26/04/2017 – one more day syndrome
trip dist: 93.45km
time:4h59
total dist:11 994km
time:4h59
total dist:11 994km
Bangkok is a big city but except the crazy traffic, it’s like if I was invisible for some drivers, it’s been fairly easy to cycle in and out. while I was in Bangkok I met a few other bike tourers and recorded one podcast with Nico from Frogs on wheels, his wife Gökben was in Phuket with her parents. In the end, I stayed two extra days than planned. Nico calls it the one more day syndrom. Basically, when you never stay longer than a night or two at the same place for a long time, when you find something where your feel comfortable, you usually stay longer than expected. It happened in Alice Springs with Simona and Danielle at Alice’s secret, it was such a great hostel with amazing people. I actually think it’s the people who makes all the difference.As it’s often the case in a bedroom with aircon, it’s hard to wake up early to go cycling in the heat. This time it wasn’t too bad, at 8:30am I was on the road. it always take a long time to go out of a big city. Traffic lights, traffic jam… This part was mostly flat and I had most of the time headwind which was great because it was cooling me down a little bit from the 45°C. I didn’t really eat today and started to feel a bit deezy after 80km and tonight I will try to eat vegetarian. That’s a test, I want to see how many days I can eat vegetarian and check how I feel in comparison with when I eat meat. it’s a very difficult challenge as I love meat but in the mean time, when I eat vegetarian, I feel light more dynamic and for some reasons It’s always tastier. So I will see how it goes.tomight, I hesitated between camping or staying at a motel. As I was feeling very deezy I chose the motel. the thing is, the motel is lost in the middle of the fields very far away from every restaurant or street food and the owners don’t have food here. So now that I’m clean and fresh, I will unpack the bike and go for a mission to find some vegetarian food.
It was hard to find anything, even with meat… but I finally got rice and eggs… dry and not that tasty this time…
27/04/2017 – vegetarian challenge failed…
trip dist: 103.89km
time:4h59
total: 12 097km
time:4h59
total: 12 097km
Yesterday I decided to test being a vegetarian and check what would be the effects on my everyday life. All day went well until dinner where it was really hard to find any food. when I finally found a place to eat they didn’t really have anything vegetarian. i ended up eating an omelette on white rice… it was pretty dry but the first day challenge was successful. I didn’t felt any effect except that I was still really hungry when I went to bed. Today, I decided to keep going and it was a success until mid afternoon. for lunch I had vegetarian carbonara pasta with mushrooms but it wasn’t enough. As I was drinking an iced coffee and saw tuna sandwichs, I ordered them without thinking… once it was on the table I realised it and checked on Google if eating fish for a vegetarian diet was ok but it is definitely not. basically the definition of vegetarian is eating everything but dead things. So I failed for today but I have all my life to keep testing and will start again tonight trying to find vegetables.When I started cycling this morning, there was a two trailer truck laying down on its side. Three guys were by the road embarrassingly laughing and maybe feeling a bit stupid. I thought that If I haven’t been that lazy this morning again I could have been run over by this truck because it obviously just happened during the previous hour.I am now very close to the Cambodian border!
28/04/2017 – Cambodia!
trip dist: 105.46km
Time: 5h39
Total: 12 203km
Time: 5h39
Total: 12 203km
Today is the day for a new stamp on my visa! In the morning as I was cycling, two dogs ran at me and they looked very aggressive. One more time, my reflex now is to start trying to kick them in the face then I just think and stop cycling. That’s the most efficient method. They didn’t really stopped trying to bite me this time so I totally stopped and started to scream at them. It worked pretty well as they ran away as quick as they came. There is a dog psychology and that’s really funny to play with when you start to understand it.
Just before the border, as I have still a lot of Thai money, I decided to have a feast. I ordered 1 salad to try to stick to my challenge. It was definitely not enough. I ordered a huge platter of stir fried vegetables and a bowl of rice. I was then full but still feeling weak.
As I arrived at the border, there was many people everywhere, nothing was really organised, but I finally found the booth to check out of Thailand. In between the two countries, the traffic is going from right to left and left to right as the side of driving in Cambodia is different from the side of driving in Thailand. Since I started the trip and since 3 years, it’s actually the first country I’m in where cars are driving on the right side of the road.
I’ve found the booth to get my Cambodia visa. Instead of 1000 Baht it was written with a pen 1200 Baht. You can’t discuss it even though you know those 200 extra bahts are just bribes. The thing is that I used my monney already for food and just kept a 1000 baht note safe in my pocket.
I started to look for all my coins and luckily with all I had left, I’ve been able to pay the 200 extra Baht. I actually got just 1210Baht left in total. I’ve been lucky this time again.
After the border I tried to cycle the most I could and arrived at night and very tired in a hostel.
Cambodia is the first country of my trip I’ve never been to before. I went out for dinner and tried again to find some vegetables but I was feeling so weak that I took a beef Cambodian bbq.
Today on the road I’ve been listening to a great podcast about Facebook and how it creates the FOMO Fear Of Missing Out and the person speaking has been all the way up to get married because it was looking good on Facebook… Crazy. That was a great podcast to listent to:
29/04/2017 – short day but the body is tired…
trip dist: 53.67km
time: 3h21
total: 12257km
time: 3h21
total: 12257km
I had head wind the whole day! Such a waste of energy but it makes me enjoy it more when there is no wind or when it goes the same direction. I still feel no energy and the landscape is pretty boring… Just a straight road with fields everywhere… I hesitated between stopping midway to Siem Reap of to keep going. I stopped, it was mid day and it was a good decision.
Today’s podcast worth sharing was the James Altucher Show with Ryan Deiss about how college is irrelevant for most of us:
I stopped in a hostel located in the middle of kind of nowhere. Very weird atmosphere at night in the “town”. I didn’t really liked it.
30/04/2017 – last leg to Siem Reap
trip dist: 62.38km
time:4h12
total:12319km
time:4h12
total:12319km
Head wind all the time that makes all the difference stuck on flat at 12km/h for all the way…Something that made my day was this young boys looking after a stock of buffalos and as they saw me, one of them climbed up on the back of a buffalo and waved at me then the buffalo, surely a bit annoyed, just started to run and the kid just felt down straight in the mud. we were all laughing and I wish I could have recorded this but at least I have the memory in my mind.
When I arrived to Siem Reap, the first thing was to get some food. I went, or maybe being dragged in to a french chef restaurant. It was a great surprise because even if it looked very class, it was cheap, I had a delicious meal, maybe one of the best of my life… Then I went to a hotel and stayed at the pool for 5 dollars, drink included while waiting for a reply from my warm shower host. I finally went to a hostel and discovered Siem Reap at night… it’s maybe the most hectic place I’ve been to since the beginning of my travels. Full of drunk backpackers everywhere and very loud music in the streets as well as people trying to hook you up for “massages” or drugs, or tuktuk, it reminds me bit Khao San road in Bangkok and it’s not my thing at all.
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