Stay tuned! Book party successful :) Many photos to come tonight.
Due to the Typhoon which will hit us in a day, we are heading west and north to be safe. Our thoughts and prayers are with those phillipinos affected and the Vietnamese and Laotions soon to be hit.
Ho Chi.Minh trails will be there for the next trip. We will take our good cause further north, many more little smilibg faces ahead :)
Today we had a lovely sleep in before having breakfast and heading out to finalise a few things. Little Chris and Mark (Friend from the UK) went to a nearby mechanic friend to do some work on the Lifan before hitting the trails. I rode the Honda's to a local Honda Service centre to get them their first 1000 km service which wasn't expensive. After fitting the number plate and putting our MAG and Riding Laos for Good Causes stickers on the bikes I rode them back to the hotel and headed to the Post Office to send a few excess top box items home so I'm not so weighed down.
A relaxing afternoon sorting out our Border Crossing documents and a lovely dinner at the Centara Hotel and Convention Centre we retired for the evening for our ride to the Nong Khai and the Laos Border tomorrow.
David arrived at Bangkok this afternoon and will be flying to Udon Thani tomorrow morning to meet us at the hotel where the bikes are patiently waiting.
After today hearing of some potential issues with crossing the Laos Borders by motorcycle due to recent hooligan motorcyclists on Thai bikes for whatever reason. We will have our best smiles on and be ready to that and praise them profusely :) We are after all trying to ride Laos for good causes :)
Below are some pictures from the day :)
We were up at 5:30am for our long day heading for Udon Thani via little Chris's house in Chum Phae.
Today involved some of the most amazing views and roads through the mountains of Northern Thailand, we are so blessed!
We covered 450kms on Route 12 today and arrived in Udon Thani at about 4pm at the Centara Hotel. This has now become our favourite hotel, the restaurant serves stunning food and we will definitely be dining there again, thermometer and shower is fantastic and we got special VIP parking for our Honda's :)
We met up with another friend of Chris's from the UK named Mark. He will be joining us on our ride from Vientiane to Luang Prabang later in the holiday. Welcome to to the tour Mark :)
Udon Thani became a bustling support center for the nearby Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base during the Vietnam War and so retains reminders of that time, with bars coffee shops and hotels.
In the mid-1900s, about 46,700 Vietnamese war refugees immigrated to Udon Thani. Their descendants still reside in Udon Thani and communicate with each other in Vietnamese. Today, Udon Thani has the largest Vietnamese community in all of Thailand.
It also became the site of a Voice of America relay station alleged to have been a CIA black site. :)
Tomorrow we have a day in Udon Thani to get the Honda's serviced and for Chris to do some work on his Lifan before we head into Laos on Thursday. David Is flying from The Gold Coast to Bangkok today to stay overnight and then fly to Udon to meet us Thursday morning, hope you have a good flight mate :)
Thailand Word of the day:
Choc Dee Kup/Kaa: This means "Good Luck". Remember Kup if you are male and Kaa if you are female. :)
Below are some picks from the day :) Sorry not many of the trip down as we had a lot of Kms to cover and didn't make too many stops. :)
Good Night All :)
Today we officially started out trip! After a big night before we woke up feeling a little underwhelmed :) After breakfast and packing the top boxes, we headed down to Check Out and leave the suitcase at the Centara until we return to Chiang Mai at the end of the month.
The ride to Uttaradit was just shy of 300kms and was a nice short day to begin the trip. 4.5hrs later we arrived at our destination, the Seeharaj Hotel.
Uttaradit means "Northern Landing" as this was previously a trade centre in northern thailand on the Nan River.
A lovely dinner and a refreshing beverage had Chris and I about ready to retire for the day. As we are heading to Udon Thani tomorrow it will be a much longer day with just shy of 500kms to our destination. As such we will be up at the crack of dawn to start the day to.make sure we don't arrive too late.
Thanks for.taking the time to.follow our blog and we hope you enjoy the story as it unfolds :)
With 11 days left on our fundraising campaign, with your help we have raised $ 275 of our $1000 target. If you would like to support our cause so far please feel free to donate or perhaps share the below link with your friends. If you just want to follow our blog, that's perfectly fine too :) We are really excited about sharing some of these awesome moments with you.
For those planning or thinking about visiting Thailand or Laos who.may not know the lingo, I thought it would be fun to share a bit of info about the places we are visiting and also to share a new word with you each day, goodness knows I'm still learning every day :) Just to note I will spell the words as they sound :)
Thailand Word of the Day :)
Kop Kuhn Kup/Kaa: This means Thankyou very much. Important to note, Females should say "Kaa" where Males should say "Kup". (I learnt that a while ago after many people giggled when I said Kaa). This can be shortened to Kup/Kaa which simply means."Thankyou"
Below are a few snaps taken on the way today.
After riding around looking for bike shops to buy some drink holders for the Bikes, we gave up and decided to head back to the Hotel for some RNR before we ride south to Uttaradit tomorrow.
A few visits to the Sauna and Spa I decided to leave Chris C to his book reading whilst I went to visit the Chiang Mai airport shopping plaza to have a wander around and some lunch.
After a light dinner we went for a walk through the streets to stretch the legs and found a bar to have a drink. We met a lovely bunch of girls, we had some drinks and laughs before it got late and we decided to retire for the evening.
Lazy first riding day tomorrow with only 300kms to Uttaradit for our overnight stop before heading onto Udon Thani to meet up with David Burrows :)
Good night all :)
After a well deserved sleep at the Centara, Chris and I had breakfast and headed out to Our friend Hasse's House to pickup and finish setting up the Bikes. After an eventful morning installing a.mass of equipment on our steeds, we headed back to town to.visit a Lifan bike dealer to get some parts for Chris's Lil Lifan :) (Lifan = Cheap Chinese Bike).
A huge thankyou to Hasse for letting us use his Garage and a massive thankyou to his Wife who kept us refreshed and made us a lovely lunch, we love you both!!
After a lovely dinner at the Dukes in Chiang Mai we decided to go for a ride to one of the markets to check out there wares :)
We met two lovely chaps from the USA, Dwight and Tom. After realising there was no beer for sale until 6pm tomorrow due to the election, we ended up finding a restaurant which shall remain nameless that served us a tall Leo :)
After a wander around the night markets we retired for the night. Tomorrow we are off to get a few bits for the Bikes to finish preparations before leaving for the tour on Monday.
Chris :)
Wow what a day, after sleeping In and racing to the airport, somehow managed to make the plane arriving 10mins after Check In Closed, Upgraded to Business and flew off to Singapore.
After watching a few movies on the tablet I walked up to the front and had a chance to shoot the breeze with our captain Lee who had popped out for break until he had to leave me to setup for landing.
Turns out Lee is also a huge fan of SE Asia where he lives in Thailand.
Also met a lovely chap named Wayne who is an Aussie living in Pattaya, all the best mate hope to meet again, just not at Suvarnabumi :)
After a very long day I arrived at our Hotel the Centara Duangtawan and retired to a very comfy bed :)
Saturday we collect our bikes and finish preparations.
Chris :)
Sabaidee, We started the day in Vang Vieng where it was raining and didn't see any signs of it easing (Forecast was for solid rain ...
