Journey's End

Day 100: Khao Yai National Park (T) – Bangkok (T). After 100 days and 16,000 unbelievable and unforgettable miles the little service bus from Pak Chong crossed the Bangkok City Limits. We had arrived. And whilst our voyage had only ever been about the journey and never about the destination, Karen and I did afford ourselves the luxury of a couple of cocktails down the Khaosan Road by way of celebration. After all, for Karen and me at least, this did represent an incredible achievement.

After a few days exploring the Thai capital and sampling the culture of this, one of the most vibrant cities in South East Asia, we would be boarding a plane to Mumbai and then onwards to London Heathrow where Steve and Alison would be (hopefully!) waiting to take us back to our home in the small Cambridgeshire village of Steeple Morden. In a cramped, metal tube; seven miles high, we will retrace our steps in less than half the distance and one two-hundredth of the time – but where's the fun in that?

And after what has been the most amazing of experiences, if I could be so presumptuous, so arrogant as to offer anybody any advice at all it would be 'Go live your dreams'. It doesn't matter whether those dreams are to travel half way around the planet or to get home from work a little earlier to see the kids before bedtime; go do it now. As Karen and I learnt, when you really put your mind to it it's a lot easier than you think, and believe us; you won't regret it.

But what of Karen and me? What have we learnt from our adventures? Well, in truth, we could easily fill another 112 page blog trying to answer that question! We have learnt so much about ourselves, about each other and about this world and the people that make it such a wonderful place. But for now, by way of closure to our story, let us just leave you with these three observations:

Firstly, we are amazed how resilient the human body really is! For the best part of four months it doesn't seem to have mattered how much we cut, scraped, grazed, bruised, twisted, burnt, punctured, poisoned or intoxicated our bodies they always made a remarkable recovery (thankfully!)

Secondly, we have both rediscovered the phenomenal potency of a simple smile. It didn't matter how threatening or hostile the situation had become, how difficult things seemed to be getting or how dire our verbal communication were – a smile seemed to have the power to make everyone want to work it out: The world's global language.

And finally, the most important thing that Karen and I have both learnt from our amazing experiences is that the overwhelming majority of people are just like us. Meeting someone for the first time, whether they be a hill tribesman from a remote part of Northern Vietnam or the person who has just moved in along the the street, it can be quite easy to see people as different, strange or just plain weird!. But what we have discovered is that if you really spend the time to get to know that person and if you really try to see things from their perspective, then more often than not we found that they have the same basic hopes, fears, and aspirations that we all do. All we needed was patience and a little time.

Take a little time!

Total Mileage: 16,105: Number of Time Zones: 10; Number of Countries Visited: 12; Number of Transport Modes Used: 39 (Bamboo Raft, Bicycle, Bus, Car Ferry, Chairlift, Chinese Junk, Commuter Train, Cyclo, Dog Sled, Funicular Railway, Golf Buggy, Hire Car, Horse, Jamboh, Kayak, Mini Bus, Monorail, Moped, Metro, Moto, Moto Bus, Motor Tricycle, Motorcycle, Passenger Ship, Passenger Ferry, Pick Up Truck, Sail Boat, Sawngthaew, Side-car, Skidoo, Sleeper Bus, Sleeper Train, Speedboat, Swimming, Taxi, Tram, Trolley Bus, TukTuk & Walking.), Maximum Temperature Encountered: +38C, Minimum Temperature Encountered: -32C.

Thank you for reading!

Safari

Day 99: Khao Yai National Park (T). “I suppose this is why they call it the monsoon forest”, I joked to Karen as we stood in the middle of the jungle dripping wet from the torrential rains and up to our ankles in thick red mud and creepy leeches. As this was out last day in Khao Yai we were determined to see as much of the park as possible and so with the help of a couple of local guides we did just that. From dawn until dusk; we trekked it, swam it, drove it and climbed it.

And how are exertions were rewarded. Of all of the national parks that we had visited on our travels, the bio-diversity and the abundance of wild-life was by far the greatest here. With the thick cover of the jungle and the coming onslaught of the summer rains, I wasn't expecting to see too much on our 'safari'. But thanks to our excellent guides, it wasn't long before our wild-life tick list was looking quite impressive: Gibbons, baboons, giant squirrels, deer, elk, eagles, hornbills, monarch birds, scorpions...The list went on and on.

Oh yes, and then of course there were leeches. After Cat Tien and the Cardamon Mountains, you would have thought that Karen and I would have been used to them by now – but this time they beat us, hands down. Diligently, we donned our long trousers, thick walking boots and protective 'leech socks' but despite all of these precautions I still managed to get one of the little blighter's up each trouser leg. The result? Two blood gorged leeches as thick as your thumb and two gaping holes in my legs that wouldn't stop bleeding for over an hour!

As the afternoon came around, the sun finally put in an appearance just as we were arriving at Heaw Suwat waterfall – the one Leonardo di Caprio jumped off in the film 'The Beach'. “Do you see the similarity?”, I shouted from the top of the falls. Humouring me, Karen nodded and continued swimming in the cool, crystal waters amid the myriad of colourful butterflies.

Batty

Day 98: Khao Yai National Park (T). Ever since I was a small boy growing up in Scarborough, I have always had this strange fascination with bats. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's the memory of those long, warm summer evenings that we just don't seem to get any more. Maybe it's the sound of those high pitch calls that my forty something hearing no longer seems capable of detecting. Or perhaps it was the chilling tales of vampires and the opening credits of Scooby-Doo! What ever it was, the fascination remained into adulthood.

Back home in Steeple Morden, Karen and I often sit outside on our patio with a glass or two of wine watching the aerial majesty of these beautiful creatures. We've even ventured as far as Wimpole Hall, where on a good night, you can see several hundred bats dive bombing the lake in search of food. So when we were told there was a place near-by where we could see several million bats we just had to take a look.

Taking the dirt tracks to the northern edge of Khao Yai National Park in preparation for sunset, it wasn't long before we were bogged down in thick red mud brought on by the summer monsoons. Dumping the 4x4, we walked the last mile or so to the bat cave– our boots feeling like lead weights with the accumulated mud. Ahead of us, high up on the limestone crag, we could see the entrance to the cave - made even more prominent by the presence of half a dozen circling raptors looking for an easy meal.

As the light started to fade we waited and watched. And then, at precisely 6.30pm, with just the vestiges of light remaining, the first bat emerged from the cave and made for the rich feeding grounds of the monsoon forest. For the next hour, the sky was awash with millions of wrinkle lipped bats from this one gargantuan colony, swarming through air in a writhing, snake-like procession until each and every one had departed in search of food. With 1,000 bats per second passing over our heads, their beating wings were so loud they even drowned out the incessant noise of the jungle cicadas. Eventually though the display came to and end and as we wiped the accumulated bat poo from our faces we suddenly realised it was pitch black. Now where did we park that Land-Rover?

Day 98: Total Mileage to Date: 15,926: Number of Time Zones: 10; Number of Countries Visited: 12; Number of Transport Modes Used: 37, Maximum Temperature Encountered: +38C, Minimum Temperature Encountered: -32C.

Monkey Business

Day 97: Nong Khai (T) – Khao Yai National Park (T). Since crossing the Thai border two days previously, Karen and I had been travelling south-westerly in an attempt to reach the tranquillity of Khao Yai National Park: Up there on a podium with the worlds greatest parks, Khao Yai covers almost 900 square miles of central Thailand, rises to some 4,000 ft and covering five vegetation zones including the largest intact monsoon forest in mainland Asia leading to its highly acclaimed Unesco World Heritage accolade.

The beautiful Khaoyai Garden Lodge was to be our home for the next three days, set in a spacious botanical environment right next to the parks southern entrance, it provided the perfect base for Karen and me to explore the park and grab a bit of rest and relaxation. Vibrant flowers, colourful butterflies, magnificent birds and a swimming pool complete with a 10 foot waterfall completed the picture of this tropical wilderness.

And wilderness it was – a fact that I seemed to forget; leading to a rather worrying altercation with a baboon. Completely my own fault, I inadvertently managed to position myself between a cute little baby and its mother. Seeing me as a potential threat, Mrs Baboon charged; snarling and shrieking angrily. As it watched me running down the road, flailing my arms in the air and screaming like a girl, the monkey soon simmered down and returned to its peaceful foraging - obviously realising that despite my size, I wasn't that much of a threat after all!

Picture Perfect

Day 96: Nong Khai (T) – Nakhon Ratchasima (T). Low pressure centred around southern China had finally started to move northwards, bringing with it a deluge of biblical proportion and much needed relief against the intense heat of previous days that had seen the mercury soar to over a hundred degree Fahrenheit.

The blistering heat and humidity that we had suffered over the past few days was not only uncomfortable for Karen and me. The extreme temperatures had put paid to our second memory card making us incredibly thankful that we had continued to back up our digital media. With the best part of 3,000 photographic images so far – these were easily the most valuable thing that we possessed and to loose them now would be nothing short of a disaster. (Note to our friends and family: You have precisely one week to come up with some good excuses in response to our “Would you like to pop 'round and have a quick look at the photo's?” invitations!)

The seven hour bus journey down from the Mekong to Nakhon Ratchasima was a pretty uneventful affair. Our destination: A nondescript town in the centre of Isan. Well off the beaten track where Thai life, largely untouched by the country's booming tourist industry, had been allowed to continue in its own uncompromising way – precisely the kind of place that Karen and I had grown to love!

But even here the successful marriage of East and West was evident: An excellent restaurant just down the road from out hotel, offered the best in delicious Thai cuisine – yam plaa, kuaytiam and spicy tom yam promising tastes of the exotic. Teenage girls in mini-skirts, the menu bound in a folder from Tesco and “Barbie Girl” blaring from the sound system providing pointers to the familiar.

Home Straight

Day 95: Vientiane (LAO) – Nong Khai (T). Built and funded by the Australian Government; opened in 1994 - the Thai-Lao Friendship bridge was the first bridge across the lower Mekong and provided the route for Karen and my final border crossing. On one of our shortest travelling days to date, the short hop from one side of the river to the other saw us entering Thailand; our twelfth and last country.

With the continuing political unrest in Thailand, this border had been seized by red-shirted protesters of the UDD just a few days previously and so it was touch and go whether we would be allowed to make the crossing south. But today, everything seemed peaceful enough; there was no sign of any protesters and we were waved through efficiently, courteously and without incident. In fact, so relaxed were the proceedings that the Lao officials even forgot to collect their customary 'beer money' bribes from us!

But despite the fact we had only travelled a few miles across a thin stretch of water, already Thailand felt very different to the rest of Indochina. Arriving in the North-eastern region of Isan, an area where few Thai's venture let alone any tourists, the contrasts were noticeable to Karen and me. Thailand was considerably more developed, more affluent and more connected than our destinations of the past seven weeks. A comfortable balance between East and West, foreign and familiar. Described as 'the worlds most accessibly exotic location', this would be the ideal place to gently prepare us for our impending return to the UK. But that was still over a week away – until then we had the chance to embark on one final journey of discovery on our road to Bangkok.

Good roads and working services weren't the only differences here. Stepping out into the road in Nong Khai, I soon discover that the traffic drives on the left hand side of the road in Thailand – a transition cleverly managed by a set of traffic lights on the Friendship Bridge and completely unnoticed by me. Fortunately though, the quick thinking of the local drivers meant the incident ended in my embarrassment rather than an unwelcome trip to hospital. Lesson number 6,843!

Stress Relief

Day 94: Vientiane (LAO). Vientiane had come a long way sine Paul Theroux described it in his 1975 book The Great Railway Bazaar as a place in which “the brothels are cleaner than the hotels, marijuana is cheaper than pipe tobacco and opium is easier to find than a cold glass of beer”. Today, the brothels have all have been closed down, the marijuana stands removed and a cold Beerlao is now the nightly drug of choice.

Change is happening fast in the Laotian capital, but unlike other Asian cities I certainly wouldn't use words like 'hustle' and 'bustle' to describe it. This had to be one of the most relaxed capitals on earth and Karen and I soon fell in love with it's unique charm. A fascinating place of contrasts; playing out the struggle between it communist past and inevitably more capitalist future. Where the National Museum glorified the victory over capitalist foreign imperialists whilst another slick restaurant was opening across the street in an area becoming known as one of the best-value dining cities on the planet.

And as with everywhere in Laos, you just have to take things 'nice and easy'. Fortunately, the main tourist sites were relatively close together and so mooching between Pha That Luang, Wat Si Saket and Haw Pha Kaeo was simple enough and when things got too hectic we could always chill out by the river with a couple of cold beers.

As the the afternoon shadows beginning to lengthen we arrived at Wat Sok Pa Luang, a beautiful little temple in a shaded, almost semi rural location. Here, the resident lay people offered us a traditional herbal sauna and an expert massage on the verandah of their little wooden stilt house. For the best part of 2 hours we were pampered, pummelled, pounded and caressed. Later on as we sipped our herbal tea and reflected on the most tranquil and relaxing of experiences, Karen remarked that the masseurs had covered a bit more territory than she was expecting. Unfortunately for me, I had suffered no similar surprise!