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Story book of the Journey
Thailand Georgetown-Krabi : August 28 to Setember 8, 2006 Krabi-Sura Thani: September 9 to October 3, 2006 Surat Thani–Cambodia: October 3 to October 19, 2006
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Thailand
Georgetown-Krabi : August 28 to September 8, 2006
After two months in Malaysia, we finally crossed the border the September 4 instead of the 3, because Ben was really sick for a whole day. We were lucky to be welcomed again by the fireman station of the border. They offered us an uninhabited house for the night to allow Ben to take a good rest. The following day morning, we left early and were very motivated to cycling to another country. Right after the crossing, you can imagine that I was very happy to be welcomed by two monks. That day, we planned to roll 3 consecutives days of 100 km to be as quickly as possible to Krabi and to leave alls the cities of the south, because they got big troubles between Islamic and Buddhist. Every night, we ask hospitality in the Buddhist temple to sleep there for free. The comfort in a temple is basic, but at least, we have a shower and a private room. During my meeting with the monks, I have been shocked by the place of the woman's in their community!!!! I was so hurry to discover than the women situation is almost worse than in the Islamic religion. They don't have the right to touch me. You will note that on the pictures, they stand very far from me. Before Ben takes the picture, I proposed to the monk to sit with me and he simply answered me: Buddha cannot touch to a woman!!! I swear you that I almost failed to fall on the floor. I was also a bit surprise to know than the Buddhist Thai is at the opposite of the Buddhist Tibetan. They don't recognize the Dalai-lama. The Buddhist here has been instituted in the idea to escape the consumer society of Asia and the whole stress lived by people. They don't believe in the superstition and the terrific powers of the monks Tibetans. I was a bit disappointed to know about all of that. I have to wait another 6 month before meeting this marvelous world that inspires me so much in my daily and in my reading. Finally, we are presently in Krabi and we wait for our departure tomorrow morning for Ko PhiPhi. Thereafter, we go quickly to Phuket and we go to Krabi to do rock climbing for 2 weeks at Raylei Beach.
Krabi-Sura Thani: September 9 to October 3, 2006
We have been disappointed of our visit on Ko Phi Phi Island. After the Tsunami, each promoter saw the opportunity to start an enterprise and now, the island is anything than an immense village without energy. You lose tour self went you walk in the small street. The place in itself is paradise, but every body go there to do the party and each seems to forget the tragedy that append two years ago (tsunami). Besides, at the time of our visit, a Thai kill a tourist with a home made gun! On the other hand, we appreciated to climb. After some days, we decided to visit the island of Phuket before going to Raylei Beach. There was nothing special on this immense island. It is more for tourist who got money and some street at full of prostitution. Be careful, most of those girls are Lady Boy!!! (Men transformed). We remained there two days and after that we hide from the civilization in Tonsai Beach to do the real climbing for 2 weeks. It is very pleasant;you have the impression to be on an island. To go there, it is necessary to take a boat; no car can reach this paradise on the tip of the coast. The atmosphere is there more that relaxing. You could believe that you land on the " Zion paradise", everybody listens to the Reggae there and live like a Rasta man!!! It felt very good to climb there, we met a lot of nice people from everywhere in the world and we drank some good cheap beer.. We were very happy to have our small home for a while, but after some time, we been every where on the beach. September 29, we left the place to return at the Buddhist temple of Krabi to get back our bicycle. The three days of bicycle to Surat Thani reminded us how good we where in our small flat on Tonsai. It rain most of the days and we had several punctures on the way. There something to make you mad when you get about 4 punctures on a distance of 10 km (in 3 hours) and that you only succeed to eat around 14 :30 p.m. That day, we get a bit of luck, because we have been welcomed to eat by a family who celebrate the grandmother's funeral. The celebration in itself is sad, but they have all seemed to forget their pains when they saw us with the bicycles. We were the center of interest during a good moment. Before arriving to Surat Thani, the "patch" on my tire didn't hold and we lost several precious hours again to tempt to repair the tire. Arrived to destination, we slept one night on the temple and the following morning, we took the bus to extend our visa in Malaysia. A good advice is: to take a two months visa before entering in Thailand. It will cost you a little bit more, but you will save two beautiful days in the buses! We sleep again at the Buddhist temple at Surat Thani to night. We profited of the lose time to do some hand washing and tomorrow, we living for Bangkok
Surat Thani–Cambodia: October 3 to October 19, 2006
Now, we are at only two riding days of Cambodia. We are very happy to have left Bangkok and to return in rural region. In Bangkok, we only spent uselessly money in the tourist area of Kao San, you can easily imagine yourself in an outdoor club. But, we were able to repair the bicycles and to buy new gears for the following road. It was not really expensive. In all, we spent 110 $CAN each. We also did our visa for Cambodia in advance, because at the border, it is suppose to be much more expensive. It cost us 20 US$. In Suburb of Bangkok, we also remained at another member of Warm showers. He also did a world tour in bicycle several years ago. At the exception of Bangkok, we do not spend any money practically. On average, each of us spends 1 $CAN per day. People offer us the hospitalities or we going to sleep in the Buddhist temples. They mostly offer us to buy us a diner and the breakfast is always offered when they finished eating. They constantly insure that all our needs have been answered and satisfied. It is hallucinating!
On the road, we also had a lot of difficulties with the bicycles. We trip to use the tire until the end, because we don’t have a lot of money. They were complete used. We did around 20 flat tires in 3 or 4 days. We did hitchhiking to get a temple at 60 km of Bangkok. We remained two days in this Temple because we had to be able to join Ben from the warm showers. During the second day, a Thai couple came to look for us and offer us hospitality. For the dinner, we were invited to our first Asian barbecue. It’s delicious with a little bit of chili sauce. The following day, they offer to bring us to our friend in Samut Prakan. We did the way in about 5 hours to browse around 100 km. That was terrible because wee had to cross Bangkok in the traffic and the construction. We don't have any idea when they rich home this night. Surely indeed very late! We thank them (Goong and her husband) and we will never forget this action and their kindness.
Monday evening October 16, we also had our first interview. We will appear in the biggest English newspaper of the country, the Bangkok post. You will be able to read the electronic version of our interview in the newspaper. We also had our first interview live on the radio, whit radio energy of Gatineau. In the beginning, I was very nervous, but finally everything was superb and relaxes. Ha yes!!! We are going to have an interview probably in the “Bavard discret” the monthly newspaper of the University of Quebec in Hull. They found our adventure brilliant. If you have other ideas concerning the site or the Media, send it to us. Thank you.
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