things took off! Then just as I was about to fall asleep, JD thought he saw a big cockroach about to crawl over me so I flicked the light on and it turned out to be a bloody scorpion killing the big ants around us! I jumped back and JD jumped up and squashed it!! Damn that was close if I had rolled over I would have been stung and those little scorpions are VERY poisonous!!!

That night we managed to get about 5 hours sleep in total on the wooden floor on the shack. The next day I woke as the sun came up and was still worried the others had been stuck in some field or trees and got soaked in the storm. I decided the best time for me to try find them was now so I took Marcus' bike and went for a ride for over an hour but our tracks were pretty difficult to follow thanks to the rain, and I didn't find them.

As I got back the others were up and had managed to knock a couple of coconuts out of the tree. Man coconut milk gives you a kick when you're mega hungry!! Wow what good stuff, then just as as I was finishing off my first half we could hear their bikes in the distance, we all ran towards them shouting and screaming "this way this way! Over here!!" For a bit it sounded like they were coming towards us, then away, and then finally Chris appeared as I had reached the other side of the field. I pointed in the direction of where we were staying and we all regrouped, anyone would think we had been missing days!! Slowly their story came out, very similar to ours only they took great joy in sharing the fact that they had been given some rice, chilli fish, and water, and the fact that they had seen my track this morning led them to us.

We soon packed our bikes and got ready to try find the magical river crossing. We were looking for a bridge, well that's what we expected as it was a very wide, deep river. But the other good news was the farmer Chris, Sam, Ryan and Nick had stayed with spoke enough English to tell them there was a crossing about 2km up. So we headed up about 1.7km and then there was a steep but well worn track down to the river. We slowly made our way down it and sure enough that was our river crossing: it was some rapids!!

Water level was a little higher as we had much rain the night before, and I'm not sure we would have crossed here if some of the group had their way, but we knew this was the only crossing point and so we had no choice, which is something I love about this type of riding: every now and again you've got to club together and get on with it. Then as we talked over our options, a guy on a moped turned up and just rode over it like it was not big deal. He did nearly get ripped sideways as it was obviously deeper than he expected but it didn't faze him at all. That sealed the deal, we were crossing!!

Using our brains, we decided to use a ratchet strap to lead the bikes and we had one guy behind the bike to steady it at the rear. The rocks were very slippery and the guys thought the ratchet was a bit unnecessary but it turned out to be perfect as one bike got wiped sideways, with the rider off, and if it was not for the ratchet we would have been trying to find in it the Mekong delta!!



Finally we got all the bikes across and then decided it was time to go for a big swim, man what a way to start the day! A huge swim in a stunning river, it put us all in a good mood and a western girl turned up and informed us there was a village and food only 3km away! We dried off and headed for the village and after a bit of messing about found it and ordered some food!! Man what good food and we all had a even though it was only 10.30am!

Well fed, we made a plan and ironically needed to cross back over the river, but there was a ferry 2km away. We ran down and got the ferry - 2 longtail boats with wood stuck to them to form a platform and a well trained 10 year old captain ferried us across the river in 2 loads. Then as we headed out there was a small crowd gathering, and being born men (this automatically means a bit stupid) we all gunned off into the distance but JD was more aggressive with his showing off and ended up high siding the bike into the big dirt puddle in front of everyone, the second time in as many days he had crashed showing off in front of people!! We all nearly fell off laughing and JD sprung up and got back on the bike and managed to cover me in dirt as he left!! We cracked on through our trail, and soon we found the tarmac to finish off the ride to Koh Khong.

We settled into a nice hotel in Koh Khong, went for a few s and some food and just relaxed. The plan being the following day to hit the road about lunch time and go and attack the old Chinese road, which was supposed to be particular fun, then return to Koh Khong for the evening. Two of the bikes were beyond going anywhere, so poor Marcus was going to have to miss out, but Sam decided to rent a bike for the day. We made our way towards the Chinese road and missed the turning the first time, heading about 30 minutes the wrong way on a new road before we turned back, then we hit the good stuff.



I got my GoPro and Nick's GoPro working and we got some epic videos. It was one hell of a ride: we all got stuck, all came off and all had grins from ear to ear, we even came across a small tiger which ran across the road in front of JD! We hoped to have it on film but I was just in the wrong place as I was 2 bikes back. The big shame was the ride was cut a bit short due to a thunder storm rolling in and since we had crossed 3 or 4 very deep river streams which would flood if it rained, we had to turn around, plus it was tough enough going with the mud we had to deal with, without it getting worse!!

So we turned around, and since we all knew the way back, myself and JD decided to split and really open up on the way back. It was some fantastic riding indeed and some of the most fun I have had on this trip. Big respect to Nicolas who stayed with us despite being one of the less experienced guys, but I must say his bravery in the videos shows as he hasn't come off quick enough to know how much it hurts yet. It was a good day, lots of spills, laughs and us working together to dig each other out the mud. On the route we met up with Chris who was on another ride with guides who also used that road the day after us and not much further along they came across a stuck 400 bike just abandoned and they later found out it had broken down and the guy had to leave it and walk 50km back to town!!!

On the final day we were all tired, we did about 60km of track runs but nothing as complicated as we had the previous days, before we finally made it back to Otres beach. The following day I took the bike back, I had to put a new chain on it in Koh Khong as mine was totally nackered and the guy at the rental place was trying to tell me it was $10 for a lever and $10 for indicator lenses, I was so ****ing annoyed as we had spare levers with us and they cost us $2 each but this guy would not let it go and I don't like to admit it but he started to get under my skin. I hate people who rip people off and I ended up telling him to go get the chain removed and I wanted to fix the lever and lights myself. In the end he called it quits as I did still have one days rental outstanding ($20) so $10 for the other bits was not so bad. Then we took back JD's bike and his guy was great - $3 for the lever and £10 for the whole front break unit, totally fair and honest!!

We then spent the next 10 days chilling out at Otres beach, and spent two nights camping on gorgeous Ko Ta Kiev for Khmer New Year. If you go to Cambodia then you must go to Otres beach in Sihanoukville, it's stunning and SO SO SO relaxing, plus the guys who run Done Right, and Moonlight Rock, along with the bars: Mushroom, Blame Canada and Oocha are all great fun guys and we became part of the family very quickly. It was great to just hang out as it felt like we had been friends for years. The beach is sandy and shallow and clear, the s are cheap, the food is fantastic, especially Papa Pippo for italian (7 meals in 10 days speaks for itself!) and Moorea Bar does the best tuna salad IN THE WORLD. I think we are going to do the bike run for a week every year from now on so if you're interested in joining us next time then watch this space!!

Eventually time came to say goodbye to Otres, mostly as time is moving on and we want to get back to being bike travellers. I had to head back to Bangkok to get a new tyre and so we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our new good friends, paid off our tabs at various bars along the beach and hit the road. We were worried a little about the fact we had not got the bike into the country legally thanks to sleepy customs officers, but once at the border no one even asked us, they just smiled and waved us though and very quickly we were back on fantastic twisty, well-tarmaced Thai roads!! 800km later and we were in Bangkok!! (again)

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Phuket, then Phuket, and Phuket Again.

It's been a while since our last blog, but if I'm honest, the last 10 days have been anything but the hardest of my life! In fact they have been very relaxing indeed!! First we got back to Bangkok, a place we are now pretty familiar with and it almost felt homely which was odd. We stayed in the same fantastic little cheap place we stayed the last time and it was as usual very good value and they do look after my bike well.

I took the bike to KTM and moaned about the coolant level rising slightly so they replaced the radiator cap, which has not solved the problem, but I think I have a slight leak from a hose which must be letting air in, as other than the increase in level the bike is running very well. After 2 short days in Bangkok we saddled the bike up and hit the road to head in the direction of Australia which for us felt like a big deal as it's been a good 3 months since we headed in the direction of our final stop.

The first day we did about 500km. IT'S SO FREEKING HOT at the moment, its 40+ degrees and it's a wet muggy hot, it makes you tired and so for this reason finally I have resorted to riding with no jacket on the last couple of days, simply because I was sweating so much it was making me very uncomfortable, to a point where it might be dangerous. We headed straight south toward Phuket, and the first night we stopped at a fantastic little place called Rocky Point Resort, it cost us £12 for a big room with TV and we had the whole place to ourselves, fantastic!!

The next day we started the day with a swim then hit Phuket. Disappointingly we found out we had just missed Phuket Bike Week, we saw lots of big bikes leaving as we turned up!! After choosing a nice place and settling down just in time for sundowners, we decided we should spend a week or so in a bit of luxury, as our wedding anniversary is only a month away. We stayed in a beautiful resort called the Boathouse on Kata beach. The service is amazing, absolutely 5 star, the food is good and the poolside and private beach area is always pretty quiet so were are very happy. Cat loves the service at the beach - they give you TWO towels each, constant refills of cold bottled water, pieces of fruit on skewers, and cold face towels that smell like lemon sorbet.

We spent the fir
We spent the first 3 days chilling out and went out on Thursday night for few s, meeting a really cool American guy called Quinn, and 3 girls from Australia. We have spent most our time chilling out - one day was a snorkelling trip which was pretty good where we got to go to the Beach beach (Maya Bay on Phi Phi) and saw James Bond Island. Another day we went game fishing but didn't catch anything other than some Tuna and 3 Queen fish all less than 2kg in weight!! But we did meet some cool Aussie guys and spent a few nights out in Patong with them.

The Saturday night we went out to Patong which is the main entertainment area. We sat in a bar on the main street and just watched the madness: it was a lot of fun, there is so much going on such as colourful drag queens, giant lizards and cute baby lemurs, and it's all on a really buzzy positive vibe. There IS a quite seedy side to things but in general it's a very fun place to see and hang out, and no matter how you view it, it makes Thailand very different from any other place I have ever been. We watched the lady boys who do the Cabaret show hand out flyers and get their pictures taken (yes, we also got the obligatory photos), they love the attention and play up to it a lot. It's just a really crazy place to be, almost comparable to Marrakech in that sense but obviously very very different.

So now after having a "holiday" from our travels, we look forward to getting on the bike tomorrow and getting to Malaysia or at least the border by tomorrow evening. Here's to hoping it's not too hot and it doesn't rain!!

Well, it didn't rain and it wasn't too hot, but we really should have hoped for a healthy bike…..

We left for Malaysia as planned and got 200km down the road, only to see bubbles blowing out the coolant bottle into my half bottle of water I had attached to the overflow pipe: A neat trick was I told about from ADVrider.com which basically proves without a doubt that I had a head gasket going. It was slowly getting worse, so we stopped and considered out options. As the crow flies we were closer to Kuala Lumpur than Bangkok but we had a border crossing to deal with and that would mean getting off the beaten track with a falling apart bike.

After some phone calls to see about overstaying our visa meant (we had 3 days left) and what our options were, we decided the smartest thing to do was to head back to Phuket, where we could get a truck/plane/what ever we needed!! Once back in Phuket and staying in a slightly cheaper place we made our plans and made some calls, understandably annoyed at this new situation. It soon came around that it was in fact smarter to rent a car (Toyota Hilux we got) and drive back to Bangkok ourselves, to drop the bike at KTM. It's so cheap to rent cars here and freight to Bangkok was going to cost £800 (what we paid from Dubai to Nepal!!).

So the following day we went to see the rental guy, who right from the start came across like a right twat, but we looked for other options and there just weren't any. So we rented the car from him, went back to the hotel and with the help of some other tourists who Cat had politely roped in, we lifted the bike on the truck and strapped it down (6th time now I think).

I did the 1000km to Bangkok the following day, I was really tired but it got done, there's not a lot to report it was boring and I was less than impressed with the wallowy Hilux which handled like a pile of crap. The air bag light was constantly on and the steering was off but we cruised down the motorway dodging Thai drivers and nut cases until we came to Bangkok. We arrived at our hotel and after some negotiating with the posh hotel across from our guesthouse, secured a space to park in. A guest at our hotel was a traveller like us - we saw what I think was a 950 KTM outside, but it had a mix of different panels on so it was difficult to tell and it looked like it had been in a fair number of scrapes over its time. It was from the Netherlands, we never met the rider but did leave our card with the bike.

In the morning we woke early to drop the bike off at KTM, then went to the hotel for breakfast and decided that it was smart to split up the journey back to Phuket by doing it in 2 days and resting for the evening at Rocky Point, the place we had stopped at on the way down the first time. And it was a lucky decision, because our day would not be an easy one...

On the way out of Bangkok, just as we were leaving the city, I overtook a bus that was slowing to take a left exit and suddenly I lost the back end of the Hilux - it went into a bit of a sideways slide before I fully lost grip and it spun round in the road! Lucky there was nothing in front or beside us and the bus had stopped and we ended up facing the wrong way in the road. Shocked, as it came from nowhere, we got out to see we had hit a road sign (the exit from the motorway sign), and there was a policeman standing right there blowing his whistle shouting at me!

He had seen the whole thing and I guessed he wanted me to come with him. He went to block the road so we could get the Toyota facing the right way around, but then BAM! another biker rode straight into him and fell on the floor! The policeman was furious and up to this point had seemed very calm and nice and it made me worry, as I had no idea at that time what they were going to do me for.

I of course asked if I could pay a cash fine on the spot, but he spoke so little English he didn't even get that, but did say to me no book no book and I understood this to mean I had to go to the station. The guy on the moped who hit him got a massive telling off and all his paper work taken off him after an open palm to the face. Cat was shaken up and could not believe this was all happening but was staying pretty calm.

I took one of my driver licences (an old one) and left Cat with the car, slightly worried I was going to get thrown in a cell. When we got to the station I relaxed as they were smiling and laughing, he explained what had happened in Thai to someone who seemed like the boss of the station and it turned out I had to pay a fine for hitting the sign as the policeman saw me lose control but said it was slippery and not my fault. I wasn't speeding or anything. They asked for 1000 baht (£20) so I agreed eager to get out of there, and after about 45 mins and going to 3 different desks with a discussion about football and the jokes about the policeman being hit by the other biker, I was free to go after shaking everyone's hand.

Once back at the car I could see we had hit the wheel on the curb and put a small dent (in the already dented) tail and broken a light cover. Annoyed, but feeling lucky things weren't a lot worse, we drove off. I thought the car still felt odd so I slowed down after the lights (there was not a single car on the road) and after feeling everything was probably in my head, I indicated and crossed 2 lanes to get on my way, and not 100 meters up the road was a police road block! He saw us and immediately tried to stop us on one bogus charge or another. I carried on (forgetting I was in a car, not the bike) and immediately got caught at the lights up ahead. Whoops.

The policeman caught up to us on his bike and I played dumb and we followed him to the side of the road. He was very aggressive and took my licence, saying I had not indicated (that old chestnut), basically a crappy tourist tax we have come across before. I tried to explain I had just come from the station but he said I must go back there, I said which one, but he just gave me a ticket and rode off into the traffic. Lucky I had given him my old licence (my last spare - I have now lost 3 to the Thai's) but even if I was going to go to the station and pay the bogus ticket, "where was the bloody station?????" I was annoyed at the absurdity of it especially as I had just come from a different station 1km away so we just kept going!!

Further down the coast, once we started looking for a hotel, we realised it was Buddha's birthday and therefore a national holiday, so it took us over 2 hours (and over 15 stops) to find a bed, which in the end was nothing more than a wooden beach hut with a bit of a premium (£15 instead of £8). Once back in Phuket we had to go explain to the hire company the damage, and straight away he wanted 10,000 baht for a broken light and a dent (surround by other dents). We argued but he would not have any of it and so in the end we paid him. Hopefully we did more damage than just what he could see! The good news was that with fuel and even the crash damage included it was still about £300 cheaper the flying the bike back to BKK or forward to KL.

Once back in Phuket, for the third time, we went for a and bumped into people we had met a couple of nights before who are friends with Mark Jones, the kiwi guy who we met heading to the Isle of Mann TT at the very beginning of our trip! How funny is that, very small world indeed!!! We had a with them, some food after, and booked our flight to Chiang Mai for the morning, where we have decided I will do some more fishing at the Dreamlake fishing resort, and Cat will get some pampering while the bike is being fixed and road tested.

Our Next blog - The beginning of the end after we get some bad news.................
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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Man Rixxy is it me!!! But that KTM seems a bit of a lemon, hope all ends well your trip seems to be a Break Down Adventure!, as you will have noticed Rainey season is on its way in Thailand now.
I am 800km from Bangkok, just a bit far to help you, if you get stuck drop me a PM and we can sort something out.

Eric

End of the Trip - I will add photos soon!! Sorry its so much text, all our stuff is still packed up!!

So here I sit on our LAST day of proper travel in Chiang Mai. Yes, that's right, our last day. I will explain how this has come about over this blog and how it wasn't an easy decision to make ,but one we feel is smart and the best in the long run.

So we went to to Dreamlake Fishing in Chiang Mai, for a fantastic 5 days fishing and I was very lucky to net some incredible fish, including a new fresh water record for me of an 81-pound (37kg) Alligator Gar. (For those interested, I actually caught 2 Alligator Gar, 3 Catfish, 4 Red Tail Catfish, 7 Mekong Catfish, a stunning giant Snakehead and Garami and lots of smaller Mud Carp and Tilapia.)

We spent a few days relaxing and trying to plan the next part of our journey, and it was throwing up a few problems. The first was I have only got 2 pages left in my passport and with 2 or 3 countries to go I could run out of space. To get another passport, the current one has to be sent to Hong Kong as (due to fraud) they don't issue them in Thailand anymore and this takes up to 4 weeks. This means I would have to wait around in Thailand for 4 weeks, only problem is my Thai visa would run out after 2 weeks and then I would be here "illegally" so to speak, with no passport! So not really an option.

The next problem we had was that I HAVE to enter Australia by the first week of June to get my 5 year right to remain visa. Now, the bike at this stage was not going to be ready until the 15th of May, giving us 3 weeks to get down Thailand into Malaysia and onto the plane to Oz. Which was do-able but meant we would miss Indonesia and Singapore which would be a bit of a shame. There was also the fact that all our personal insurance, storage contracts, Carnet and everything else was running out and would need to be renewed: the biggest jaw dropper was our travel insurance who wanted £150 per month per person for us to continue. All this was making carrying on at a pace where we could see stuff and do what we wanted very difficult.

Then came the straw that broke the camels back: turned out the lower gaskets and the pistons rings were also gone, meaning KTM needed to order parts which they "hoped" would be in by the end of the week around the 19th, but the bike would not be back together and properly tested until around the 25th. Put simply, we were running out of time and the financial implications of running longer for the sake of 1000km or so in SE Asia did not make any good sense at all. The biggest disappointment would be not doing the Ozzy loop, but with a 5 year right to remain visa it does mean I can come back at any time and realise this goal.

So it was with all the above in mind, along with our commitment to work and the fact we had told people we would be back after around 12 months, we decided to call the "bike" part of the trip a day. Yes it's a shame, but really I also need to get my back looked at as I'm in a lot of pain, it's got to the point where there are simply too many things facing me which need to be addressed. So after 28 countries riding and 50,000 km this might be the end of the journey.

………………….
PERTH

So we flew to Perth to meet Cat's family and chill out here while the bike gets fixed. It has been a nice slow integration with reality but perhaps a bit of a highlight also of how lucky we are and have been. As most of you know, I hurt my back whilst with the London to Tbilisi riders in Turkey: I have since had bad days and good days and for the most part have been of the nature of "I'll get on with it" with the aim of finishing the trip being my main focus. After a couple of days, and watching me limp around moaning and munch a lot of pain killers, Sue and Chris said I need to see someone and so I went to see the Chiropractor. He then insisted I get an MRI scan before he would touch me, and the news has not been good since.

In a nut shell, I have a large herniated disc in my L4/L5 area which is causing pain in my S5 nerve (right leg) and could be effecting my S1 nerve ("mans" area). After I got the scan and went to the doctor they also realised I had shrinking of my right leg (around the muscles, NOT getting shorter, as some of you have joked!) and so they have come to the conclusion that I need to get it operated on soon rather than later. The travel insurance company were useless and so we have decided to go back to the UK and get it dealt with there as at least when I get out of hospital I can rest in my own home and still run part of my business.

It's been sore, but I'm used to it for the most part, and even though I've finished riding a bike on mud and broken up roads, it's only now starting to worry me.

Other than that we have hung out with family, eaten out and I even bought a pair of jeans!! Yes, I love jeans and it was a very good thing to be able to buy and wear a pair again.

After about 2 weeks in Perth we are heading back to the Bangkok to crate the bike up and head back to London. We plan to be in London around 30 May and have planned a few s with friends around June 1st!

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Final Goodbyes…..

So we came back into Thailand, my back is no better and so I guess it must have been something I did in the last few weeks has been the cause of the back to go from very bad to very very bad. Believe it or not, it may have even been the fishing and those big 50lb + fish put up one hell of a fight! But it was only a matter of time and rather it be now than falling off the blade on a track somewhere over summer.

I notice when we've come back to places/cities that they don't look the same, maybe it's because you know what to expect and where you're going so have time to take more things in, or maybe it's because you're no longer just jaw dropped at the different sites and sounds. But I have noticed on this that trip whenever I have spent some time away from somewhere and come back, I tend to take a more grounded view of it.

I love Thailand, I mean, there's things I don't like about it, but I really do think this country is one of the greatest places on earth. There's so much going on, and after coming from the stunningly clean streets of Perth with the big spaced out houses and the graffiti-free, rubbish-free life they live, coming back into Bangkok with its stalls everywhere, people selling food, clothes and just about anything you could ever want pretty much everywhere you go makes your senses go crazy and it's a beautiful thing.

I love that fact you can sit down at a little stall, eat some rice and chicken right in the middle of Bangkok for less that 40 baht (80p) while only 10 meters away rice and chicken in the posh restaurant opposite is £12, or the steak restaurant the other side of you has not a single main meal on the menu for less the £20. It's just excellent and Thailand does this with so many things.

The other good example is some of the most beautiful and magnificent shopping malls I have ever seen: they contain everything from Levi's to Gucci and beyond with some even having Lamborghini and Austin Martin dealers in where you can even buy Lamborghini cycles! Opposite these malls, in what would seem to be the car park, will be hundreds of stalls selling fake everything and some custom designers trying to show their stuff and where you can pick a T-shirt up for as little as £1.50. And it's ok: no one closing people down and trying to stop people doing it, everyone just smiles and gets along and some shop in both while others prefer one or the other.

Where we come from, I really think it's such a shame that "old man council" and "health and safety" have gone so far - we're all being forced to shop only in malls and eat only in restaurants all because the little guy in England is not allowed to exist, because it would be a health hazard this, or a fire hazard that.

This said, Thailand can still be the most frustrating place on earth: along with the varieties of eateries and shopping, it also applies to the level of education and so sometimes even the most basic of things takes ages due to a lack of common sense. (e.g. KTM not telling me they needed to order a particular part until I come in to collect and pay for the "finished" bike - what happened to a phone call?!)

We met with Allan Roberts again for a catch up and a discussion of his up and coming Dakar Rally attempt, and the Australia Desert Challenge. He is one hell of an inspiring guy and I love hanging out with him, he's got a real "let's get the **** out there and do this" attitude rather than a "well I would really like to but cos of my (insert one of a thousand excuses here) situation I can't." I truly wish him all the luck in the world and I will be looking to support you in any way I can. It's guys like you that make me think I'm not the only crazy person in the worked who is so "lucky" to be able to follow my dream…….. I'm still thinking about getting "don't call me lucky" tattooed somewhere on my body!!

We tried to ship the bike out, my what a hassle!! To begin with we sent about 20 emails out to different agents and after 2 days only 3 had replied despite us chasing them all up. One company had us believing they knew what they were talking about, but kept adding things in like "wood needs to be fumigated." "No, not included in price, that's extra." "Yes, Virgin Airlines accept dangerous goods cargo." (They don't.)

We eventually told them to stuff it and went to another agent recommended on a few traveller's blogs, even though they were more expensive, but we just wanted to get it sorted. Unfortunately they too had a problem. Our bike import paper was 10 days expired. For anyone that knows this (and it's printed in English in the thai customs website) vehicles can stay in the country up to 6 months, and if you stay over your initial expiry date - normally a month - you just pay a fine of 100 baht per day up to a maximum of 1000 baht, when you leave.

But the shipper wouldn't accept this, so we had to go to the airport to try to get a new form. But the customs guys couldn't just give us a new form, and they couldn't understand why the shipper had such an issue with this paper. They insisted it's no problem. I made them call the shipper and explain the situation, and we went to the shipper's offices in the cargo terminal. They they decided AGAINST what customs advised and decided that actually, they would make it a problem still. This went back and forth a few times. In the end, the customs guys (who are really very helpful - the head of the department deals with us and is very good) - advised us to get another shipper, and they called one for us and said they will call us in a few minutes to discuss our bike. (To date - 14 days later - we're still waiting for that call!) It appears Bangkok shipping agents don't need or want our business.

So after spending 10 hours running around to sort this issue out and getting nowhere, we decided to go for some food and a to clear our heads.

I pull out the airport onto the motorway and straightaway a police officer on a bike sees me and gestures me to stop. I think, stuff him he's in the inside lane the other side of a bus and I'm in lane 4, I'm outta here - as normally they're on 250s and cannot keep up. But much to my surprise as I emerged out the front of the 6 or so buses he was right there on a FZ800 with panniers, BOLLOCKS!

When I stop he says "not bike on highway, no good, big trouble." I point to the Sat Nav and say I didn't see a sign and the Sat Nav says this way. He asked for my licence, I said I don't have it. "Your passport". I say "Nope, I have come from the airport, I ship my bike tomorrow and they have all my documents." He was a bit confused at that one. "No problem" I say, "I normally just pay a fine for my troubles now." "Yes," he says, "2000 baht."

Laughing I say wow you must be rich man this is why you have nice bike! He laughs and straight away says 1000 baht. No no, I say it's a normally only 200, but he says "you on highway, could be big trouble, give me 500 baht." I then say ok ok, knowing I have a 500 baht note in my wallet. I pay him and he was very pleasant and let me continue on the motorway with his escort which included a little run to see what pace I had in the KTM, then when I nearly took the wrong exit he followed me off and guided me the right way.

After the day we've just had, I say to Cat, "**** sake could our day get any ****ing worse?" and literarily within 30 seconds the heavens opened! One of the few time I was wearing t-shirt and shorts on the bike and Cat was huddled in behind me wearing jeans and a top. Man, it hammered down, a typical Asian monsoon storm where you get about a day's worth of rain in 30 mins!

Anyway I eased up and slowly cruised back to the hotel, if I'm thankful for one thing before leaving on this trip it's having done a couple of track days in the rain - you have a lot more grip than you think and it helps teach you what the bike will and will not do. Once back, and totally soaked to the skin, we got changed and I had a coffee ordered to clear my head a bit.

I find the most frustrating thing here is waiting for other people. In my work, I have a certain amount of control-freak syndrome. I push things to the limit, work problems out quickly, and I'm not afraid to ring people to the point where others find it embarrassing. I will happily call someone thirty times in a day to find out what the hell is going on and put pressure on them, and I think that is why I find these situations so frustrating. It's horrible having a day like this were you do all the right running around, and speak to all the right people but nothing happens. Normally I'm on the phone to someone's boss, or a lawyer or someone who I know can put pressure on these people to get things done. Instead I got soaked to the ****ing skin, my wallet is lighter than when I left this morning and we literally spent a day achieving NOTHING.

So we decided to go for a quiet . Cat is not feeling too good as it turns out she has an Oesophagus Ulcer after taking her malaria pill late on night with not enough water and then going to bed straight away, so she is struggling to eat and drink but has found that Baileys seems to work, either that or she drank enough of them the pain just went away.

But we talked and to be honest, laughed a lot at our situation. Then I made some calls - being me, I don't like to leave any stones unturned - and other options turned up. And by the end of the day the bike situation had been dealt with, in fact in the end I had 3 options but I chose the one that was fair to all parties involved and it means myself and Cat can fly out in 2 days time.

…………….

So this morning we packed our stuff and tried to get a taxi, and it was not the best end to Bangkok. We got a taxi driver who let us put our stuff in his taxi and then told us he wanted 500 baht and would not take us there on the meter. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not one for being crossed, but this part of me tends to have an even shorter leash ESPECIALLY before I have eaten or had a boring coffee, and needless to say this taxi driver got a bit of a James special "you thief I hope your family are proud, you will get no business, bad omens for you" - the whole lot, as I unloaded the taxi with Cat's help while he just stood there.

I notice the Thais are suspicious and the whole "Buddha will bring bad luck to you" really freaks them out, especially as I rubbed my beads as I said it, but good as he was ripping us off!! Within 2 minutes another driver was there and we cleared things with him first, telling him what had just happened and he said "yes don't use Tax Mafia no good they cause big problems." This second guy was what most Thais are like, especially in the north, big smile, really helpful and chatty. In the end I gave him 300 baht - 100 over what the meter said which I think is a fair deal for everyone.

My back is killing me, flying is proving to be harder than I expected and I'm now on the second leg of the 14 and a half hours in the air. I can barley keep my leg still even though I have doubled up my co-codamol and I'm on Ibuprofen and even some valium to help me sleep which I'm only managing to do for an hour before my leg pain wakes me. It's not too bad once I'm back on the ground but as you know on the plane everything swells and this seems to mean the disc leans on the nerve a little more and it's borderline agony, I cannot imagine how bad it would be if I had no pain killers taking the edge off.

So really guys this is the end. It has been an adventure and no matter how I look at it, it didn't quite end how I wanted it to. But that's why I think it's been so good - we left with no real plan and man have we done some incredible things! Seen some incredible things, been to incredible temples, see tigers in the wild, eaten amazing food, met amazing people and got to understand many religious traditions.

I look back and from a world perspective I feel like I left like a silly little boy, I certainly feel that when I read parts of my blog back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pretending to think I'm some world guru now, not at all, in fact I would say I'm probably a well informed teenager at best. There are much more experienced people like Ted Simmons, Geoff Thomas, Alan Roberts, Marcia and John, Big Tom and many others who have inspired us, some have helped us, and we stand in your shadows and thank you for sharing your stories and inspiration with us. There are probably others who I have missed, I know and I'm sorry but it's hard to recall all the details from memory.

It nearly brings a tear to my eye to think this is all over. I never left England until I was 19 and I feel like a lucky guy, and I hate being called that! Hours of work has gone into being able to do this. I never thought I would ever do anything like this as a kid, in fact there are many things I didn't think I would do but have achieved nonetheless, and I encourage any single person out there that this is doable and it's not difficult and it is amazing!

Sure there's ups and downs, good days and bad, but when you meet and spend time with a beautiful Iranian family or get blown away by some fun lovely Nepalise kids, or share a joke with some Indian lorry drivers whose only way of communicating is by hand signals, or when you enter a country like Laos and see what we have done to each other and the disrespect we seem to be able to create and the awful things that we can do, and yet these stunning people are living there with big smiles who welcome you like you're family when they still suffer due to western wars that they really wanted nothing to do with, home sure seems like a long way off.

Then you go to Cambodia and see the shanti towns back from the beach 1/2 a mile from where only 4 years ago they were forced off their own beach land because it was sold to big hotel chains, yet they have parties in the street outside their wooden shacks and invite you to drink and dance with them, even though the iPod you have in your pocket might be worth more than all their possessions put together, and it truly makes you feel like we as individuals are something special.

I will never forget this trip, not as long as I live, sure I would do things differently and I may not always have done things right but you cannot be perfect every day, no one can. I sit on the plane and I can say I'm a bit teary-eyed, I feel a bit stupid really but holy shit it's over and the memories and things I have seen will change my life forever. The one thing I would like to add is that I pray everyday we do not go to war with Iran, if we do I think it will make me almost inconsolable for the people there are incredible and I wish in the end I had spent more time there. If I can, I'm definitely going back. Please don't be put off by what you see and read in the papers, bad news sells papers good news doesn't sell quiet as well.

This of course will not be my last trip, don't get me wrong I want the things in life that 90% of the world's population want and that is a family and to settle down with my own part of the world. I intend to make charity work a bigger part of my life and I do intend to do more trips. I want to do Africa and more of Europe, Russia then probably via Iran and the Stans over to Mongolia and back. Then there is Australia and in the end the Americas which Cat and I know we can do when we are a little older.

But for the next couple of years it's back to my biggest love and that is business. I'm looking forward to getting stuck back in and creating new opportunities and then when the time comes, taking the odd week or so off to disappear into Europe and go to places I'm yet to have seen. We are very lucky to live in the UK - a whole variety of different cultures is right on our doorstep and I think we just don't make the most of it enough!!

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Now I need to say "thank you"s. This will be my last blog, but I will keep you updated with what we get up to and until we get home. I will keep the travel diary site (James And Cat's Motorcycle Travel Diary - Introduction) up at least, even if I don't link the updates with the followers we have on other sites (horizons unlimited, advrider) so if you're reading this somewhere else and want to keep in touch, please go sign up to James And Cat's Motorcycle Travel Diary - Introduction

We have met so many incredible people on this trip: everyone who has helped us, encouraged us, given us advice or has swapped stories over a few s. The journey really has been the people you meet, especially those who helped us out along the way when we were in trouble: The Moroccan businessman who showed us an alternative way to make a living; the bike gang in Hungary who adopted us for the weekend; the families in Iran; the Sikh Indian with the tyres; the Turkish police after my accident; the hotel owner in Turkey; and many times Hemel Hempstead KTM who have always took time to give me some advice and help whenever I have called, which was often for nothing other than a thanks and for me to quickly hang up! Phil from Rider's Corner in Chiang Mai; and of course Eddie on 24/7 telephone mechanic advice while I have been in Asia. Plus anyone else who has shown us their home or way of life or taken time out of their day to talk with us and make us fell welcome. So many great people and so many friends for life.

I also need to thank our families, and close friends, special mention to both sets of Mum and Dad's; Gaz Hurst who drove halfway across the country to collect and look after my stuff and is letting us stay at his house until we get a place sorted; Ferg Harrington for being there for me and looking after my business who is not just my business partner but a true friend; Jade my sister for spending hours searching flights seeing what deals she can score us with her stewardess discounts when needed; Rob from Southern Cross for helping me out whenever he could. And everyone else for the words of encouragement, the kind emails from people we have never met, and we wish those who said they were planning their trips all the luck in the world and if you come via London we have an open house - just drop us an email as we would love to return the favour and kindness we received on the road.

Also the websites Adventure Rider Motorcycle Forum and horizionsunlimited.com are so invaluable - so much help, encouragement, advice. Help fixing the bike, routes, things to see and friends along the way has all come from these incredible hubs of information. These online communities are a must for anyone considering doing any sort of big bike/overland trip.

So that's about it. We travelled through 30 countries, 28 by motorcycle, flew over 2: Pakistan and Myanmar as we could not take the bike in or get visas. We covered 50,000km on the bike, went though 3 sets of tyres and had 1 accident on the KTM and Cat had one a hire bike (only one broken bone.) We rode to 4000 meters high, paid as little as $5 for 30 litres of petrol and as little as 50 cents for a meal. We probably drank too much, ate too much and didn't do enough exercise so to speak. We saw elephants, long nose crocodiles, tigers, a rhino, rare birds, alligators, monkeys, buffalo, rare deer, big eagles, and desert cats. We went to churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, palaces and castles. We rode on all terrains, twisty mountain roads, sand covered roads across deserts that seemed to go on forever, huge pot holed truck filled roads in India, mud tracks, sand tracks, roads that were collapsing and had landslides on, and even up the side of a mountain on a trekking route. We slept in hotels, hostels, tents, on the beach, in hammocks, in people's homes, and even in the food storage room in the middle of a field in Cambodia. We have eaten lots of different types of food, too many to mention in fact but have turned down crispy cockroaches and dried meat rats. It's been a hell of a journey and I hope you have enjoyed following it with us. If you have just found the blog, go get a cuppa and have a read. It might make you chuckle and think about taking some time out of the rat race.

Lastly (but not least!) thanks to Julie and Chris (the Jetstreams) who one Sunday over some drinks and good food told us that we should definitely go and do it, when we were wondering about it, and I do believe the following weekend I bought the bike!!
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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com

Hey guys,

so looks like we are going to come up to Ripley for the meeting this weekend. Just thought we would let you all know. We will not be on the KTM but on another bike instead.

Would be good to see anyone who is also going so do let us know.

James

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com