Thailand

Our Reward

Thailand is a great country for a holiday, specially for worn-out cyclists like us. The last months we have dragged ourselves through difficult moments with visions of Thai beaches, beach resorts and great food with English menus. Thailand more than lived up to the expectations, it was fantastic.

Nevertheless we cycle more than 1200km in 13 days on the bike, mostly on good roads, without mountainous obstacles and always with the dry north-easterly monsoon in our backs. Rice fields, forests, palm- and rubber plantations colour the country green. The people are as always very kind and helpful and in the south we recognise the hospitality we met in other countries with a Muslim population. The weather is great, but on our bikes we sweat in the humid heat on mid-day.

We have learned to use Google Maps to calculate our route with the option “walk” which leads us often over unpaved roads directly to our destination. We come across remarkable habits and customs. In the yard in front of many houses people show off their beautiful, big bulls. These bulls do not work on the land, people hardly eat meat and these bulls look very healthy and strong. After a few days we discover that these bulls are the men’s hobby; they hope to raise a good fighting bull to gain a lot of money. Those who cannot afford a bull raise singing birds. They gather on their scooters with their cages while a jury decides which bird has the best and longest song. People bet and the owner of the winning bird shows off while his friends encourage us to take a picture.

The other 24 days in Thailand we are in for other activities: celebrate New Years Eve in Bangkok, visiting our friends Robert and Monique in Pattaya, a kite surfing course, Thai massages, diving on Koh Tao and relaxing in a resort on Koh Lanta, snorkelling, exploring caves and natural parks and finally sea kayaking in Tarutao National Park. This truly is a reward after so much hardship!

After four days kayaking in calm, tropical water we raise an idea to our guide Tom. In these waters lives a fluorescent plankton that lights up in the waves when you paddle through in the darkness.  We want to kayak at night! Our guide thinks it’s OK. Under the starry sky the plankton lights up beautifully at our paddles. At the other side we notice that the wind has gotten stronger and we decide to return quickly. The waves and the wind make things difficult for us and we try hard to stay together in the darkness. We do not have a lot of time to watch the plankton this time as we focus on the lights on the island where we need to go. At the end we reach our paradise island safely!

From here it’s ten days in Malaysia and we will be back home again!

Luckily we still have our pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/maartenhovers/Thailand#