A day in the life....

And yes, before we set up the Anorak-ometre on the blog, we'll test the waters with a day in the life of some mad farangs cycling round Thailand...

Any good trip starts with good planning. Harriet surprisingly had the map holder installed on her bike and has been dubbed the provisional Queen of Maps pending confirmation on arrival in Hanoi.



A typical day of cycling will starts with an early wake-up at around 5.30am. Getting ready, packing all our 8 panniers and having a light breakfast of fruits and rice cakes (or whatever nice snack we found at the market the day before) means we're out on the road just after sunrise!



A market and Sylv having papaya for breakfast (Harriet eats a surprising number of bananas.. the tastier of two evils!)

When we can, there's a stop at the temple - here's Sylv plying Ganesh with gold and hoping he'll remove obstacles on our journey.


Then it's pretty much on the road until we hit our destination, or somewhere else that looks interesting and has a hotel...



There are regular water and 'comfort' breaks - leg stretching, bum rubbing etc.. and a longer one (where we get to sit down!) at about 9-10am for a big breakfast, often rice and vegetables or noodles as we get to grips with the Thai for vegetarian and 'vegetables only please'.


All being well we arrive somewhere before midday and look for an hotel. This one was a great found: an unpromising entrance gave way to a lush resort, hidden behind the motorway, where we had our own bungalow with terrasse and a massive swimming-pool!

When the roads look too big or busy, we can hop on the train. Thai Trains are fab - we buy a ticket for the bikes (forms in triplicate and fond memories of India!) and then the bikes are taken to the luxury goods carriage and meet us on the platform on arrival (even on the train where we suddenly realised the door at the front of the carridge looked out directly onto the tracks and the engine was nowhere to be seen - slight concern from other passengers but nothing near panic.... zen Thailand).

So far so good - we hit the road tomorrow for the unknown and un-blogged back hills of Chang Mai and work our way down (in theory!) to Sukothai.... farewell Starbucks and Boots, sawadhi khaa hand gestures, smiles and shrimp dust in your dinner!

the bicycles are ready!

This is Thailand: they are so organised here that they have put little signs in our hotel to ask people to get ready for the lift. And as you can see the lifts are quite sensitive here...

We spent yesterday opening the big cardboard boxes and putting together our yellow bicycles in front of the guesthouse. We were interupted half way through by a thunderstorm and sat down for a lovely chat with Bruno and Annick, experienced touring cyclists (http://www.roulmaloute.com/). So nice to meet fellow cyclists in the same hotel.

And all went well on the assembly line, as you can see on the pictures of delighted Harriet and Sylv. lready, we've attracted interest: some of the hotel's staff asked us questions and smiled a lot.

Next step was fitting all our things in the paniers. And that went well too, we even have some spare space, maybe for some nice food?

We went for a little ride around Bangkok today to test things out, adjust saddles and handlebars, etc. Such a nice feeling to be on a bike, seeing so much more than on a bus or in a car and stopping wherever we felt like it, at the market to buy some fresh fruit or some sleeves?!? Yes this is Harriet's latest purchase: a pair of sleeves that she can wear while cycling to procted her skin from the sun. Quite fashionable here in Thailand. They look a bit like this:

Let us know if you'd like some for Christmas.

We're off tomorrow, heading North...

Bangkok!

Considering Sylv's previous bad luck with travels, the flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok went surprisingly well.

The bikes, nicely packaged in cardboard boxes by Sylv's dad, were taken away at the airport by this lovely German man with lightening shoes.

Sylv, minimising luggage, was wearing her best fashionable look of sandals and socks and matching yoga trousers. She received many envious looks from the other travellers on the plane, understandably.

But best of all, ALL her luggage and the bicycles arrived safely in Bangkok on the same plane as her!!
This is how amazed Harriet was when she saw me arrive at Bangkok's airport with my over-loaded trolley...


The bikes were then secured on the roof of a taxi and off we went to our guesthouse.


Very happy to be together again and chattering away sharing our very different experiences of the last month.

Thailand was a BIG change. We were told it would feel like a holiday after so long exploring India and it's a very 'western' asian model we've met here...
Our first impressions of Thailand are: how clean it is, how nice Thai people are, how fab the food is and how like Canary Wharf Bangkok is! There aere still loads ofstreet vendors and food stalls, they just share the city with huge modern shopping malls. Here are a few pictures of our first few days in Bangkok.

Wonderful fruit stalls with Harriet eating the flesh of a green coconut. The red fruit at the front is a dragon fruit.

Lovely food on display on street stalls.



Chinatown in Bangkok.


And Sylv looking well impressed with the huge multiplex cinema in the very huge shopping mall on Siam square - rather a scary experience due to the scale of the place, but we got to see an intersting Belgian film about a girl coming back from travels in.... Thailand!

We are getting organised. We got some good maps and Sylvia has acquired a Yoga mat since she now has a private teacher. Yoga will balance out our cycling very well - work on the hamstrings and calm the nerves...

We should be moving on from Bangkok tomorrow (Sunday) and will be back on the blog next week.


A final photo of the Bangkok riverside at 6pm in the evening: first everyone stands up at 6pm on the dot for the national anthem and then, guess what these ladies are doing? Aerobics in the sunset led by a rather dynamic young gym instructor with a headset and LOUD speakers... pity we haven't got our trainers!

H at the ashram...

A few pictures to give you an idea of the idyllic place I've been over the last month..The Sivananda Kutir ashram near Uttar Kashi. A beautiful place, wonderful teachers, great classmates and amazing cooks... It's been a harsh return to 'reality' this last week!

The four weeks at the yoga teacher training course were full... long days (wake up bell at 5.20am!) and complete with chanting, meditation, asana class, teaching classes, lectures, homework, not to mention two lovely meals a day and the odd cup of tea sat on a rock admiring mother Ganga.. It was such a rest being in one place, no travelling, pollution, noise... just healthy activites and food and no stress and so much learning!

I managed to graduate as a yoga teacher and am fighting the urge to shoot back to London and start classes... reasoning that a few months on the bikes with Sylv, a yoga mat and the lessons learned at the ashram will be better preparation for yog-ing in the capital! The course was so much more than teacher training and a real insight into yoga philosophy and the teachings of Sivananda. Plenty to digest as we pedal through Thailand and plenty of chanting to keep us going too!

Tea breaks with a view!

And Tea in yellow!

Posing with my room mate and beanie maker, Seema

Post course Mary Poppins 'Karma Yoga' washing the carpets... all good fun! (thanks to Ali next to me for the fab pics! More to come from my camera when I've got battery and wire working!)

So it's a peaceful, rested H that met Sylv at Bangkok airport yesterday morning and I've not stopped telling her about it all since - so much so that she had to pretend to be jet-lagged and sleep for 13 hours last night..... We'll just adapt, adjust, accomodate as Swami said and put the bikes back together tomorrow!

packing

My cycling days started early... yes, allright, it was a dog, but the idea was there (With a closer look on the picture you'll see that it was probably Christmas since some lucky family member got a 'cocotte-minute' as a present).

About 30 years later, only 1 day to go and I'm off to Bangkok. We spent most of this morning packing the bikes in their boxes. That's my dad with his lovely hat.

And at the end we managed to fit them all in the cardboard boxes, although we'll probably have to spend a whole day putting the bikes back together.

More pictures and adventures soon, from Thailand.

2 yellow bikes in the sunshine...

A little post from Sylv in France, whilst Harriet is probably doing some strange scorpion pose in the ashram in the Himalayas. Apparently, she's enjoying it loads!?!? Even eating only twice a day is, supposedly, great. She should be liberated and back in the "real" world on Monday. Looking forward to her post and pictures from the ashram.


On the other side of the world, I've been stuffing myself with French pastries, nice fresh bread, CHOCOLAT, wine, cheese, more chocolate, etc. In between meals and snacks, I've been busy (yes I was) finding bicycles for the next leg of our trip in SE Asia. But it can't be just any bicycle. They have to be solid (stainless steel frame), simple (no fancy gear system or hydrolic suspension), practical (with front and back carriers for panniers) and have universal (26") wheel size. The sort of bike that is not very fashonable at the moment, as nearly all are Aluminium and 28", and therefore hard to find.


But my parents were fab and looked around for me before I arrived in France. And their shortlist was indeed successful. A lovely shop in Freiburg in Germany provided the solution and with a few changes and additions, I got what we needed: two beautiful yellow bikes, Fahrradmanufaktur T400.







And having now recovered from a nasty cold (the temperature difference from India 36 degC to Alsace -3 degC last week was a bit of a shock to the system), I am able to go and try the bicycles out in the sunny autumn days of Alsace.




We now need to give names to our lovely yellow bikes. Any ideas, do send them over.


Next step: filling the panniers, packing the bikes in cardboard for the journey on the plane and mechanics and maintenance lessons with my dad. Big thanks to my dad for all his help!

so...8 months on, what's next??

The end of our (long) vagabonding time in India and Sri Lanka is approaching.

After 2 weeks visiting the 'Golden Triangle' with Harriet's parents, we have spent 4 more days in Delhi sorting out a long visa for Thailand - we'll be cycling, so best have a long visa in case we can't get out in time....

We are following our original plan to visit SE Asia by bike. So, to get some comfy touring bikes sorted, complete with paniers and all, Sylvia is going to France in October on a mission (no, no, not a mission to eat all the pain au chocolat she can in a month, quel idee!), a mission to get bikes and her tummy (not the same since that fever in Hampi..) fixed before we hit the road again.

In the meantime, Harriet will be living like a hermit in the Himalayas learning to be a yoga teacher for the whole of October. Harriet's diet will be considerably different as it will consist of Ashram food...and only 2 meals a day...poor Harriet no pain au chocolat up there... ;-)

Just fresh air and two meals a day next to the Ganges...

We'll meet again in Bangkok on 8th of November with a super flex Harriet, a (round) Sylv in full digestive order and 2 beautiful touring bicycles and a few maps to help us on our way!

Until next time, a few pictures from India: a fanfare man, a pink rickshaw, a holy cow and Sylv with the lovely Sikh men.