Report No 26 Cha – Am Thailand, 18,150 kilometers

Well I'm now reaping the rewards in the Gulf of Thailand.There is a beautiful beach with a nice bungalow and lots of good food.The 1,200 km down from the Laos/Thai border was pretty easy with flat roads and tail winds.

I spent five nights on the banks of the Mekong. Lying in bed in Laos and
looking out the balcony door at Thailand seemed to appeal to me.
Chiang Saen on the Thai side was pretty interesting.Last time we stayed out of town at Gin's I think solely for the reason that the name appealed to us.But in town evening food vendors set up stalls and the locals come out in their hundreds to sit on grass mats on the river bank and consume fish or chicken barbecued inside thick bamboo.
I've never seen anything quite like it.Watching the cargo ships from China was also interesting.Westerners can travel from Thailand to China by boat through Myanmar and Laos.

The bike shop at Chiang Rai run by Bird and his wife was excellent and I got various new parts. Bird worked on the bike like a hospital surgeon calling out for tools and parts and the wife would hand them to him. But I had an annoying noise a couple of days later and after a process of elimination for a day or two I changed the quick link and the noise was gone.I was still using the original.

I met two elderly expatriates in Chiang Rai who both tried to convince me that Chiang Rai was the place to be.One was a Norwegian kayaker who I had dinner with.The other was an American who was a permanent resident at the same guest house as me.He played tennis and had a massage every day.
One day west of Bangkok (I didn't go there this time) for about fifty kilometers
the road was lined with hundreds of police, several ambulances & an emergency response team. I realized that a sixty four year old rolling in by bike from Europe was pretty amazing but I thought this sort of reception was a bit over the top.But it wasn't for me but rather for the Prince and Princess of Thailand who were in a convoy of white Mercedes and BMWs travelling at about 150 kilometers an hour.I had to get off the road and wasn't allowed to take a photograph.They allowed me to stay on the road until just before the arrival so it didn't hold me up too much & they explained what was going on.
I'll be crossing to the west side of peninsular Thailand in 300 km and it will all be new for me as I haven't been there before.