31 December 2007 - 6 January 2008

Sour, bitter, meddling and deaf

It's New Year's Eve of the year 2007. After having been in strange countries for over five years it would be great to  experience a real New Year's Eve celebration: not so much because of the real Dutch oliebollen or the cabaret, but more for the sense of comfort and safety among friends and family. In African countries and later in Oman and Nepal we never were able to celebrate this occasion, which is quite special to us. Nothing happened, people went to bed early like they do every day, and we did the same. Often we barely managed to keep our eyes open until ten o'clock, after a long day of cycling, but loud fireworks of unearthly parties would have awoken us for sure.
We haven't got the faintest idea what the Thai usually do at this occasion that's special to them too, but we're curious and hopeful. They look like party-lovers to us.

In the early morning the TV tells us about the assassination of Pakistan 's Benazir Bhutto, a nice start of the last day of the year.
The wind is in our back when we cycle along highway 21, passing karst hills consisting of limestone. Every fifty metres a flag flutters in the wind, on the right and the left side of the road, the national and royal flag alternating. There is no lack of money in this country.
Recycling-firms, with the slogan Waste is Gold support the country of the smile, the king and the plastic bags. At a food stall we drink an icy cold cool drink and are treated to a free noodle soup filled to the rim with fresh ingredients. Happy New Year!

Close to the village of Wichianburi , after 103 kilometres , we find a guesthouse. Our New Year's Eve, brightened by a sudden diarrhea attack from my intestines, lasts until ten o'clock again, by then the surrounding village has been awfully quiet for some time.

Five a.m. on the first day of the new year we are awakened by the loudspeakers of a neighbouring temple. Two hours non-stop they hit the world with the Om Mani Padmi Hum-hymn at the loudest volume. It is 2008, welcome and peace.
Before we leave I have to run to the toilet a number of times.
At the historical park Sri Thep we interrupt our cycling tour to visit the ancient laterite temples and buildings.

The narrow, quiet road between the paddy fields ends in Chai Badan, where we buy two train tickets to Khorat for the following day. We still have five days left on our Thai visa, it's going to be tight.
The sweet owner of the Bangalo Cho Sichang Motel takes me with her car to a pharmacy, where I buy a cure against the flourishing giardia.

January second the alarm clock sounds at 4:15 am. It mustn't get any crazier than this. We train right through the new dam lake Pasakjolasid over a narrow dike and see the sun rise from the driver's cabin. In mere minutes the world changes from a cold and grey place into a warm and orange-red paradise.

In Kaeng Khoi we have to change trains. Exactly at eight o'clock times stops: the whole train station stands to attention, civil servants salute, the national flag rises, faces are blank. The Thai national hymn sounds, then everybody goes their own way again. In Khorat I immediately hit the sack, tired, nauseous and weak.

We skip the entire third day of 2008. I spend the day in bed, Peter lumbers about. We have lost a day: three days on our visa to go, but we'll make it.
That is to say, when I am able to move tomorrow.

The next overnight's stay is at over one hundred kilometres, in Nang Rong.
It is an ugly road, with a lot of factories and a nasty headwind. After seventy kilometres I am beat, the last part Peter pulls and pushes me. When we arrive in time, we can visit the ruins of Phanom Rung, 26 kilometres south-east of Nang Rong.
In the Honey Inn we are 'welcomed' in an unpleasant way by owner and former teacher madam Phanna. She thinks its strange that we're traveling by bicycle and even stranger that we do want to visit the ruins of Phanom Rung and not the even farther situated ones of Prasat Meuang Tam.
Strangely enough the factor time seems to be unknown to her, although Peter patiently tries to explain the phenomenon to her. She is either deaf or can't hear very well, because her point of view remains the same: it is incomprehensible to her that we don't visit the second temple tomorrow.
We rent a motorcycle and use the last part of the day to visit the most beautiful Khmer-style temple in Thailand.

The nearly one thousand years old temple is situated on top of an extinct vulcano and offers views over Thai as well as Cambodian territory. A stone promenade a couple of hundred metres long leads via a number of bridges and stairways to the entrance gate, from where the decorated galleries and the shrines can be visited. The orange-red evening light turns the place into a fairy-tale.

When we return Mrs. Sour is  convinced the nearest border crossing, at O'Smach, is closed, although all of our information tells us otherwise. This means we have to cycle another hundred kilometres to another border post, quite a blow. But we'll have to believe her, she lives here and has the most recent knowledge. 
Under protest of lady Bitter we take our bicycles to have a meal in the village; waif Earless is of the opinion that it would be best to walk. What we want or think is of no importance at all. I tell Peter to stay calm, whilst the steam visibly pours out of his ears.

It is January 5, tomorrow our visa expire.
We get up on time, say a 'hearty' farewell to Mrs. Vinegar and cycle to the south, wind in our backs.
The route in this part of Thailand is not very spectacular, our main purpose now is to cover as many kilometres as we can, to reach the border in time.
In a nameless village we buy apples, the only foodstuff my weakened body craves for at the moment. At the local market chicklets are sold; in itself nothing special, were it not for the fact that they are presented in the brightest shades of green, red, yellow and pink.

Just before Ta Phraya we find to our surprise a bungalow-park with reasonable prices. Our surprise is even bigger when we are suddenly watching Sesame Street , Willem Wever and the Dutch news broadcast by BVN via the satellite TV. It's the first time in almost six years we see Dutch television.

It is January 6, the last day of our visa. Thanks to the long cycling days, and a train now and then, we arrive exactly on time at the border town of Aranyaprathet . As usual there is a lively trading scene. At the purpose built  Rong Klua Market, a couple of hundred metres before the immigration offices, almost anything is for sale: clothing, bed linen, caps, electronics, kitchenware, angling gear, cameras, several kinds of dried fish, toys, meat in slices on wooden sticks or per kilo, cigarettes per packet or per carton, alcohol by the  bottle or in boxes. We unfortunately don't need anything and can't take too much on the bicycle; we limit ourselves to a hot meal and a glass of  fresh fruit juice.
We cycle to the immigration office, after having spent exactly two months in the beautiful and rich Thailand.
The officers tell us that the border post of O'Smach is and has been open for businesses.
Madam Meddle has tricked us in a nasty way, for unexplainable reasons. Fortunately she is the only Thai inhabitant that left a sour-bitter taste in our mouths, the rest of the country deserves a ten.