Post 340: Beyond Tha-Bo .....

I wake up at 5:00am, at least an hour before the sun and but little later than the local monks. I quickly throw on some clothes, raid the families kitchen and head off to the top of the street. The monks are making their way bare-foot towards the temple. As they reach me, they stop and open the lids to their large bowls. Into each bowl I put a small bag of steamed rice, a carton of milk and a custard donut. Pickings must be slim this morning because their bowls were empty, but it’s still very early and a long way to go before they reach their temple. This daily ritual is performed all across Asia by millions of people but I suspect that most visitors to Thailand have never seen it. It’s called ‘Si Baht’ and if you’re ever visiting these parts, wake up early, walk to the end of your street and you‘ll become a part of it.

The sun rises over Vientiane in Laos and a few straggling Krathong float past down the Mekong. It’s a beautiful cool and still morning, probably the best time of day before the searing heat of the sun forces all but the brave into air-conditioned refuge. Except this is Tha-Bo and nobody here seems to be bothered about air-conditioning so I guess I’ll just have to burn.

I buy breakfast from a stall. My favourite dish in Thailand but it’s a local delicacy that only seems to be available along the borders with Laos. It’s a broth with roughly chopped meat, thick noodles and chunks of crispy pork that you eat with small deep fried donuts. It’s called ’kow-pia’ and for the very first time I find myself adding extra chilli. Maybe my mouth has become cauterised from the volcanic heat of the local food, but there is something weirdly comforting about eating very spicy food beneath a very hot sun.

I’ve been loaned a Honda Click to ride during my stay here. I’ve no idea who it actually belongs too but it’s an awful lot slower than it sounds. 125cc of noise and very little else. Along with the Honda comes a pair of sexy little crash helmets to wear. They’ll keep the police off my back but I doubt that they’d be much good in an accident as they seem to be made from rice paper. Wisa refuses to wear her crash helmet, perhaps on the basis that it’ll ruin her hair, so I suggest that she’d better get used to walking. No helmet no ride.

Riding North out of Tha-Bo we visit local temples where we ‘make merit‘ and ramshackled roadside eateries where we stuff our faces for pennies. Fried rice with shrimp, spicy meat with basil and gallons of iced tea. In Bangkok it would be ‘Beef with Basil’, but off the beaten track along the Thai - Laos border they don’t identify exactly what kind of meat and it’s probably best not to ask. Sitting at one such ’Restaurant’, a stream of shiny new BMW R1200 GS Adventures race past on the road. I suspect that it’s a tour group from ’Odyssey Motorcycle Tours’ and my silent advice to them is to slow down. They’re travelling from point to point too quickly and missing all the really good stuff.

Way past the city of Loei, when the sun has reached it’s peak and the air all around is burning, we arrive at Arawan Caves. It’s 200 gruelling steps up to the golden statue of Buddha and the ancient caves that hide behind it. It’s a long hard climb, but I’m told that it will be worth it. Behind the statue, the caves drop deep into the mountain where the air is refreshingly cool. As we walk down and down and down, my eyes gradually become accustomed to the darkness and the unusually large and interestingly shaped stalagmite comes into view. The shape reminds me of something, but I just can’t think what …… mai pen rai

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas

Post 339: Loy Krathong

The ‘Loy Krathong’ festival takes place during the time of the full moon in the 12th month of the lunar calendar, which in Thailand is November. OK, I really don’t know why November is their ‘12th Month’ because they celebrate New Year on the 1st of January. Anyway, here in Thailand the year is already 2554 so I guess that they’re all from the future so who am I to argue with their logic. The Thai’s love their festivals, not just because a festival means a few days holiday, but because it’s another excuse to drink and eat to excess, two things that they do really well.

‘Loy’ means to float and ’Krathong’ is a cup or bowl traditionally made from Banana leaves. The festival involves making your ’Krathong’ and then adding a candle to venerate Buddha and a coin to appease Phra Mae Khongkha (The Water Goddess). You then decorate your Krathong with flowers and joss sticks and after dark, float if off down the Mekong carrying away all of your bad habits and bad luck. I don’t have much bad luck, but I needed to make a big ’Krathong’ for my bad habits. But first, …… I had to eat.

Eating in Thailand is a very social thing, and they’re very social people, so it’s amazing that Thai’s are generally quite slim. I eat with Wisa’s family; Mom, Dad and Grandparents. They know that I’m European or ’farang’ as they like to call me, so they’re kind enough to cut back on the volcanic chilli content of the food. It’s still hot, but after a few days I’ll either be dead or culinarily acclimatised. After eating, we go next door to meet the Aunt and Uncle, and we eat again. Then, the cousins in the next house along the street, where we eat again. The Botmark family all live on the same street in Tha-Bo. It’s not a very long street but they inhabit every house from the top of the soi to the banks of the Mekong. By the time we reach the river, I’ve eaten so much food than is good for me but it’s getting late and I must make my Krathong.

I’m not supposed to make a Krathong because making Krathong is work for women. Screw that, I’m here to learn. I saw through a slice of banana tree for my base and a large lady called ‘Fon’ teaches me how to intricately fold the banana leaves and pin them to the slice of trunk. With a lot of help from every female member of the Botmark family, my Krathong is finally finished, and they all have a final laugh at my efforts. They’re experts and seem to think that mine will sink within a few seconds, but I reckon it’ll get all the way to the ocean.

It’s dark, so another relative cooks another huge meal and every other relative visits the house, eats and then leaves for the festival. I’ve been here for six hours and I’ve already eaten four meals. Proper meals, not snacks. Obviously they think that I’m too skinny, because as I start up the little Honda Click motorbike that they’ve loaned to me, somebody hands me a bamboo stick full of steamed coconut rice called ‘kow-ram’ … just in case I get hungry.

Down on the bank of the Mekong, hundreds of people are gathered. Each carries a Krathong and they walk in a steady stream down to the launching point. I light my candle and joss sticks, recite the only Buddhist prayer that I know and float my Krathong off down towards the ocean. For hundreds of miles upstream, thousands of people have been doing the exact same thing and the Mekong is a constant stream of floating illuminated banana boats. It’s an amazing sight, but the more spectacular event is just about to begin. (My camera stopped working, so the photograph above was actually taken in Bangkok, but cut out the building in the background and you get the general impression of what it’s like)


I always thought that the festival of Yi Peng was Vietnamese, but apparently it’s also celebrated in the far North of Thailand, or maybe it’s not the Yi Peng festival at all. Anyway, one of the most spectacular things that you could ever see is the sight of thousands of khom-fai (paper lanterns) filling the night sky at full moon. I buy a lantern made from rice paper and a wax fuel cell and join the growing crowd. It takes a few minutes for the heat from the burning fuel to fill the lantern, but once it does the lantern takes to the air. Every minute, hundreds and hundreds of lanterns take off and over the space of an hour, the entire night sky is filled with flickering flames …… you had to be there

Post 338: .. Travelling Again ...

The house build above Boonville was well ahead of schedule, but the first leg of my United Airlines flight home was cancelled. That meant that I’d miss my connection in Chicago, but that wasn’t a problem. United Airlines would squeeze me onto the 7:00pm direct flight from San Francisco to London ….. problem solved.

Compared to Northern California, London was cold but that shouldn’t have been a problem. My warm jacket and shoes were sitting at the top of my suitcase, all ready for a quick change before leaving Terminal 1 at Heathrow. Unfortunately, it seemed that United had managed to send the suitcase to Chicago, presumably not on the flight that was cancelled. You know what I like about United Airlines? …… absolutely nothing.

I was reunited with my suitcase just in time for check-in. A few hours sleep between London and the UAE and then a seat next to ‘Miss Chatty’ all of the way to Bangkok. Suvarnabhumi Airport was busy, very busy for eight o’clock in the morning. The Russian’s had landed before me, probably not long before me but there seemed to be an awful lot of them in the queue. They were lovely people but it seems that no matter how many times they were told, they wouldn’t complete their immigration forms until they were standing directly in front of the frustrated, yet still smiling, immigration officer. Eventually I got through, but the immigration process took almost two hours and I managed to miss my connecting flight to Udon Thani. On the bright side, at least my case had arrived in Thailand with me. The prospect of a nine hour bus journey to Nong Khai on the Laos border didn’t really appeal ….. but a hot shower and change of clothes certainly did.

I arrived in Nong Khai a day late, but after a night in a hotel at least my ‘look’ and ‘smell’ were a whole lot better. I was there for the Loy Krathong festival, 21st to the 23rd of November. I’d missed the first night of the festival, which of course is the worst night to miss, but it actually worked out quite well. I was in Tha-Bo, a small town resting on the banks of the Mekong River (‘’Nam Khong’’ in Thai). I’d intended to book into a small hotel, but for two reasons that didn’t happen. Firstly there wasn’t a small hotel in Tha-Bo, nor even a big one, and my ’host’ for the visit insisted that I stayed with her and her family….. no objections from me.

Earlier in the year, I’d tried to visit the factory where Thailand manufactures is own brand of motorcycle, the ‘Tiger’. Now, my command of the Thai language isn’t great, but when I found myself touring a factory producing nothing more exciting than electronic ignition systems for Japanese cars and bikes, I’d smiled, nodded and pretended that it was exactly what I’d wanted to see. OK, I might have lied about wanting to tour that particular factory, but the smile was certainly genuine. An employee of Bangkok’s Shen-Ding-Gen Corporation is Wisa Botmark, and thanks to her enthusiasm I learned more about electronic ignition systems than any reasonable person would ever needed to know. To cut another long story short, since then we’ve spent some time together and Wisa’s family had insisted that I stayed with them in Tha-Bo.

Unfortunately, the past few weeks have been something of an electronic nightmare. Firstly my laptop decided that it will no longer connect to the internet and then my camera decided to malfunction. I’m trying to fix both of those problems but until the laptop challenge is overcome, I’m stuck with an internet café full of kid’s playing games that are as loud as they are incomprehensible. I’ll try to finish this post in the next few days but this Thai keyboard has defeated me and my hour is up …… mai pen rai

.... swift update ......

Ok .. so no 'Post' for a couple of weeks. I left California on the 16th of August and returned to London. Sadly my suitcase went to Chicago. You know what I like about United Airlines? .... absolutely nothing.

I was only in England for a day and then flew out to Thailand to cover the Loy Krathong festival in the North, right on the Laos border. If your going to float boats made from banana leaves flowers and candels down a river, then I guess the Mekong is about as good a river as your going to get.

Sadly my PC is refusing to coperate, as is my camera memory card and this aging Internet Cafe computer ... but I'm in no position to complain. How is the weather in England???

I hope to get my act together soon and update everything properly .... I'm just not sure exactly when that will be.

Post 337: Building Progress ......

Aside from the childhood joys of Lego (other educational building sets are available), this is the first house that I've tried to build. To be fair, my lack of building experience was never a secret but my brother and his family invited me to help them with the project anyway. I arrived in California on 'Day 1' of the project, 25th August 2010, and after nine weeks of building we've just erected the last external wall and 80% of the roof is already in place. There've been several interuptions along the way; torrential rain, various parties, grape harvest, dope harvest and long rides along the Pacific Coast Highway, but nine weeks still seems amazingly fast when you consider that there are only three people working full-time here. Fortunately for my brother and his family, the other two dudes on the project; Steve and Nichola, are at least proper builders. I hope that in all of our haste we haven't overlooked anything major, but with 80,000 nails and 42 screws holding 2,200 square feet of house together, it really shouldn't fall down before I leave town .... 

It all started with an amazing view overlooking modern vineyards and ancient forests of oak and redwood. A road was constructed and then a building platform levelled on what to me appeared to be an unfeasibly steep slope. Foundation trenches were dug and wooden forms erected to create the concrete supporting walls. The walls were reinforced with steel and the concrete was poured in a single session. That initial foundation process took two weeks to complete and once the wooden forms had been removed, the power tools came out and the fun times started to roll ......

Pressure treated mud-sills were bolted directly onto the concrete walls and then garnished with joist hangers. Within two days a floor had magically appeared and we were up above the dirt. The first floor walls, or the ground floor if your reading this in Blighty, were erected within a week using ’SIPs’, Structural Insulated Panel Systems. Each ‘SIP’ measures 8’ x 4’ and is six inches of polystyrene sandwiched between two sheets of OSB (Orientated Strand Board). The strand board overlaps the polystyrene filling by 1” on all four sides. The SIP sits on top of a 2” x 6” pine base plate with a 2” x 6” pine spline inserted into either end of the panel. The second ‘SIP’ shares the vertical spline with the first SIP and the two are nailed together. Add the third, fourth and fifth SIP, turn the corner and continue. It’s an amazingly simple system and the end result seems a lot stronger and thermally efficient than conventional stick-frame building. If we’d been building a square house then we’d probably have been finished after a couple of weeks, but this house isn’t square. It turns at an angle of sixty degrees making certain things slightly complicated. Thus, only 80% of the roof is finished because we can’t quite work out how to the join the two ends of the roof together.

Window and door openings are really quite easy. You either leave a gap in the panels for the bigger openings, such as French Doors, or you get out the chainsaw and create smaller openings for windows. It really is that simple. At three points there will be ’Bottle Walls’ where assorted wine bottles are set into the wall and embedded in cement. The bottle walls allow light to enter the building but also provide privacy. We need 400 wine bottles and we’re working on emptying them as quickly as we can ......

There is no mains supply for water, sewerage, electricity or gas, so the house is classified as being ’Off Grid’. Solar panels will provide the electricity with a back-up propane generator for running heavy equipment in the workshop. Propane will also be used for cooking and all of the Winter heating will come from a large centrally located wood burning stove. Water is pumped from the well using solar power and black sewerage drains to a septic tank. All grey water is collected and recycled around the house while rain water is harvested, stored and used for the garden. It is hoped that once up and running, the property will be self sufficient for all power, water and food. No more utility or food bills. Of course, it’s not practical to produce all of the food that you require, but with the local system of ’trade’, excess meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables will be traded for items that are not grown or reared on the property. It’s hoped that with an amazing 97% of solar catchment, excess electricity will in the future be directed back to the grid to generate an additional income from the land ......

I’m leaving California on the 16th of November and the family hope to be living in the property by Christmas. I assume that they mean Christmas 2010 and while it is possible, I think it‘s a very ambitious a deadline. On the other hand, we’re currently a few weeks ahead of schedule and well under budget, and those are two things that you seldom hear in the same sentence. So maybe they will be living on Lone Tree Ridge this Christmas and my 7 year old nephew Sam will be enjoying the 14 foot fireman’s pole that we installed for him today.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas 

Post 336: One careful owner ....

It's been four years .... four years since the most faithful bike that I've ever owned finally retired from Despatch Riding ....

"Suzuki Bandit 600, 1997, 7,000 miles, 1 careful owner, starting bid 500"

At the rear of an unremarkable industrial estate somewhere in Middlesex, I lifted a sodden remnant of carpet and there it was. An aging Suzuki Bandit, unloved and uncared for. It was probably once loved, but when it had been reversed over by a rather large truck I guess that relationship had changed. It wore it's shabby black satin paint almost as if it was in mourning, probably for itself. If it was a small puppy then Disney would possibly have made a movie about it. But it wasn't a puppy, it was just a neglected Bandit and nobody seemed to care. Much of it's chrome had long since turned to rust, and its alloy to white fur but with a little coaxing and a lot of damp-start, everything seemed to be working. I doubted eBay's claim of "1 careful owner"  but at just 600 pounds and with the alternative prospect of a cross-country rail journey home, I shook hands with the careful owner and the deal was done.

On the journey home I began to make a mental 'to do list'; brake pads, chain & sprockets, replacement clutch cable, rear tyre, front tyre, heavier fork oil, engine oil, exhaust bandage. It was quite a list, but the longer it grew the less I seemed to care. It was only a Suzuki Bandit, a model that I knew well, but this Bandit seemed quite different from the others that I'd owned. Maybe it was happy to have escaped from beneath the old piece of carpet in Middlesex, thankful to be ridden again and wanting to have some fun. As Middlesex melted in Hertfordshire, and Hertfordshire became Essex, the bikes enthusiasm for the road just kept on rising. For all of its faults, and there were many, that mundane first journey turned into one of the most memorable rides of my life. By the time we'd reached rural Essex, the Bandit had stopped feeling sorry for itself. It had developed a huge smile, lifted its dowdy black skirt and was flashing its Burberry knickers to anyone who cared to look ....       

A good wash, an hour with a wire brush and some polish. A turn of a screwdriver here and the twist of a spanner there. A coat of oil for the drive chain and a few extra pounds of pressure in each of the tyres. The 'to do list' remained undone, but neither of us seemed to care and the next day the Bandit was out on the London despatch circuit earning its keep. Autumn turned to Winter and the rain turned to snow, but the Bandit always started first time and never missed a beat. We carried good and bad news up and down the country often against the elements and always against the clock, but we never missed a deadline ....

As Winter turned to Spring, this old man's fancy turned to the race track. I bought a pair of Metzeler Z6's and a set of race numbers. We rode up to Snetterton and the folks in the paddock with their shiny white vans and tyre warmers quietly laughed. To be honest, we didn't really care what anybody thought of us and as morning turned to afternoon, most of those folks had stopped laughing. As we rode home at the end of that day, I swear I could hear the old Bandit giggling to itself. If it was a horse then it would have been called 'Farlap', but it was just a lowly despatch bike, so it didn't have a name, just a thankless and grueling job ...

As 75,000 miles clicked past, I received a telephone call from Roger Tuson, editor of The Riders Digest magazine. "Did I know what Moto Challenge GB was and if I had a suitable bike, would I like to enter?" I of course lied on both counts and at the beginning of July 2004 we rode out to the Santa Pod Raceway. According to the internet, Moto Challenge GB was an annual competition covering drag racing, hill climbing, short circuit racing and three thousand miles of point to point road navigation across England, Scotland and Wales. The event was in two parts, South and North, and we were entered in both. As the assortment of R1's, Ninja's, Fireblades, Aprillia's and an MV Agusta started unloading their ample kit in the paddock at Santa Pod, my initial enthusiasm had turned to mild despair. It seemed that while I was there for the giggle, some of the other 85 competitors were really taking things quite seriously. As the conversations turned to tyre choice and suspension settings, I just kept my visor firmly down, my opinions to myself and the Bandit tucked away in the shadows. When it came to tyres I didn't have any choice and as for suspension settings, Bandits just don't have any. I decided that I'd ride with the 'just for fun' guys and leave the cock fencing to the dudes wearing their

matching race leathers. However, the Bandit had slightly different intentions ..... 

After ten grueling but fun filled days of competition, we rode down the A1 from Kelso towards Essex. The A1 has got to be one of the worlds most boring roads but on that day my arse didn't ache and my smile never stopped. In the tank-bag was a silver trophy ... 'Moto Challenge South - 3rd Place' .... But if I was smiling then the Bandit was positively wetting it's knickers, because in the top-box was an even bigger silver trophy ... 'Moto Challenge North - Winner'       

As the mileage clicked ever upwards the Bandit just kept on delivering. It had never stopped working, never broken down and never once thrown me from its back. 175,000 miles came and went, 200,000 followed and as another Winter arrived I began planning for its well earned retirement.

It was a frosty morning, clear blue sky and a sun that barely broke above the horizon. We were ahead of schedule and taking it easy. Running along with the early morning traffic and enjoying the air. The roundabout ahead was clear, indicate left and tip in. Accelerate gently to the 40 mph speed limit on Chelmsford's White Hart Lane and ... CRUNCH

Contrary to early witness screams, I wasn't dead. I didn't really understand what had happened, but the pain in my bollocks told me that I was still very much alive. It took the emergency services a few good minutes to prise from the bike but aside from the very personal swelling, I was perfectly ok. Unfortunately the Bandit wasn't quite so lucky. I'd been travelling at the legal speed limit and the silver Ford Focus had been blinded by the early morning sun. Instead of slowing down, he'd just hoped that the road ahead would be clear and accelerated along behind me. He'd mounted my rear end and pushed me for at least sixty feet before finally coming to a halt. The Bandits back was borken, its last package delivered.

The above photograph was my last sight of the bike. After measuring the accident site and taking countless witness statements, it was hauled away by the police and was last spotted at the rear of a Manchester scrap yard. Several months after the accident the insurance assessor informed me that with 48,000 miles showing on the clock he could only offer me a book price of around 1,200 pounds. That was double what I'd paid for the Bandit almost a quarter of a million miles earlier. Of course, the driver of the Ford Focus, who admitted that he'd been speeding, was never charged .. and the next morning I was despatching again on a very forgettable Honda CBF600 N ....   

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas