BUT, SOMEONE must bring this up so I decided to compile them into one blog post (with slight touch ups) so that we can read back with ease and look back at those days when we were attempting our first ironbutt trip that happened on Dec 2008 to Jan 2009.
1 Day and 20 hours.....
Yes that's the remaining time at this point of writing before I and AngKuGuay embark on the longest road trip we have ever attempted and a long-mentioned one since 9 years ago. Due to personal commitments and stuffs, this adventure had been postponed and never mentioned until recently when we have a sudden feel to get this trip done while we both can still afford the time and moolah to do so.
Basically it is a trip up to North Thailand and our furthest destination will be somewhere near the border of the Golden Triangle. And the main focus of our trip is the 1868 turns at Mae Hon Song, The Death Bridge at River Kwai, and pay a little visit to Eddie, who owns a bike shop in Thailand. On our way down, if time allows, we will be heading down to Penang, Fraser Hill and Genting on the way back to Singapore.
The trip took us months to prepare, when both of us (most of the time is AKG) finding out from those who had been there what to look out for and advises. Even up to now I still have not finished packing and by tomorrow everything had to be in place, by hook or by crook.
So, we will be spending the New Year in Thailand, riding and exploring around the places and if internet access is present, probably some updates on the blog :)
Goodbye Singapore!
See you next year :)
After months of waiting and weeks of preparations, AngKuGuay and Xgrind is finally moving off for the longest trip these 2 crazy riders (to non-bikers that is) ever attempted.
Huat ah!
Day 1
AngKuGuay and me, together with DaBitch and Quizesilver, moved off to Gelang Petah Petronas Petrol Kiosk where they will send us off. There we get our stuffs ready and once prepped, we moved off at 1am sharp, an hour behind our original schedule.
Night riding is never AKG’s preferred choice of riding, but as we need to coordinate the train schedule at Hattyai, night riding is the only way where we won’t have too much waiting time. Nevertheless, the road up was light in traffic and weather is very cooling. And we rode thru the night till dawn, when we continued till we reach the Thai border. Along the way, we stopped at the following locations for breaks and petrol:
- Pagoh
- Bukit Malin
- Bukit Tangang
- Napoh
However getting thru the customs isn’t exactly smooth. AKG went to check on the procedures while I keep watch of our belongings. We got our passports stamped but we were told that we were supposed to do our customs process at another counter. Wa, damn confusing, and it added to our frustrated mood due to lack of sleep on the previous night. What makes things worse is the rainy weather in Southern Thailand: Wet boots, wet helmets, wet jackets…you get the picture.
When we finally reached Hattyai, another challenge faced before us: find the railway station. We were lost the moment we entered the town. While getting lost while touring makes riding trips fun, doing it in wet weather isn’t. Still clueless, we decided to stop by a Chinese eatery shop and ordered lunch, as well as asking for directions. Alas, the boss couldn’t give a clear direction so we took out the N95, hoping the GPS will guide us there. True enough, in a short while, we found the station and AKG went in to get the tickets while I look after the bikes. After a while, we rode into the station (YES, you heard it right.) so that the crew can load them up into the train.
We were skeptical at first but what we saw really made our jaws dropped. They managed to lift up the 2 bikes with their bare hands! Check the photos/video to believe it.
Ok, now sitting in the comfort of a air-con train cabin typing this blog entry and hope I can update more often when I can get some updates.
Meanwhile, that sums up for Day 1
Both bikes waiting for loading at the train station
See how they load up AKG's Busa without scratching the fairing....jaws dropped!
Day 2
Both of us were hungry, smelly (yes, we haven't bathed since the beginning of the trip) but fresh from the sleep and seeing that we can continue with the riding again. While we were loading up the baggage onto the bikes, the crowd were looking at us as if we were some aliens from another planet. Guess that they don't get to see big bikes in this town much, since there are not much singaporean bikes riding around the area.
Once we are out of the station, since we are not familiar with the place, we just rode around until we hit the main highway where we slowly ride until we found a nice little coffee place called "Friendly Coffee" and had breakfast plus enjoying the free wireless internet access (hence the Day 1 blog entry). After having our fill, we moved off at Thai time 10am.
From Nakhon Pathom, we rode to Highway 321 via Highway 4. Since our arrival at Thailand, we had been using Gasohol 95 as petrol seems to be unavailable. However we had read up that it does not really affect EFI (Electronics Fuel Injection) engines, so we proceed to fill our tanks with it. So far so good.
After lunch, time to move off again. We continued to ride on Highway 321 until we rode on Highway 340 at Suphan Buri. As we pump at a gasoline kiosk, we had our lunch to fill our stomach as well as our tanks. Once done, we moved on towards Chai Nat for Highway 1. Along the way there we met with a traffic jam on the highway. At first we thought to be some kind of riot/protest but later found out to be their Thai King is in the vicinity hence the police blocked off the junction and caused the traffic jam. The jam set our schedule back by 45 mins and once cleared we carried on with the journey.
Jam on Highway 340Once we reached Chai Nat, we knew that we will not be able to reach our intended destination, Lampang, in time. So, after some plotting, we fixed Tak as our newest destination where we will find a hotel and stay for the night.
When we reached Tak, timing was just nice as the sun had set and with the help of Nokia Maps on my trusty N95 8GB, we were able to find a nearby hotel with ease. So we dropped by this hotel called Suansin Hotel and managed to find a room for us to bunk in. Guess how much is the hotel room? 370 baht! Frakking cheap! And the room facilities are not run down I assure you, really a bang for the buck :)
Finally we had our first shower since the beginning of the trip and then proceed to have our dinner. How can we not eat their Thai food when we are here? Of course we ordered the famous TomYum soup and Fried Thai Noodles, I will say the food is real nice. However, the bill that came up happened to be more paang (expensive) than our hotel room charge LOL.
The famed Tom Yum SoupNow, we are relaxing in the room, preparing for the trip tomorrow. That's all for Day 2 :)
Day 3
Due to limited internet and Angkuguay posting his entry with my lappy, so I shall post this entry with my trusty N95.
After a good night rest at the hotel, we finally set off for Chiang Mai today. We moved on to Lampang all the way to Chiang Mai via Highway 1. Some part of the highway are very very bumpy, so much that we are worried that the suspension will be screwed as a result. However most of the road are pretty smooth and the ride was so much more scenic as we are moving thru the mountain roads. Not to mention that the climate is uber excellent. As a result, we stopped by to take photos so you will be able to see them on my Flickr site.
About 200km ride, we finally arrived at Chiang Mai. As this city is a tourism spot, we have no problem finding a place to stay, abeit a bit expensive. As today is New Year's eve, everyone in the city are in the festive mood and celebrating so I guess we came at the right timing. At the hotel, a German couple came to look at our bikes and got to know that he is a Fazer rider as well. So far I've met 2 Fazer riders so far, one from Germany and one from Italy. That goes to show how popular Fazer is haha.
Tomorrow we will be heading for more scenic and gruelling ride for Northern Thailand border.
Lastly, happy new year to everyone who read this entry! Huat ah!
Day 4
Today is the day we are heading for Mae Chan instead of the planned Chiang Rai so that we can reach Mae Sai in a shorter distance on the following day. So the route is moving off from Chiang Mai into Highway 118, and then towards Chiang Rai via Highway 1. At the beginning of the ride, we had missed the entrance to Highway 118 TWICE before we able to find the right track again. So, guess that was a bad start IMO.
Firstly, a great deal of the highway are mountain twisties. That is supposed to be our favorite kind of road right? It is supposed to until we hit a stream of slow, crawlng moving traffic which we travelled at the average of only 76km/h... uber boring. If the traffic is clear, the road will be very fun. Hopefully tomorrow's road will have little traffic.
Secondly, midway down the trip, AKG indicated that he had lost his kidney belt. For the clueless, it is a riding protective gear that straps around your kidney area, protecting the lower back. That partly kinda ruined his mood, on top of the lousy riding experience today.
Then when we reached Mae Chan, we only managed to find one hotel in the vicinity and it happened to be full. So no choice, had to head back to Chiang Rai for accomodation. Along the way, AKG took off his helmet, put it into the helmet bag, and rode with only his headgear and sunglass. When we reached Chiang Rai, we started to hunt around for a decent, reasonably priced hotel to stay in for the night. Alas, most of the hotels we had asked are full and no room left. We roamed around the city, in sweaty tired & frustrated condition, for more than an hour just to find a hotel to stay in. This is partly due to festive season I guess. In the end, we finally found this Wiang Inn Hotel, which its room charge is not within our planned accommodaton budget but considering the slim odds of finding another available room in another hotel in the city plus the sky is getting dark, we decided not to take any more chance and just stay in there. And since we have paid a premium price for the hotel stay, we will take the free breakfast in the hotel tomorrow! \m/
So by the time we unpacked, we were so hungry that we decide to just change to casual wear and hunt for dinner. Along the way, gotten ourselves a T-shirt with the design indicating the Highway Number to this city. Hey, we deserved to wear these Tees proudly man!
Here we are, sitting next to each other, blogging away on our individual blogs but today there's no photos taken. Too bad.
Hopefully more happier and happening events/scenery will arise for us to take more photos along the way. Ya, tomorrow will be a better riding day. :)
Signing off
Day 5
Today is the day, where we will cross the Northern Thailand border and into Myanmar and back again, one sole purpose is to extend our visa period so that we can complete our adventure without worrying about outliving our stay in Thailand.
Both of us woke up early today for 2 reasons: 1st, to enjoy the free breaskfast at the Hotel since we had paid a premium price for the room and secondly, to hunt for another cheaper hotel as we had planned to stay in Chiang Rai for one more night.
The expensive Hotel we didn't have a choice to make a fuss about the room charge So once we had our fill in the hotel, we rode out in casual wear WITHOUT helmets and roam around the city. That is one thing we will never get to do in Singapore without putting our bike license on the silver platter. As the weather is pretty cooling, riding in that fashion is damn cold on the hands and face! I was literally shivering as the cold wind blew into my body. After riding for a while, we managed to find a relatively cheap hotel (350 bahts) but have no air con. Considering the climate here to be around 23 deg C, we don't feel that is the issue at all. However, AngKuGuay now feels that the room is still overpriced considering the room condition. Typically, it like a hotel room in the 70-80s.
The 70-80s looking Hotel we are staying tonight Once we drop off the unnecessary luggage into the hotel room, we proceed to ride off to Mae Sai, where we will cross the North Thailand border in order to extend our visa. The ride was slightly better than yesterday if not the best and along the way, we ran into a Thai touring group who happened to be on their way to Mae Sai outskirts. Bunch of friendly riders, we waved at each other and it may be some kind of bikers' thing, we automatically "joined" into their group, with me and AKG following the lead rider all the way. The way the lead rider signalled the group is impressive and it's something worth learning from when comes to future touring with groups. They were very impressed when we told them that we are from Singapore and gave us thumbs up. Until the outskirts of Mae Sai, we followed them and from there we went our separate ways. Dang, I was thinking about taking a couple of photos with them. Nevertheless, they bid us farewell and we moved on to the border.
Another 10 minutes ride brought us to a highly congested traffic, that we know that the border customs is near. We slowly rode our way to the front of the Customs post and parked at a convenient spot. Our bikes attracted quite a lot of attention as the people there don't see big bikes often and secondly these 2 bikes which belong to 2 crazy riders carrying foreign license plates that adds to the rarity in that town. Once we had packed up our stuff, we prepare ourselves to cross the Thai border. We got into the wrong queue and wasted an hour for that which we could have immediately process our exit procedure in another queue, which is very short. Oh well, we learn from experience don't we?
My Fazer parked just outside the North Thailand Border PostOnce we had processed our passport, we walked over to the Myanmar border to get into the country. Yes, you read that right, WE WALKED. We figured that it is too much of a hassle to re-declare the vehicle again when we re-enter Thailand as we only want to extend our stay in Thailand. For foreigners, we will have to pay 500 bahts adminstrative charge to the Maynmar immigration office and our passports will be held by the authorities until we leave the country. What we have is the Entry Permit card given by the Immigration and we must hold on to it as we need to return them when we leave Myanmar.
Approaching the Myanmar CustomsSo, finally we are in the City of Golden Triangle! The border town outlook was very different from what I anticipated to be. The town is buzzling with life and the whole place is crowded with Thais and Burmese. As we walked thru the market, I was surprised to see Hollywood DVDs and even Porn movies on sale in the open. I had always thought that the Myanmer government had very strict media control but what I see tells a different story.
The Myanmar MarketAs we couldn't find any place to eat in the Myanmar town, we decide to head back to Mae Sae to take our late lunch. Once we crossed the border, I was relieved that our bikes are still safely parked. That goes to show that Mae Sae is pretty much a safe town. Of course, we must also get our conquest Tees so that we can wear them with pride back home LOL.
Once we had our fill, we get ourselves ready and moved off from the buzzling town and head back to Chiang Rai. Along the way, I had mentioned about the Friendship Bridge 2 which AKG also took noticed and we decided to take a short deviation and rode into the road to the bridge. Boy, we are glad that we took that route. The scenery is simply breathtaking and this is something you will never see in Singapore. One word to describe the view: Beautiful.
On the road to the Friendship Bridge 2When we reached the Friendship Bridge, we found that the bridge is kinda closed so we head back towards our last destination for the day: Chiang Rai. The traffic is bad, as usual to the point I felt sleepy riding in that kind of traffic condition. Nevertheless, we have to press on as the sky is getting dark and finally we reached our hotel after another 50+km.
Now we will have to plan our route for tomorrow, based on the current budget we have and will post up the latest updates tomorrow once we find another internet access (dang we have to pay for most of the internet access in North Thailand, sucks).
Day 6
Today, we have the biggest "hor lan" adventure since we touched down on Thailand. However, it is also thanks to this hor lan adventure that we saw some of the most beautiful scenery I've encountered so far.
The path we took todayWe are supposed to go to Mae Taeng by the end of the day for accommodation to prepare for our 1864 turns to Mae Hon Son on the following day and in worst case scenario, we will stay over at Chiang Mai (which we are doing now) and head off for Highway 1095 the next day.
Weather is fine, traffic is minimal, and the ride is very smooth. So we had planned to go to Mae Taeng via Highway 1089 by going to Mae Chan and turn towards the highway. Highway 1089 is not the typical big highway but rather more like a 2-way single lane highway. However, traffic is scarce so we don't really have a hard time riding thru. Just about 5 mins into the highway, AKG indicated a hot spring nearby and we decided to dropped by to take some shots.
One of the shots taken at the Hot SpringAfter that we moved on towards our destination and about 150 km later, we stopped at a petrol kiosk for fill up. However, it is a different kind of fuel pump, something more primitive and it's something I've never seen in my biking life before. And it just happened that the boss of the petrol kiosk know how to speak in mandarin and he is very hospitable to invite us for a short chat, treating us with tea and mandarin fruit, which is very sweet and nice.
Very primitive way of filling up your fuel tankAfter that, with the boss giving some directions, we decided to change our course to go on straight to Pai, halfway village to Mae Hon Son. so we pressed on and while at the town of Fang, we came into a cross junction. According to the map, we should just keep going straight without turning so we will eventually hit Highway 107 that will lead us southwards towards Mae Taeng, where the intersection to Highway 1095 lies.
Unfortunately, we WERE wrong.
As we kept going straight, the road got narrower and less of a highway type but we thought that may be one of the lesser highway, hence the narrow road. So we kept going and going and going...until we found ourselves in front of a military outpost. We thought that it may be some security outpost so we asked for some directions from the soldiers (of course, language barriers can really cause misunderstandings) and we moved on, as we moved on, we got some of the most beautiful mountain sights I've ever seen while riding and of course, we stopped by the roadside and took some shots. Envy right? keke...
Shots taken at the mountain areaAs we moved on we started to find ourselves riding along the mountain road, which is only a car width wide. The words to describe this road are: exciting, tiring, cold, dangerous, balls dropping, breathtaking, fun, shiok.
According to my N95 GPS, we have climbed a maximum altitude of 1975m above sea level! We bumped into another military outpost and after some direction asking, we continued on. As we go higher and higher under we found ourselves reaching another military outpost. This time I knew we were already way off course. We began to realise that we are at the Pha Hom Phak mountain which partly separates Thailand from Myanmar. In short, yeah, we are at the Thailand/Myanmar border again... by chance.
Nevertheless, according to the map, we will revert back to Highway 107 if we continue to ride on round the mountain. However when we reached the third outpost which is the highest point, AKG suddenly stopped. In front of us, the mountain road had collapsed and there is a VERY narrow path for motorcycle (a kup bike size to be precise). We had thought of trying to go through it but in the end we decided that it is not worth the risk to take that kind of chance as in our mind we know we cannot afford to screw up this attempt, meaning either we will ride through or we fall in the depths of the mountains with the bike. Considering the odds, and we want to go back Singapore in one piece, we abandon that thought and U-turn back to Fang and find the right way into Highway 107.
The collapsed mountain road at Mount Pha Hom Phak
Overlooking the Myanmar mountainsSo when we are on the right track, we rode as fast and safely as possible to Chiang Mai before sunset as we do not want to travel in the night. So just nice, when the sky just turned dark, we managed to find a hotel near the Chiang Mai Railway station which is reasonably priced and comes with internet access (abeit a bit on the slow side)
In general, while we had gone off course way too much today, but it had brought us to somewhere so beautiful and breathtaking where I believed my Fazer and AKG's Busa are the only Singaporean bikes ever rode there.
And tomorrow, MAE HON SON!
Day 7
Total Distance Ridden on Road: 2610km
Today is the day where the route we taking is the one that initiate this trip: Highway 1095 to Mae Hon Son. We have been anticipating this day since the day we arrived in Thailand. Why this route, most might ask. Cos this highway consist a total of 1864 curves that pose great challenges even to veteran riders/drivers. Once these turns are conquered, a sticker indicating the completion of these curves is obtainable at the Mae Hon Son Tourist Office.
The route that inspired this trip (don't be deceived by the smooth route plots in the picture)
So we moved out from Chiang Mai Railway Station area and headed off to highway 1095 via Highway 107. After filling up our tanks and taking a short break (including taking Vitamin B pills), we start off with the ride of the day.
The "Miracle" Pills LOL
How will I describe the ride on Highway 1095? Mixture of feelings that can't be described with just words. Try imagine negotiating 180deg corners with 45deg elevation angle with 1st gear, with the occasional vehicles going opposite direction eating into our lane at unsafe speed. That's the kind of close encounters we have at the beginning of the journey. Halfway to Pai (about 1/4 of distance to Mae Hon Son), we stopped by to take a break and also to take some shots as the scenery is simply beautiful.
Stopping By For Break and Photo Shooting
Nice Right?
We continued on and negotiate corners after corners, quite a challenge on our concentration and our wrists as well.. with me and AKG had to relak them during straights haha. After 2 hours plus of corner negotiating, we arrived on the outskirts of Pai where we stopped for refuel. The petrol kiosk happened to be situated on a very good spot where we took some excellent scenery shots.
At the Petrol Kiosk
Then we moved on to Pai where we take our lunch break to get more energy to carry on with the rest of the journey. At Pai, we have conquered 762 corners so there's 1102 more to go. In the town of Pai, while I was having my stomach full, I'm also having my eyes full as I see pretty Thai girls riding past us LOL.
The Town of Pai
Once we are done, we continued on and we stopped again at one of the high points along the highway to take some scenic shots again. When you see AKG's flickr photostream when he had uploaded them, you will know why we chose to stop and take photos. Nothing compares to being there to see the real deal, it IS SIMPLY BREATHTAKING!
You really have to be there to really "feel" the scenery
After this we continued on to the last part of the route to our final destination: Mae Hon Son. This part of the journey is not easy, not that the road condition is bad or traffic is heavy, it's the setting sun that blinded us on certain part of the route. The road after Pai had uber beautiful scenery and almost zero traffic, but when we are blinded, literally blinded, by the sun, we can't see shit ahead of us and we have to jam our brakes whenever that happen just to make sure we don't go off course or go off the edge of the road and down the mountain.
Before long, we finally saw a big structure saying "Welcome to Mae Hon Son, Thailand" and we knew we had made it! Once we reached the town, first thing we did is to locate the Tourism Authority Office so that we can go get our conquest stickers on the following day.
We are finally here!
We've checked in a reasonably priced hotel with good and free internet access and AKG suggested that since we had spent so many days travel around the country and now we had reached our inspired location, we should go into "tourist mode" and stay for another day just to tour around the area haha.
So tomorrow we will be riding around the area, visiting the caves and waterfalls on our bikes, without helmets as usual LOL.
Day 8
After 7 days of "wake-ride-sleep" routine, and considering that we had arrived at our intended destination, we decided to switch from rider mode to tourist mode for today so we can explore more of Mae Hon Son area.
After having our breakfast, we headed for the Tourism Authority of Thailand office to have our "conquest" certificate and stickers. The certificate basically writes that we have completed 1864 curves on Highway 1095 to the town. And of course we also bought some stickers from the office to paste them on the bike keke. All these for less than 100 bahts.
After that we went on accommodation hunting since the hotel, while comfortable, is still a bit on the high side in terms of price. While on the hotel hunt, we dropped by a T-shirt shop which sell their own Mae Hon Son designs. So we both picked up some of them, made a little chat with the boss and took some photos together. He gave us some directions to a row of guesthouses which suit our kind of budget and we heeded his advise and in no time we found one with a nice view of the lake behind it. So we rushed back to the hotel, packed our stuffs and moved to the new guesthouse accommodation.
An Emo Shot of AKG at our Guesthouse Balcony
Once we dropped our luggage into the room, we rode off to explore the waterfall and cave around the area. First we went to Mae Sua cave, had our lunch there and took a walk in the area. It is only a small cave with small river stream and a pond with a lot of big fishes. So we took some shots over there and then we went on for the waterfall.
We had prepared ourselves to go swim in the waterfall but when we arrived at the PuaSha waterfall, it was a pretty disappointing sight. The place is very rocky and there is no spot we can dip ourselves into the water as the waterfall is not really that spectacular also. It could be due to the dry season in North Thailand I guess. Nevertheless, we took some photos and moved on to explore another place where we happened to see the signboard on our way to the waterfall: Pang Tong Palace.
To see more photos, just go to my flickr account.
The Pang Tong Palace is about a couple of clicks away from the waterfall but we didn't expect to be riding up steep mountain road, not when we are riding with only sunglasses and casual wear. Since we had gone thru countless mountain road curves for the whole day yesterday, today's road don't look so bad after all. There is one part of the road which do not allow us to screw up have an elevation angle of at least 60deg at a 180deg turn. As I just learnt the word from Hilary and decide to use it to describe that road....shu jio makh makh!
One of the many shots I took while riding back to Mae Hon Son.
The Pang Tong Palace is basically a plot of land where the locals planted various vegetations and reared deers or animals of similar family. Interesting animals, they just stared at us with a querying look. We took a couple of shots at them and we headed back.
Back in town, we parked our bikes and took a rest at the guesthouse balcony. There, with AngKuGuay's highly sociable personality, we got to know an American named Brad who happened to be travelling around Thailand and the nearby regions later on. So we just sat there, chatting away and watching the sun setting behind the mountains, taking photos of that beautiful scenery, and ended up having dinner at the night market nearby. We shared views on world politics, history of Singapore, and many other subjects. Great chatty guy.
The Sunset of Mae Hon Son
So now we get everything packed up so that we can load up the bike immediately. We will be leaving the town at 7am (earliest move off time so far) to travel all the way to the border town of Mae Sot or Tak if time allows. That will be a long ride tomorrow.
In general, Mae Hon Son is a very peaceful town untainted by nightspots. The scenery and the people there are simply wonderful. Definitely a good place just to get away from the busy city life and just lay back to enjoy the serenity of this wonderful town.
Day 9
We woke up to a chilly morning, real early as we had close to 500km of riding distance to cover today. However the town welcome us with a misty morning. Today we are supposed to head out for the town of Tak by sunset via Highway 105 southwards along the Thailand-Myanmar border.
It is very very chilly as we woke up shivering (AngKuGuay even have problem trying to smoke in the balcony) and the visibility of the town is like less than 50m. So we quickly get our gear up (this is the first time I wear the touring jacket as fast as I can without much hesitation haha), load our luggage up the bikes and ready to move off. It was 7am Thai time (8am Singapore time).
I suggested to AKG to turn at the other direction as I saw the intersection for Highway 105, the moment we turn into the road, the scene in front is akin to the scenery in the movie Silent Hill, where the mist engulfed the entire landscape. AKG took a photo of the scene as my N95 battery went flat and you can view it when he upload them up on his flickr account.
That was a bad move, although we were indeed on Highway 105, the road actually brought us around the Mae Hon Son town so we kinda wasted about 17km of fuel. After we had our breakfast outside the 7-11 store, we move on to Highway 105.
The road on the earlier part of Highway 105 is simply very cold & misty and our fingers are freezing despite us wearing leather glove and there is sunshine. On the brighter side, we don't feel hot with our gears and it's like riding in a air-con environment LOL. AKG even went all the way to wear 2 t-shirts and a thermal pack, whereas I just wore as what I usually wear for the rest of the trip. As we moved to the higher part of the mountain, we stopped by to take photos of the low clouds floating below our level.
After that, we carried on and as we moved down the mountain roads, the temperature became more bearable and the mist had cleared up. While the road is not as twisty as what we had gone thru on Highway 1095, it is still a mountain highway and some challenging twisties were still encountered, although much less. I would say this highway really trying to test my Fazer's fuel tank range as we rode for more than an hour, we kept riding on endless stretch of mountain road and no petrol kiosk in sight. Our bikes even became off-road bikes for about 10 mins as we approached a pretty long highway road under construction.
We even started to wonder if we had gone hor lan again but a check on the Nokia Maps showed that we are still on course. Seeing that my bike is starting to go on fuel reserve level, we have no choice but to press on as there's no turning back. The last thing on my mind was both of us stuck with my bike out of fuel. So I kept my RPM at 4000 (said to be the most fuel efficient range) throughout the rest of the ride. Then I started to see my fuel reserve indicator blinking, oh crap I really need to go down to the next town to get petrol AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. However the civilisation we encountered along the way were small villages with no petrol kiosk in sight. As my reserve mileage hit 40km, I was telling myself and my bike to hold on as the next hopeful town, Tha Song Yang, is only a few kilometres away. To our delight, we indeed found a small shop with fuel stations but they only carried petrol with 91% octane level. In this situation, you can't complain much so we fill up our tank and I added some octane booster to the petrol (91% octane level is not recommended for my bike as it required at least 92% octane content)
Now, without the worry of fuel shortage, we continued our journey to Mae Sot before we proceed to Tak. However, while having our break at another petrol station, we decided to go further, straight to Kamphaeng Phet town instead of Tak since we still have enough daylight time for the distance.
From then on it will be normal highway road and no more mountain twisties. Dang I'm gonna miss those twisties....
Once we reached the small town of Kamphaeng Phet, we get ourselves accommodation, grab some dinner and rest for the trip tomorrow. Destination: Kanchanaburi
The sunset at Kamphaeng Phet
Day 10
Distance travelled so far: Approx. 4700km
The ride today covers Highway 1 from Kamphaeng Phet to Nakhon Sawan, turning to Highway 32. Then we changed to Highway 340 towards Chai Nat and to Suphan Buri where we turned to Highway 324 straight to the town of Kanchanaburi.
The ride was pretty much smooth today as traffic was light and the road condition was pretty good. As we stopped by a rest point as AKG felt his bike front is slipping, we noticed that his front tire is overinflated and so we waited for the tire to cool down before he released some pressure off it.
While we were waiting, an uncle came to chat with us. We came to know that he is a retired Singaporean businessman who came to Thailand to teach the locals on organic farming. He also gave us advises on what are the topics we are not supposed to discuss in Thailand and also what are the good places to visit in Kanchanaburi. Once AKG's tire had been released some pressure, we pressed on. Along the way we were kinda impressed by the load the trucks were carrying as the load was like almost more than one half times the actual truck itself.
In no time we reached the town of Kanchanaburi. By the time we reached the town, the local schools just ended their lessons and the students were just being released. So the traffic was kinda heavy during this time. Nevertheless we had no difficulty finding a motel since it's on the main road. Once we checked in the motel room, we went out for dinner, got some beer back to room and rested early for the night.
Day 11
The following day was our tourist mode day so the day is planned to be visits to the tourist attraction, mainly the River Kwai Death Bridge in the town.
So we first dropped by the war cemetery which the name stones of those prisoners of war who perished during World War 2 were placed. The place was well maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and these heroes deserved to be honored in this way. Opposite the cemetery lies the Thailand-Myanmar Railway Museum which exhibits the artifacts recovered from the actual Death Railway sites and also some history notes on the story of the death railway. To me, the 100 bahts admission for the museum is well worth it.
After that we are going for the real deal: the River Kwai bridge. As we were on the way there, we stopped by a road named Singapore Road. Other than that road, there were other roads that were named other countries like Malaysia, Korea, etc. Guess the roads were named to commemorate the POWs from the countries they came from. However, we don't know why there is a road called Afghanistan road. Once we reached River Kwai, we saw what we came for: the Death Railway. I had been hearing and reading about it but I finally see it for myself right in front of me. We were allowed to walk on the bridge and we went to the other side of the river to check out the area. Nothing much actually.
When we walked our way back, we saw a couple of big bikes parking besides our bikes. We at first thought that they may be some Thai riders who happened to ride to this town as well but on the closer look, they are the Singaporean riders! Wow, this is the first time in 10 days since we last saw a Singaporean rider and this time we saw 4 of them. AKG knew one of them whom I also met before. The group consisted of a R1, a Varadero, a BMW GS, and a FZ1. They were planning to go to Laos and will be heading for Mae Hon Son the following day. Group of fun loving, chatty guys. After a round of drinks at River Kwai, we brought them to the motel we stayed in there and then we decided to go to the Tiger Temple to take some photos with the tigers up close and personal.
Since there were 6 of us, we got ourselves a "songtiao" which is something like a cab in a pickup vehicle. We were told by the local that the temple is only 40 minutes' walk, but it ended up to be a 40-min drive to the destination. Luckily we chose the easy way out lol.
Sitting relaxed in a Songtiao to the Tiger Temple
The Tiger Temple is basically a temple where the abbot kept those tigers which were rescued from captivity but were not suitable to release into the wildlife. Somehow some foreigners set up some foundations and made it into some kind of tourist spot. I can understand their intention of setting up admission fees to generate income to sustain the initial intention of the programme but kinda feel like it's kinda becoming very profit driven. Nevertheless I do hope the proceeds do go into rightful usage.
As we walked to the Tiger Canyon, we see an artificial landscape where the crowd is queuing up to take photos with the tigers up close. We took photos as a group and as individual and I never expect myself to take photo with not one but a couple of tigers just next to me.
After the walk around the temple, we proceed back to town and had some dinner. After which, we just clean ourselves up and end the day early for tomorrow's journey. It'll be an early ride tomorrow again. Next destination: Chumphon
Day 12
Today we wake up early to prepare for the ride down to Chumphon, the halfway point to Krabi, to meet our friend Eddie, who decided to leave Singapore and settle down in Thailand. By the time we went down to shift our bikes to the front of the hotel, we found that the Singaporean riders we met yesterday had already left for Mae Hon Son. As we have calculated, it will be a 9-hour ride for them to reach the destination. Talk about hardcore LOL.
We easily navigated our way into the highway 323 followed by all the way down Highway 4 southwards near Nakhon Pathom. No chance for hor lan adventure since the Fang experience LOL. The road down Highway 4 is pretty boring as it is only a long stretch of almost straight road, much like the Malaysia's North-South highway.
What sets this Highway 4 from Malaysia's North-South highway is the crosswind we experienced. As Highway 4 between Surat Thani and Nakhon Pathom lies very near to the coastline (Gulf of Thailand), strong sea breeze is experienced along the highway constantly. In fact, the wind is so strong that we can see the trees are standing tilted permanently. When we were riding at above 150km/h, we constanly fought against the crosswind and at certain sections, there were sudden gushes of crosswind that caught us by surprise and our bikes swerved sideway by half the lane before we reacted to it. The crosswind in Malaysia highway is nothing compared to what we experienced down here. Awesome yet scary. We had to reduce our speed to 140km/h so that we can manage the bikes better. Throughout the ride we were literally fighting against the crosswind.
As I said, the road along Highway 4 is pretty... boring so nothing much to talk about and no nice landscape worth shooting. Maybe after watching the scenery at North Thailand, we had risen our standards liao haha. We arrived Chumphon without much hitches and we were able to find a cheap hotel very soon. Before finding a suitable hotel, we went a bit further into the town until we reached the coastline. The coastline is nothing like Singapore's coastline. Same dirty seawater, but with more spectacular view. While the hotel is very cheap, the corridors of the hotel room alley looked like a 80s hospital corridor, kinda creepy. Nevertheless, the room is decent enough for us to rest in. As we arrived Chumphon in mid afternoon, AKG spent a couple of hours watching movies while I played the Monopoly game on my lappy until it is time for dinner.
Dinnertime, we went down to the night market and looked around for some other different Thai food. To be frank, I'm kinda tired of Phad Thai (Thai fried noodles) so I decided to just wack at anything that catch my appetide. So we ordered some spicy dishes that accompanied with a plate of rice. Tasted pretty good. We later head down to a internet cafe where we spent an hour surfing net and as the cafe restrict the use of external devices, I wasn't able to upload the photos to Flickr so I figured that I gave the blog update a miss and do that at a later date.
Once we are done with the surfing, we head down to get AKG's favorite snack: the Mango Glutinous Rice. Somehow he managed to get me addicted to this dish as well so we got 2 servings and have it as supper back in the hotel room.
Day 13
Today we will be visting Eddie in Krabi today. We woke up, got everything packed up and headed out towards Highway 41.
As our tanks needed to fill up with petrol, we hunted for a petrol kiosk and to have breakkfast as well before we continue with our journey. We found our favorite petrol kiosk, PTT, only to find that they have run out of gasohol 95. So I fill the tank with Gasohol 91 and mixed with octane booster to increase the octane level.
Over at the kiosk, we met up with some Thai bikers and they happened to be riders from the Chumphon Super Bikes Motorcycle Club. They were riding a Harley, a Yamaha Diversion, a BMW bike , a Yamaha V-max, a Honda Blackbird and a Honda sportbike which I couldn't make out the model. They mentioned that they are on their way to a school for Children's Day event and asked if we wanna go. AKG and me wanted to go, since you don't get this kind of chance everyday but something happened. AKG's busa couldn't start up. There was no power on the dashboard when he turned on the ignition switch and we thought that it could be a blown fuse. After much fiddling around, we finally found the fusebox (cos AKG don't know where is his bike's fusebox) and checked that the fuse is ok. We started to worry and hoped very hard that it is not a screwed ECU or anything like that. One of the Chumphon MC members, who happened to be the boss of the local bike shop, offered his help by calling his mechanic to come to our aid. As they were rushing for time, they had to leave without waiting for us to get AKG's bike fixed.
The mechanic arrived, and after much tracing, he finally found that the ignition switch connector is loose. When he re-secured the connector, the busa is alive again. And he is kind enough to refuse to accept payments from us. That displayed the generosity of the Thai people and the positive spirit among bikers, irregardless of nationality.
With his busa fixed and our tanks filled up, we continued on to our journey to Krabi. It's a real pity that we missed hanging out with the Thai riders, or we will have another story to tell. We are back to Highway 41 again and as of yesterday, the wind conditions remained unchanged. We still constantly fight against the crosswinds while riding at 150km/h and then we turned to Highway 44 at Surat Thani to go all the way to Krabi. It only took us less than 4 hours to reach our destination.
As usual, finding a hotel was a breeze and we managed to find a cheap yet decent hotel to stay in. After unloading our stuff, we head out to look for Eddie's shop based on a faded name card that AKG have. We found the road, but we went up and down the same road twice without locating Eddie's shop. So we stopped by a printing shop and by a stroke of luck, the boss of the printing shop happened to know Eddie and he helped us to call him about our arrival. With some directions, we finally managed to find Eddie's bike repair shop. Down there, we came to know that he is in the midst of shifting his shop and also chat about bike stuff (as usual lah). He was very hospitable and his wife cooked us a meal which I find it very delicious. Then AKG mentioned to him about his front tire and upon inspection, Eddie advised him to change his front tire before making our way back to Singapore.
Chilling out at Eddie's bike shop
Eddie loaned us his half cap helmet LOL
After Eddie closed his shop, he brought us to view his new shop/home and then brought us to pray at a temple tentage which happened to be a deity's birthday celebration. So we made some prayers, wishing for safety on the way back, and we proceed to the main temple for some vegetarian meal. Afterwhich we went back to park our bikes at the hotel before walking our way back to the temple tentage again. We stayed throughout the ritual proceedings which showed things that you don't get to see back in Singapore anymore (they have it in the past).
So we headed back to our hotel to rest, but AKG is hungry so we went down again to hunt for food. We ordered this Thai Beef Soup Noodles and we immediately fell in love with it as the beef is very tender and the soup is very delicious. The best part is it only costed us 60 bahts (about SGD 2 plus) for 2 bowls!
Tomorrow we will be heading to Hat Yai, the final stop in our Thailand trip before we head back to Singapore. Can't believe that we are leaving Thailand in a couple of days....
Day 14-15
The initial plan of staying in Krabi for another day was changed as Eddie had pointed out that the night market in Hat Yai is only open on weekends. So as not to miss it, we decided to head out for Hat Yai today instead of tomorrow.
Before heading out, we went down to Eddie's shop to collect our helmets (we left them there the previous day) as well as getting AKG's bike front tire replaced. His front tire threads had almost worn out by the time we came down from Mae Hon Son and Eddie had strongly advised him to change before we head home for safety sake. AKG heeded his advise and changed to a used Metzler M3 front tire so that we can move on with our journey.
Once the tire is changed, Eddie brought us to a restaurant where we had fantastic duck soup noodles and for the first time in donkey's year, I finally took duck meat as the meat is very tender haha. After a fantastic lunch and with Eddie showing us the directions to Hat Yai, we moved off.
Since Charlie is holding the directions, he led the way for most parts of the trip. We were on track for the first half of the road until we hit Trang. We seemed to have missed a turn in the intersection and went straight into the town. We spent about 20 minutes riding around the town trying to find our way out and back into the highway. By a stroke of luck, we finally got out from the other side of town and got back into Highway 4. From there onwards, the way there was pretty smooth sailing except for one thing: AKG had not had his coffee and me my tea (we get grumpy without it). These drinks will give us the extra boost we need and we had been looking for PTT petrol kiosk with a coffee/tea cafe. However the kiosks along Highway 4 had been just.... petrol kiosks without any form of cafe for us to stop by. Ended up we only just pump and go all the way to Hat Yai. Luckily the distance is not very great or else my butt will definitely go numb beyond repair LOL. When we reached the town, we found a hotel near the Diana Shopping Centre which is not very far from the night market. The market is the reason why we chose to come to this town early, to check out for food and stuff being sold at the night market.
The Hat Yai night market is one of the biggest night market we have been in Thailand so far, in term of scale. They sold quite a lot of fashion stuffs mainly aimed at girls/ladies and sold most of the Thai food we have seen in other towns, nothing very spectacular/unique. After the night market roaming we decided to go back hotel to have a early night so that we can check out the shopping centres in the town.
Day 16-17
Finally.
Today will be our last morning in Thailand and we are heading back to Singapore in 2 days' time, staying a night in Kuala Lumpur. It had been a fulfilling and eye opening trip so far and been kinda reluctant to go back to the urban jungle of Singapore. What to do, reality....
We pumped our last tank of Gasohol 95 at the last PTT petrol kiosk at the outskirts of Hat Yai as well as having our breakfast there. We enjoyed our last cold towels available at the Thailand 7-11 outlets while AKG enjoyed his last Espresso DIY coffee (kinda his fav coffee from Thai 7-11). AKG had a short chat with a local who happened to be a military officer before we move on to the border.
Once we reached the border post, we returned our vehicle declaration forms (a MUST when you leave Thailand by your own vehicle), got our passports stamped and rode over to the Malaysian Customs. From there, we saw familiar wordings (melayu/english) on the signboards and we proceed down to the North-South highway for Kuala Lumpur. Just a short distance from the Customs, we encountered a roadblock, a first since the beginning of our trip. I could more or less guess that these people will be stopping us for speeding or something similiar and slap us with a fine. But when we told them that we came from North Thailand, the guys seems impressed and let us off. Guess they figured that we are tired and broke, lucky us LOL.
The road down is just.... road down. Nothing spectacular about the scenery along the road except the mountain highway at Ipoh. However, weather is not really that good as we get on-off rain several times before we rest at the first R&R in Malaysia. Despite the lousy weather, our riding pace is fantastic and we cleared half the journey in shorter time than we anticipated.
As we closed in to KL, we stopped by the Toll Plaza and told AKG that I will use the GPS on my N95 to guide us to the hotel we usually stay, Hotal Nova. This time, Nokia Maps failed me. It directed me to a wrong turn on the highway, causing us to split into wrong entrances, as AKG realised that signboard on the other entrance showed the correct direction. I had to make a U-turn, ride into the right entrance, waited for AKG in case he U-turn back to look for me. Waited for a considerable amount of time until I received a call from him that he had reached the hotel. With a sigh of relief, I slowly rode towards the city centre and found the hotel. Learnt a new malay word which will guide me to my regular hotel in future: Pusat Bandaraya, which means City Center.
Once we checked into the hotel, we went to Times Square to check out the stores (nothing much actually, much like the shopping centres in Singapore) then proceed to have our dinner.
The next day, we check out at noon, knowing that we can cover the remaining distance to home in less than 4 hours. As we moved out, we intended to have our lunch at Ayer Keroh. As I have not eaten/drank anything while AKG had not eaten, we rode like we are rushing for time LOL. When we reached Ayer Keroh R&R, we realised that the place is closed and we have no choice but to go to another R&R for our lunch. The next available R&R with food will be at Pagoh. Again, we were riding as fast as we can and AKG commented that we covered 180km in less than 90 mins LOL.
Stopover at Pagoh R&R
Once we are done with the lunch, we move on straight to Gelang Petah R&R for our last refuel before heading home.
Total distance travelled:
That concludes the Road Trip of Xgrind and AngKuGuay. Thanks to those who had sent us off and sent us well wishes.
Epilogue
Finally.
A trip that was talked about 8 years ago in 2000 had been planned, executed and completed. This trip is a personal achievement for the both of us and we are glad that it had been fulfilled.
Now let's see the summary of this awesome trip:
Post-trip maintenance
As with all long distance trips, the main workhorse had to be serviced after a gruelling endless run on the road. For my Yamaha 2008 FZ1, the following components had been serviced:
- Tire: Changed to Pilot Power 2CT instead of the intended Dunlop Qualifier due to lack of fresh stock for the Dunlops
- Coolant: Flushed and recharged with a new bottle of Maxima Cool-aide coolant
- Engine Oil: Threw out the old black shit and poured in a new dose of Maxima Extra Fully Synthetic Oil
Equipment Used
- Forma Riding Boots: A budget riding boots with sliders. Kept my foot from flying debris and rocks. However, not water-resistant enough to stop water from flooding the internals during our ride up to Hai Yat on the first day.
- Gearsack Soft Panniers: This panniers had been with me for more than 8 years and still performing well in terms of waterproofing. Kept the stuffs in there dry and cosy. However, this pannier don't pair very well with my FZ1 as the unconventional grab rail design on the bike could not allow the panniers to secure properly. And the bottom of the panniers had been worned off by the rear tire due to abrasions during bumpy rides.
- Oxford Sports Humpback Tank Bag: AKG and I bought this for this trip as both our old tankbags are no longer waterproof. Have no problem stuffing my EeePC, electronics equipments, water bladder, maps together in this bag as its space size can be expanded. Due to the strong magnets, the tank bag secured very well on the tank and I don't see it wobbling during high speed rides. Good piece of gear (update: yes, I still have it)
- Komine Touring Gloves: My almost decade-old gloves. Leather became hard as hell and caused a big blister on my palm. During the trip the velcro patch had torn off and I had to use the sewing kit from the hotel to temporarily secure it for the rest of the trip. Guess its time is due. TRASHED.
- Komine Back Protector: An essential gear for long trips. This gear had helped me prevent any potential backaches that may arise from the long hours of riding.
- Komine Spazzio Touring Jacket: After almost a decade of use, the jacket still performed surprisingly well and the waterproofing is still there. No complaints about it :)
- Held Touring Pants: Got this about 7-8 years back. Provided good protection on my knees but the waterproofing properties are totally screwed. Inner liner had also torn beyond repair. TRASHED.
- Power Commander 3: Thanks to the good tuning skills of Norman from Racewerkz, the bike's fuel efficiency had improved quite significantly and not to mention that overall throttle response had been smoother. The bike managed a maximum FC of 18.12km/L (highway runs) which not possible otherwise. It is also thanks to PC3 that the bike managed to survive thru Highway 105 (way southwards from Mae Hon Son) for more than 230km without a refuel.
- Nokia Maps 2: Running on my N95 8GB, this appplication enabled us to find nearby hotels and helped us pinpoint on our current location to reference with the map. However, at certain times it didn't point us to right route or direct us a longer route instead of a more straightforward one.
- Nokia Sports Tracker: I had been using this application since day one of the trip to keep track of the routes we have actually taken. After uploading to the website, we are able to see the overall routes taken throughout the trip. Alas, the phone crashed during the route from Krabi to Hat Yai and that part of the route is only partially tracked. A great piece of software nevertheless.
- Brembo Master Cylinder 19x20 + Venhill Brakelines: This combo is a life-saver. We ran into situations where we needed hard braking and it gives me total control on the braking pressure and stopped in time without mishaps. Definitely a good investment.
- Maxima Chain Wax: As I don't use Scotoiler for this bike, I relied on this product to lubricate the chain every 500km to maintain the chain performance. After 6000km, the chain was not even stretched a single bit.
- Lonely Planet's Thai Phrase Book: Oh yeah, had to borrow from AKG for the communication in Thailand. While I had learnt a couple of Thai words from there, I still have difficulties applying them on normal conversations LOL.
My Thoughts on This Trip
Well, this trip served a couple of purposes for me:
1) To go for the longest trip ever attempted by me
2) To see and experience the culture of another country
3) To use this chance to straighten out some personal thoughts
4) To experience an ironbutt rider's life
I would say that all the purposes had been served thru this trip. I had learnt a great deal about people, culture, biking, and many other things. I generally felt welcomed by the Thais' friendliness, their smiles, their generosity, their food and their lifestyle.
Will I go back again? You bet I will. It is definitely a good getaway from the hectic lifestyle in Singapore.
Videos
Now, for the videos I didn't managed to upload during the trip. Enjoy.
Loading up the Busa
Lighting up the Fire Balloon in Chiang Mai
Lighting up the fireworks
The fireworks and Fire balloons in the night sky of Chiang Mai
Riding without helmets.....
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