t's not really called that but it sounds good and did feel like it at times!

We've just had three very nice days in Pai in Northern Thailand and this is Pai Canyon. Pai is a very popular tourist destination and it was a shock for us not being the only Westerners around for a change, paricularly having ridden up through Indonesia. There was definitely more nightlife there than we've been used to and so many more places to choose from to eat out. I think for all of us, Thailand has been our favourite country so far, but we wouldn't have missed the others for anything.
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We are back on the Mae Hong Son Loop again now and will be making our way across to Laos in a weeks time.

What fantastic timing for us to be in Thailand for Songkran, Thailand’s most famous annual eventA key event in the Buddhist calendar, this water festival marks the beginning of the Thai New Year. What could be better than a water festival during, what even the locals, consider to be extreme hot weather!

The word Songkran come from the sanskrit word saṃkrānti (astrological passage), meaning transformation or change. Officially on the 13th April every year but the holiday now extends to the 14th & 15th as well, so we get to join the celebrations for 3 days. We have also been told that in Chiang Mai, these can last for a full month!

From our perspective, we have noticed two distinct ways to celebrate, but both involve water in some way. The more traditional way, seems to be for somebody to gently douse/sprinkle you with water, in a very respectful, courteous way. This symbolically represents purification, or the washing away of the previous year to welcome the New Year. The water fights that have become synonymous with Songkran are an escalation of this tradition and lead to fully fledged street parties that go on for hours. All celebrations are exceptionally good natured and the ‘family’ atmosphere is an absolute joy to witness.

As riders, we are great targets as we travel along any road! Often you can see the kids in quiet towns gearing up to give you a soaking as you pass, but sometimes the more stealthy, will pick you off from the back of innocuous looking pick-ups as they drive by!
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Wish us luck!
Team 2up (films of Songkran shenanigans to follow)

What a place: great roads (very quiet compared to Indonesia), great people and great food. We are keeping off the main highways as much as possible and there seems to be something interesting around every corner. Even the traffic lights here are amazing!

We are heading North to visit Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and also have a week to explore the Mae Hong Son Loop. This is a challenging 600km biking loop, often described as the most scenic route in Thailand.
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This is a great guide for anyone thinking about doing it, or would just like to read about it: http://thisremotecorner.com/mae-hong-son-loop-from.../

10 points if you can guess where we are and then whistle the theme tune!
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This was an iconic place for us to stop on our way up through Thailand and it hasn't disappointed.

One of our real joys on this adventure is stopping two nights somewhere so we can catch up with emails, washing and even have a mini adventure, off the bikes for a change. Visiting the Emerald Lagoon off Railay Beach near Krabi in Thailand was one such adventure.
It feels almost mythical when you start reading about the lagoon and that air of mystery is with you all the way, it really was quite an adventure. This is a great article describing the way to get there: wheretoflow.com/railay-princess-lagoon-krabi/

The climb up from the tourist path is pretty much vertical, so not many people even think about having ago, and we didn’t encounter too many people on the way. Once we’d got to the top of the initial climb, we met a French guy in his late twenties and quizzed him about the way ahead. He said that he’d got all the way to the final two drops but couldn’t see any ropes, so had turned around - this wasn’t sounding so good for us ‘seniors’ in our 60s!

We won’t lie, it was pretty hairy at times and we were all thinking the same thing, how the ‘f..k’ are we going to get back up as we abseiled down the final rock face! From the top of the final decent, we could see 5, maybe 6 people just floating and laughing in the lagoon below, so we knew that it was possible to get there. They were a nice group hailing from all over the world and it turned out they’d been enjoying themselves taking bets on who would make it down to them and who would turn back at the last hurdle. They did say that they had every faith in us making it – go Team 2up!

So that was our last day off, we were quickly back on the boat taxi back to Ao Nang and back to reality, but that is a day we will never forget.
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Cheers, Team 2up and yes, that is Richard climbing back up with the green rucksack on his back.

Richard and I are both well used to the perils associated with riding motorbikes, as we have ridden all over the world and more recently in Java which was particularly mad! Whether it be bottomless pot holes hidden under water, packs of quarreling dogs that are oblivious to everything, or the crazy trucks and coaches overtaking on blind bends, all can stop you in your tracks if you’re not concentrating!

So we’ve seen most things in our biking careers but what we came across yesterday in Thailand was a first – it was almost like a net tiger trap, hanging from a branch right on our line for the tight lefthander coming up. All we can think of is that it had been hooked off a passing truck by a low branch. We dread to think what would happen if you got tangled in it or came across it at night, it wouldn’t end well for sure!
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Stay safe everyone. Team 2up

This post could be about any country but we can’t lie, we are struggling here!

We’ve been in hotter temperatures on our journey so far from Sydney to Wales, including Perth at 46°C, but the heat here is at a whole new level! There are 3 aspects to how we experience heat, or maybe 4. The temperature, the humidity and the UV levels and for the 4 of us, we also experience/suffer heat in different ways as individuals.
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The next 2 weeks have become all about ‘self-preservation’ but so far we have avoided riding like the locals in flip flops and shorts. What we have changed, is our plans for when and where we ride, which has been good and bad. We now ride between 9am -12pm and book accommodation that can accommodate an early check-in, we have also been using highways so we can keep our speed up and the wind flowing through our vents. The downside to this is that we will undoubtedly miss some amazing sights and riding roads as we head north, but we don’t really have a choice. Any thoughts about visiting temples, caves, waterfalls or the like have also gone out the window as they just wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience, even with a promised ice cream at the end!

This trip was always going to be a balance of when to set off and coping with the weather. In just over a month’s time, the likelihood is that we will be cold and riding in ice and snow when we reach 5200m near Everest Base Camp; 2 months ago, we were anxious about crossing the Nullarbor Plain at the height of the Australian summer!
Wish us luck.

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Fed up of being on the back of the bike as a pillion for the last 2 months, Linda says she is looking for a change. She is looking for something that she could ride as well, something that can carry all our luggage and also keep the sun off us as we travel around Asia.
This scooter and sidecar combo could be the perfect solution!
I’m not sure about getting it on a ferry or down some of the tighter trails we’ve been on, so maybe we'll keep on looking.
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Cheers
Lobo and Team 2up

We spent 34 days in Indonesia with 14 days waiting for our bikes in Bali and 20 days on the road from Denpasar to Tanjung Balai in Sumatra, covering the three islands of Bali, Java and Sumatra, a total distance of 3,414 kms averaging just 41km/hr. 27% of our whole journey completed!

It’s been a mad ride across Indonesia especially in comparison to our first Leg across Australia where the roads were well maintained and empty. Riding in Indonesia requires you to learn a completely different and unnatural set of Road Rules, if you can call them that, in fact each of the three islands has a different set of rules we found. Firstly the amount of traffic is insane with a variety of different forms of transport with scooters being in the majority but with slow moving trucks, minibuses, various types of taxis, motorcycles with sidecars, mini buses and suicidal coaches all vying for a small evaporating piece of space on the road to move forward. We had to learn the rules fast or you would get nowhere or end up coming a cropper. Road conditions varied from deep washed out potholed gravel tracks in Sumatra to perfectly tarmac roads with barriers and white lines, but these are infrequent. Motorcycles are not allowed on the very good toll roads, although thanks to a Google navigation mistake we ended up on one for a few miles before being turned around by surprised but happy toll attendants.
BIG beats small on the roads with trucks taking up both lanes but coaches (intercity busses) own the road and will do literally anything to move forward fast. The will overtake a line of trucks, cars and scooters at speed without considering oncoming traffic and we have witnessed them overtaking on blind corners at a blistering pace. We both very nearly came a cropper when a coach came around the corner towards us on the wrong side of the road leaning over at an impossible angle, Richard had to swerve off the road to avoid it and Lawrence was literally millimeters away from it as it finally tried to pull back into its own lane otherwise it would have run into a line of trucks coming the other way behind us! We have all this on a frightening video, so watch out on our YouTube channel for this (will be a few weeks before we publish). You have to “defend” your space otherwise others will push you out. You have to make normally unnatural maneuvers to get ahead otherwise you will be stuck behind a truck going 5km /hr belching out thick black smoke. Scooters drift out in front of you and join the road from side streets without looking or stopping. It’s scary but it works to a point, once you get used to it, traffic mostly flows and people don’t use horns or get angry at each other when somebody cuts in or forces them off the road in what we would deem a suicidal maneuver.

We have seen some amazing sights as we traversed this country, witnessing the varying daily lives of people in poor, remote and rural communities to those in the big highly populated cities.

We travelled during Ramadan which pretty much the whole population of Java and Sumatra follow, fasting from dawn until dusk, no drinks allowed, so finding food was a challenge, let alone a cold Bintang Beer at the end of the day, but there were benefits, some sections of the road were clearer than they would have been with fewer food street vendors and virtually no tourists so hotels were easier and cheaper to book. As you ride along the roads the mosques, of which there are many, are calling to prayer and frequently setting road blocks to fundraise, with people collecting cash donations.

Most of the hotels we stayed in through the rural areas were very basic, cleanliness was not a priority, and sanitation was poor in a lot. In comparison to the cities where we managed to find better hotels and facilities but all represent good value if nothing else.

What stands out for all of us is the people, no matter where we went they were very friendly especially if you try to communicate with them. A smile and an attempt at speaking their language, Bahasa, goes a long way and always starts a conversation, albeit it limited. Most wanted a photo taken with the bikes and us. Westerners are very few and far between, we might have seen 4-5 outside of Bali and only in hotels, so we were a novelty.
It’s been a hell of a leg, physically challenging in the high heat and humidity. The riding itself has also been a challenge, weaving through traffic and navigating a plethora of obstacles, and an assortment of animals along the way- iguanas, water buffalo, chickens, cats and dogs.

There are no car ferries from Sumatra to Malaysia but we found a post on a Web site saying there were rumors of a guy with a boat taking motorcycles across. He was contacted a few months ago to verify that he did indeed take bikes across, which was confirmed. It was a big punt to ride 3000kms to someone with a banana boat but it paid off and the shipping to Malaysia of the bikes went as planned and the four of us got up at 3am to catech fast ferry. Mark a friend from home who lives in Kuala Lumpur VERY kindly drove for 2 hours to collect us from the ferry port and drop us off at our hotel, another 2 hour drive. We are eternally grateful to him. It was wonderful to see him and saved us much hassle. Immensely appreciated.
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We collected the bikes this morning, import paperwork correct, almost, and rode the first few kms to our hotel in Kuala Lumpur in anticipation of our next leg of our journey through Thailand and Laos to the border of China.
Memorable for sure.