Special Needs

Long before we decided to pack up and do the Jupiter’s Travels thing, Ann had set her heart on doing some volunteer work. Not one of those pay-as-you-go, pseudo two week holidays in Africa, cleaning up cuddly lion cub poo things. Real volunteer work.

She had no idea what that work would be, but figured there must be someone out there who could use her help.

We both assumed this would happen in some remote or poverty-stricken part of the world, so it came as a bit of a surprise when the opportunity presented itself in Malaysia. Sitting with Thobrani in his house in Sungai Petani one morning, Ann casually mentioned the volunteering thing to him over a cup of coffee. Almost immediately he was on the phone to Dr Joe, a local GP who runs a clinic in town, and who screens children with intellectual disabilities for admission into a special school. Upon hanging up, he said to Ann “You’ve got an appointment to see Dr Joe Sunday morning at his surgery. He’s going to interview you.” We both sat there open-mouthed for a moment. “Fantastic! Thank you.” said Ann.

Just to give you a bit of history, many years ago a good friend of Thobrani’s stopped at a stall by the side of the road on his way home to buy some food. Upon approaching the stall he was stunned to see a child, caged like a captive monkey, sitting by the roadside. When he asked the stall-keeper for an explanation, the man said that the cage was for the child’s safety, as otherwise he would simply run out into the traffic.

He explained that because his son was intellectually disabled, it was the only way he and his wife could keep an eye on him and continue to run the stall at the same time.

Thobrani’s friend was obviously affected by this and was determined to do something about it, so he called and told him the story as soon as he got home.

Thobrani was and is CEO and majority shareholder of a successful property development company, so he used his influence to persuade the other directors of the company to donate some land for a new school. We’re not sure if there was any government assistance at this stage, but we believe the directors all helped pay for the school’s construction as well. And just to be clear, we’re not talking about some sort of corporate sponsorship deal here. Between them, these guys all own the company. The money came from their pockets.

While the new school was being constructed, it was established at the house next door to Thobrani’s family home (the house we’re living in now).

Thobrani is too modest to tell us exactly how much he’s donated to the school over the years, but we know he paid their rent, and we know he continues to write very large cheques.

Both of us went to meet Dr Joe that Sunday morning, and presumably satisfied that Ann wasn’t some sort of coke-snorting vampire, gave us directions to the school.

At which, after spending some time with Major Chandra, the retired ex-army administrator who runs the school, Ann agreed that she’d start work Tuesday morning. Whew!

After being warned by the major that she’d struggle with the language barrier, she found instead that the teachers were all extremely welcoming and that they all speak at least some English.

Many of the children do too, however Ann’s limited Malay came in handy in maths class anyway. Satu, dua, tiga... She enjoyed it so much she decided to return on Thursday, and has been going back three days a week ever since.

The school accepts children between the ages of five and twenty-three. However many of them only arrive after spending several unsuccessful years attending “normal" schools, finally being turned away when their learning or behavioural problems become too difficult to deal with.

Their disabilities cover a broad range from mild to profound, and include Down’s kids, autistic kids, and kids who are just a little slower than average learners.

They are placed in classes according to their learning abilities rather than their age, and the lessons are tailored to suit.

These include the three Rs (with a little colouring-in thrown in for good measure), but also focus on social or domestic skills such as household duties, and each day there is a cleaning roster. Some of the kids will be placed in unskilled jobs after they graduate, but the majority won’t, so the school focuses instead on equipping them with the skills needed to cope with everyday life.

Ann is constantly amazed how well behaved they are. Full of big genuine smiles, when she arrives on the bike in the morning one of them will always run up and open the gate so she can park inside.

“Are you coming to my class today Miss?”

They all love music, especially Indi Pop, and some are fantastic dancers, completely lacking inhibitions.

Here’s Aleif hamming it up for the camera.

The teachers are a happy bunch also, and although not quite so well-behaved, make a huge effort to provide the kids with a warm, caring environment. Some of the children don’t have an ideal home life, so they try their best to leave their own problems at home, and arrive every day focused solely on the kids.

They may not have the same level of qualifications as a government school teacher (they’re certainly not paid anywhere near as much), but they’ve all had specific training targeting special needs children. Apart from which, they’re much more than just teachers, often performing the role of mother when the inevitable accidents occur.

From a total of nine teachers and one cook, only the salaries of four are paid by the government. The funding for the rest comes from people like Thobrani. A light breakfast and lunch are provided for the children, and each day parents donate parcels of food to help support this. Indeed without the support of the community the school would not survive, and it’s a damning indictment on the local government, who seems to view these children as unimportant.

Obviously most of them will never become productive members of society, but that’s hardly their fault, and so we struggle to understand why they and their parents do not receive the same levels of government support as the rest of the population. Having to rely instead on the generous contributions of people like Thobrani for such basic requirements as schooling.

On a purely selfish note however, Ann would never have had the opportunity to volunteer at a “normal” school, so on one level she is truly grateful.

Ballooning - The Only Way to Fly

12/5/10 – 28/6/10
Motoring. An old-fashioned word, kind of like ballooning, conjuring up images of a dashing young man in leather jacket and gloves, behind the wheel of a mighty jalopy, a beautiful young woman in frilly lace by his side, billowing hair in one hand, parasol in the other, racing across the countryside at a terrifying twenty miles per hour.

Malaysian motoring isn’t like that.

But hold on. What about the environment, world peace and Julia Gillard we hear you ask? Oh yeah, you mean that stuff is still going on? Admittedly we have way too much time on our hands right now. In fact we probably have enough time to solve all those issues (well maybe not the Julia Gillard issue if we’re really honest). But most of that stuff is really only happening inside your TV set.

If you’re after a taste of the real world instead, sit back and strap yourselves in, things are about to get all mustardy.

Speeding aside, you’d need to do something apocalyptically stupid, or be incredibly unlucky, or strike a motorbike cop on a bad day trying to fill his quota, to actually get booked here. In fact the whole notion of being booked in the first place is so incredibly preposterous, we wonder whether anyone ever contests traffic fines in court. Anyone with a handycam and a bit of time on their hands could easily capture mountains of footage of the cops themselves, breaking every traffic law known to man. Ironically, back when we first entered Borneo, one of them actually did us a big favour. We sat behind and watched him (not in pursuit, or rushing to an emergency) crossing and recrossing a double line several times, to pass a procession of cars. From that moment onwards, we realised that road markings here were simply “advisory”.

In fact, Malaysians treat lane markings with such utter contempt, the authorities might as well do away with them. At first its a little surprising when you discover that virtually no one indicates when changing lanes, until it dawns on you sometime later that the whole concept of a lane is completely meaningless. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if your average Malaysian was a competent driver; someone who possessed a certain level of skill and good judgement. Someone who could be relied upon to maintain awareness of fellow road users, and towards whom acted considerately and courteously. Ah... alas. No. Sure there are some good drivers here, but the majority aren’t, falling instead into four broad categories: the infantile and the aggressive, the myopic and the incompetent, women, motorcyclists.



Did you just say “women”? Countries like Malaysia are possibly the last bastions of political incorrectness, and we’ve been here for eight months now, but before our female readers get all Pauline Hanson on us, maybe we’d better explain.

You see, Malaysia is still basically a chauvinistic society. And while its a massive generalisation to say, Malay women are encouraged to dress and act conservatively, and discouraged from leading independent lives. What this means in practice is apparent when crossing the border, where in contrast Thai women seem to carry themselves with an air of confidence.

So what does any of this have to do with driving? Well from our experience, meekness, indecisiveness and lack of skill, brought upon by a general lack of confidence, are a real liability out on the roads. Especially Malaysian roads, which are a model of natural selection in action, sped up to warp speed.

So does this mean your average Malaysian woman is so bad that she shouldn’t drive at all? Of course not. We’re just telling it like it is, that’s all. We don’t pretend to have all the answers.

Interestingly, if you see someone blasting someone else with their horn here, its most likely a group of young Malay guys in a Proton, hurling abuse at some hapless female P-plater in a Perodua.

Which brings us to the infantile. Whose sole mission in life is to be first to the next set of lights. Who, if they and their driving habits were transported to any western country we can think of, would be killed and mashed up into itty bitty little Malaysian pieces, quicker than you can say road-rage. Observing their reactions in a place like KL, which has traffic jams to rivals both its big neighbours, Bangkok and Jakarta, can be pretty entertaining though. After employing all the childish tactics at his disposal to make it first to the lights, Mr Infantile has about ten seconds to bask in a testosterone-fuelled afterglow, before gripping the steering wheel in impotent frustration while the space in front of him fills up with twenty scooters.



Which brings us to the truly mental. If you’ve ever seen a test pilot on a motorbike carving his way through the traffic, and wondered whether he had some sort of death-wish, come to Malaysia to have your perceptions realigned. If the traffic in Bangkok and Jakarta is congested, at least its predictable. In contrast KL roads are like rivers, with scooters, the smallest fish in the food chain, ducking and weaving their way through meandering schools of cars and slowly weaving buses and trucks. Anything goes. Any part of unoccupied road or footpath is a potential space for a scooter to squeeze through. Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for it, and are quite jealous that we can’t squeeze the BMs through the same tight spaces. What we’re not too thrilled about is having to look out for the red light-jumpers, the Valentino Rossi wannabes, the dipsticks who turn across you or out of side streets in front of you without looking, the lack of signalling, and the fact that because motorcyclists are generally treated with disdain, we get treated with disdain as well.

But back to the cops...

The main function traffic cops seem to perform in Malaysia, apart from terrorising motorcyclists, is directing traffic. Now we realise not every town is likely to have a sophisticated traffic monitoring and control centre, where lights can be altered in real time to deal with peak hour traffic and bottlenecks, but does some whistle-blowing Bonaparte in a white shirt and storm-trooper trousers, really make any positive contribution to the flow of traffic? We think not. In fact, from what we’ve observed, quite the opposite. Its commonplace to see one of these Match of the Day wannabes simply standing by the side of a four lane one way road, with no intersection in sight, blowing his whistle and waving the traffic towards him. As if motorists weren’t actually planning to move in that direction in the first place. What this brain surgeon is actually attempting to achieve then, is to encourage motorists to overcome their lack of inertia, a natural consequence of looking up ahead and seeing a cop by the side of the road, with his big cop bike, flashing its big blue cop light.



Or he might be situated at a roundabout, acting as one of those human roundabout/traffic light conversion devices. You know, where the roundabout has completely failed and is causing massive tailbacks. We see this a lot at roundabouts, and initially wondered why. After a little while we realised Malaysians’ complete refusal to indicate, effectively renders roundabouts useless. As you approach, you have no way of knowing who’s going to do what. So you often have to slow to a complete stop, while many of the idiots you’ve stopped for simply turn off before they even reach you.

Another reason for the congestion is Malaysians’ refusal to walk anywhere. And like parents in most western countries, they especially refuse to let their children walk to school. And because the schools operate using this dual shift thing, where half the kids attend during the morning and the other half during the afternoon, there’s this god-almighty changeover at about midday. Not only is there a car on the road for each one or two children, but parents double and triple park outside schools, often cutting off the road entirely. You really want to be somewhere else around lunch time.



Some people say its because of the heat. Some say its due to ingrained laziness. But when it comes to walking, its probably both. Nevertheless, when the whole traffic system is geared up for vehicles, being a pedestrian in Malaysia requires commitment. A commitment most of the population has chosen not to make. And you can’t really blame them when going in to battle in this environment without so much as a scooter, means you’re as vulnerable as one of the stray cats which roam the streets in the early hours.

Why? Firstly, there are virtually no pedestrian crossings anywhere. And even if there were, they’d be the last places you’d cross. Your average Malaysian won’t stop if you wait by the side of one, and won’t slow down if they see you on one. In fact they’ll often try to intimidate you off the road by speeding up or steering towards you. Don’t just take our word for it either. A recent study of behaviour at pedestrian crossings reveals the ugly truth.

Then there are the footpaths. While KL has some half-decent ones, the rest of the country is typically Asian, where footpaths are not designed for pedestrians but are instead simply places for shop owners to do business. They display stuff, they sell stuff, they fix stuff. They use them as restaurants and parking bays. But most importantly, seemingly they dictate whether or not the path is fit to walk on. Not the council. For example, if you have five shops in a row, its likely the footpath will be five different levels, with a step up or down between shops, or even a ramp up into the shop itself so the owner can park the family car or motorcycle inside. Footpaths are simply designed for you to pull up at the curb in your car, step up off the street and into the shop, do your business, walk back to your car and drive off. They are not designed to make it easy for you to walk along beside, and off, the road.



Painful though this makes it to walk through the city, its probably less painful than if you find yourself falling six feet through a gap in the pavement into the storm water drain below. You probably think we’re exaggerating, but the suburban footpaths maintained by the councils are so diabolical, most people, us included, end up walking on the street instead.

But - and this is a big one - the whole footpath thing also points to an absence of the Its Not My Fault syndrome, the root cause of all the petty restrictions which permeate western society. Because if the councils here were afraid of litigation, the footpaths would be billiard table smooth. In fact most people we’ve spoken to, and we’re basically in agreement with them, are quite happy to live in a society which places far fewer restrictions upon them than say neighbouring Singapore.



So it seems to be a trade-off. Chaos and personal freedom on the one hand. Order and personal restriction on the other. We’re not sure about you, but we’re pretty tired of the Nanny State.

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Btw, if you're wondering about the photos, they were taken at the Chin Swee Caves Temple in the Genting Highlands and are a depiction of ten Chambers of Hell, or Naraka. The chambers line a path, called the Journey to Enlightenment, whose aim is to discourage bad conduct by depicting the painful experiences an evil person would encounter in Hell.

Malaysia Revisited

11/4/10 – 11/5/10

The campaign against litter in Oz started back in the seventies, broadcast during TV ad-breaks alongside other campaigns such as Life Be In It and a bit later Slip Slop Slap. Millions of viewers were bombarded every few minutes, between overs of the test cricket, like some sort of mass brainwashing experiment. And it actually seemed to work, producing a reduction in littering of something like seventy percent. Today, Ozwegian cities and towns are relatively clean places to be, and tossing garbage out of a car window or leaving it behind on the beach is almost taboo. Participants in the Clean up Australia movement might disagree, but the rubbish collected yearly on a typical beach in Oz, probably only represents the weekly accumulation of detritus on a typical Malaysian beach.

In fact, living in Malaysia makes you realise just how much rubbish humans generate, simply because here it is visible for all to see, not concealed inside those girly containers called garbage bins. Nowhere is this more apparent than when riding down through southern Thailand. Past Songkhla, where the atmosphere begins to turn Malay, the ghosts of roadside markets remain. Huge rectangles of white on green - paper and styrofoam on grass. Drainage ditches become defacto landfill, the growing grass partly concealing countless kuay teow takeaway containers, until the rains come and wash everything into the nearest river.

Once across the border however, its obvious that the capital of Kelantan, Kota Bharu, is in a completely different league. It only takes an hour or two walking the streets to appreciate that this could easily be the filthiest city in Malaysia. From the rubbish lining the roadside, to the dumps which line its river banks, to the stinking morning after mess which is the city’s central market, Kota Bharu is a tip.

Of course everything is relative, and all of the above pales in comparison with any Indonesian city we could mention.

People actually buy food from this waterfront market in Pontianak.

Peoples homes line the stagnant canals which snake their way through the heart of Semarang.

Malaysia isn’t this bad, but its still disappointing, especially in a country which has so much else going for it. And the thing is, there are probably only two main obstacles to overcome: public attitude and government inaction.

At present, the public genuinely seems to consider the act of placing rubbish in a bin uncool. But wait just a second. Wasn’t this the general attitude of the Ozwegian public back in the seventies? Quite possibly, if our short term memory hasn’t failed us, there’s a simple, tried and tested solution to this problem.

Which will be a completely pointless exercise unless there are enough bins for waste disposal. Which are then emptied often enough to prevent them overflowing out onto the streets. And while we’re on the subject, if any of you have every ridden a motorbike on KLs highways (or driven them in a car with the windows down), you may have wondered at some point what that god-awful smell was. And kept wondering for miles, while that rotten-garbage odour seemed to be following you. Right up until the moment you spotted the dirty big garbage truck hammering along up ahead. At which point your whole mission in life became catching and overtaking that stinking yellow moving violation.

That’s right dear viewers; it may surprise you to know that most of the world has yet to adopt wheelie bins (or Mobile Garbage Bins if you want to get all technical). Which means these filthy great old-fashioned, open-backed garbage trucks prowl the streets, leaving nothing but tainted air in their wake. Obviously many countries can’t afford the infrastructure required to deal with the switch to MGBs. Even in the UK, they’ve only begun distributing them in the last few years.

Malaysia however, a country in which the method of household waste disposal seems to involve these big smelly trucks with two guys hanging out the back, who either ferret around in industrial waste bins, or manually collect garbage bags dumped by the sides of roads, can afford to do something about it. In fact Malaysia produces MGBs, exporting them to countries like Oz at ridiculously cheap prices, undercutting local manufacturers.

But anyway...

We’re just two people passing through. What do we care? Well, we care enough to be disgusted at the sight of fast food wrappers strewn all through the trails of national parks. And we care enough to be fed up at the sight of discarded water bottles which, in countries like Malaysia where the tap water is perfectly safe to drink, are truly one of the world’s great abominations.

One of the modifications we considered for the bikes before we left, was welding larger feet to their side stands. You know, to prevent them sinking in soft earth or sand and tipping the whole bike over. However, due to the profusion of plastic bottles on beaches and by the sides of roads and pretty much everywhere, this modification would have been completely unnecessary. Sad, isn’t it?



Songkhran on the other hand is a happy, let your hair down kind of festival, where people get together to chuck water all over each other. Sure its a Thai festival, but there’s a large Thai community living in Kota Bharu, so one day we head out to a Buddhist temple with KS and LC, to get soaked.

These two run a guesthouse here, and are passionate about travel and meeting people. Another time KS takes us across the river to see the bizarre practise of floss-making. That’s floss as in candy-floss. But in this case its beef. Beef! We can hear you thinking, but bear with us, because it actually tastes really good.

Which is just as well, because making it is an incredibly labour intensive process. Just teasing out the meat fibres to make them all fluffy and flossy requires an entire day standing over a huge hot iron wok, situated inside a big hot corrugated iron-roofed shed. Not to mention the previous day, where the beef and secret herbs and spices are all boiled together and reduced down in another huge iron wok, inside another big shed.



The heart of Kota Bharu has its own big shed called the Pasar Besar, or big market, roughly translated.



Sure it stinks (well the wet market does anyway), but its a great place to people watch.



So we’re trying to think of something intelligent to say about it.



Just so we can post loads of photos of the place.



Shameless really.

But what can you do?



Here’s another good one.



Ok, enough already.

After dark, Route 4, the east-west highway linking Kota Bharu and Penang, is transformed from your typical motor vehicle-use type road, to a mixed-use highway. And because that mix includes elephants, we decide to ride it during the morning. Thobrani’s coming up to Sungai Petani today, so we arrange to meet him at the house. We’ve missed these guys, and can’t wait to see someone we actually know for a change.

Of course, having no idea why he’s up here from KL, its not a huge surprise when he invites us to an Indian wedding the next day. Besides which, we’ve already had a bit of experience gatecrashing Malaysian weddings. Funerals. Exorcisms...

We’re completely ignorant about Indian weddings, but this one is pure Bollywood, with the ceremony performed on stage, and projected live onto two big screens in front of hundreds of seated guests. But the antics on stage, which at one point involve people dancing around an open fire, are only part of the entertainment. On the large circular tables below, lunch is served for our wining (sorry, this is Malaysia, so no alcohol folks) and dining pleasure. All the while the big boys circulate, catching up on old business acquaintances and exchanging new mobile numbers. There’s a bit of a stir when the ex-Chief Minister of Kedah arrives with his entourage in tow, but there are more Doctors and Datuks here than at the launch of a new Mercedes S Class.

A week passes in Sungai Petani, and then we’re off to the Perhentians.



Pulau Perhentian Kecil and Besar are a couple of small islands off the coast of Kuala Besut, just to the south of Kota Bharu. Thobrani has a resort on Kecil and we’d been curious for months to see it, but last time we were here it was monsoon season. Which at the time didn’t stop him going over every weekend to supervise construction. Or his boatman for that matter, who managed to sink all three of his boats in the big seas.



Everyone’s happy on the trip over because the boatman’s on the island, not steering the boat.

The trip back wasn’t quite so pleasant, with more than one person hurling over the railing. Fortunately, since Lucas had taken a magic pill prior to setting sail, it wasn’t him.

Another week passes in Sungai Petani.

No pergi! No pergi! You might remember Atik, the Indonesian housekeeper, from previous episodes. She gets pretty lonely in the big house, so when we finally work up the courage to tell her we’re going, its no pergi! Which is kind of a mongrel mix of English and Bahasa, and her way of saying don’t go. But after hugs all round - which is kind of weird, because they don’t really go in for hugging here – we’re off to Ipoh.



We probably both knew it would be a little strange backtracking to Malaysia, after all a few months ago we’d left here on a mission to get to India. But there are times, like when the lady on the front desk of the hotel we’d stayed in before races outside when she spots us on the bikes, ushering us back into the same room. Times when its nice to trade excitement for security. Times when you can just walk across the road to the same Indian restaurant, look the waiter straight in the eye and say “Roti telur, dua.” Minum? “Kopi o kosong, dua.” Taking comfort in one of the world’s great breakfasts.

Speaking of hockey... we’ve never been big fans, although Ann did play it briefly at school. So when we noticed that Ipoh was hosting an international tournament, including countries like Australia, India and Pakistan, and admission was free, we thought what the hell. You only live once.

Apparently the Sultan of Perak and his family are hockey tragics, and we spot him one night making a grand entrance to Ipoh in his Maybach, accompanied by a full police escort. The Royal situation in Malaysia is something we’re still completely clueless about; the politics here are complicated enough to come to grips with. All we know is that their goings-on are generally behind closed doors, and that they are stupendously wealthy. An example of which is the new palace being constructed in KL. In terms of scale, think not of a building the size of a major shopping centre. Imagine something more on the scale of an airport, or a university campus and you’ve got the general idea.



Kacang kacang kacang kacang... the voice of the peanut man as he makes his rounds. Kacang of course means peanut, and is pronounced “kachang”. The peanut man has a very John Wayne-esque delivery though, so it sounds more like kah-chang kah-chang kah-chang kah-chang. Come ‘n get yer kah-chang, pilgrims.

Oh yeah, back to the hockey... and in the opening night’s game, Malaysia manage to blow a 3-1 lead to draw with Pakistan in the dying minutes.

Speaking of dying, Ipoh is another appalling place to drive – most of Malaysia is. We were going to have a bit of a rant about it, but thought maybe two rants per post might be stretching the friendship. But next time, oh boy... that’s if we survive until next time, of course.

A couple of nights later we lend our support to the Australian team, in their match against the locals.



Not that they needed it. No, that’s unfair. Malaysia defended well to go down 2-1, but the match was locked up until the last few minutes.

Ok then, that’s probably about as much excitement as you can stand for the time being.



So we’ll leave you with a couple more shots of Kota Bharu.



Ta ta for now...

Some Quality Time with Nan

12/2/10 – 11/4/10
One night some time ago we met an Irish guy, who sat and described his philosophy to us. Not in a preachy, crackpot way, otherwise we wouldn’t have paid much attention. No, he explained that many years ago, after doing some basic calculations, he realised he was using only seventeen and a half percent of his income for living expenses, with the rest going towards work related expenses. So he got to thinking, that if he simply wanted to give up work, he only had to find that seventeen and a half percent somehow. He went on to say that by slowing down the pace of his life, he found he could reduce his expenses further, and that he also subscribed to this philosophy while travelling.

Sorry, you were waiting for the punch line? You want to know where he got that seventeen and a half percent? Join the club. Admittedly he was Irish, but after a year on the road we’d already reached some of those same conclusions ourselves, especially in regards to fuelling and maintaining the bikes. So lately we’ve been asking each other whether we should stick to our original plan – ship the bikes from Bangkok to India this year – or slow things down a bit and hang out in Southeast Asia until next year. Lucas really wants to see India, but Ann is ambivalent, especially after the Indonesian experience, so its not a straightforward decision. We have about a month to figure it out though, so right now we decide not to decide.

Crossing back into Thailand, our more immediate concern is negotiating the carnet thing again, which seems to be different almost every single time. This time the Thais want to stamp them, even though they’re not recognised here (they have their own import/export paperwork). So Ann hands over our two expired carnets, which the self-important customs guy proceeds to sign with a flourish.



Whatever.

During the next few days we decide to make our way north to Nan, a town we bypassed last time on the way to Laos. The road hugs the Mekong for a while, before heading vaguely northwest, up into the hills.



The atmosphere is very different from a month ago; the weather has started to heat up and the air is thick with smoke, which we assume at the time is blowing in from Laos.

We spend a night on the streets of Uttaradit after an eerie midnight ride through fire-ravaged forest, during which we discover for the first time, that much of the deterioration in the quality of the air is actually being caused by the Thais themselves. Outside the 7Eleven we observe bleary-eyed the setting up of the Sunday morning market, whose first customers begin trickling in around 4.30am.



This only reinforces our view that Southeast Asia is a region populated by insomniacs.

Arriving in Nan at last, we find it not unlike many other concrete Thai towns. Maybe its by government decree, but the Thais seem to design their buildings like a baker shapes cookies; there isn’t much work for architects here.



Nan’s appeal isn’t in its architecture however, although it does have one or two interesting wats.

What you do find in this largely farang-free town, is that the lazy pace of life gradually creeps up on you, until all of a sudden you realise you’ve been here several weeks. You meet long-term travellers who have succumbed to its charms and return regularly to escape the northern hemisphere winter, or likewise expats, who have made their homes here.



You find yourself slipping into the local rhythm of life - getting out early in the morning to do your thing, before escaping the heat of the afternoon under the shade, by the river.

You suss out the local food you like and where to get it. The Chicken Man just down the road, who also doubles as the Sticky Rice Man. The Sausage Lady. The Dessert Lady. The Pad See Ew Man, who practises his English with you. The Pad Thai Lady and her husband, who tease you because they think Pad Thai is all you ever eat. The Peanut Man. The Banana Lady. The Mango Lady...

Paer is a refugee from the Swedish winter, and every six months he and his wife bring back about fifteen kilos of cheese, sausage and wild mushrooms, which lasts them until they head back in the spring. They generously share some of their stash with us, atop slices of homemade bread.

Food is also a big part of any festival here. But what you really notice in Thailand, amongst the seemingly gentle and quietly spoken people, is the loudness of the music. Even at small gatherings, its super loud. Concert loud. Most Thais seem oblivious to this, or have industrial deafness, one of the two.

One night we find ourselves sitting on bamboo mats on the grass, eating street food with the locals. Beside the ruins of the old city wall, a school group plays traditional music to entertain the crowd. Its not really our cup of tea, just something different for a change, but when they finish the MC decides to put on a recording. He then proceeds to plug the source into a little loudspeaker, in front of which sits a microphone, which then feeds back into about five thousand watts of PA system. You can see where this is heading. After about ten seconds, the Thais next to us are holding their ears in pain. After another ten, people start to get up and leave. We look at our neighbours in disbelief, but they just laugh and shrug their shoulders in acceptance. The moral of the story? Always bring a set of earplugs to a Thai gathering of more than half a dozen people.

Sometime during the first few weeks in Nan, Ann decides she needs a change of colour. Lucas is pretty dubious, but she’s adamant there’s no way she’s going to India as a blonde. She makes one concession and lets him pick the colour, but he’s only ever known her as a blonde, so its a bit of a shock.

Its also during this time, courtesy of Jay and Tania, that we hear about an English teaching job in Laos. So we “apply” and are told we have the job, pending approval of the details by the company. Its a six month contract teaching the office staff of the newest dam project in Laos. Figuring the rest is a formality we wait to hear back, and thoughts of India start to fade.



Nan is so laid back and uncomplicated that we’re putting on weight, so we start going for walks down to the river in the morning before it gets hot. At one point Ralph and Laiad, the guesthouse owners, ask if we'd like to take their dog with us, so we’re joined by Dookdik the agoraphobic retriever, who starts at every sound, is nervous around all the other street dogs, and pulls us along like a freight train until she wears herself out.

She’s at home in the river though.

Did we say it was hot here? During the day, the thermometer reaches forty-three in the shade, and at night it remains in the thirties. We could switch on the aircon in the room for an extra $3.50 a day, but we tough it out. Hey, that’s practically our food budget for the day. C’mon...

Things are hotting up in Bangkok with the Red Shirts, so the local constabulary are on full alert. Its hard to imagine a Molotov cocktail being hurled into Nan’s local government administration compound, but the polis are ready just in case. It gets a bit annoying when we’re sitting in the bus shelter across the street pinching their wifi, and some overzealous cops lean over our shoulders to inspect what we’re doing. Sometimes we chat with them. Other times Lucas slams the cover down on the laptop to give them the hint.



The time to make a decision about India is way past now. In fact we seem to have decided by just letting things slide. Without actually making a decision. Syd still has no news for us about Laos, and the whole thing seems to have become embroiled in company politics, with some in the company believing the job should go to the local school instead. All very commendable, but almost without exception the local English teachers in Southeast Asia speak terrible English, so its doubtful that its the best long-term solution for their employees. Or maybe that’s just a case of sour grapes on our part. Nevertheless, the whole saga has dragged on so long we’ve also reached the point where our Thai visas are about to expire. So Plan B is to head south for Malaysia and hang out there for a few months.



With two thousand kilometres to ride, we figure a week should get us there in time, and so with a week to spare, reluctantly we get back on the bikes and leave Nan behind.

Within a couple of hours, our out-of-condition arses are protesting. Ann hasn’t ridden for seven weeks, and the longer we stayed in Nan, the less we rode and the more we walked. Over the next few days we establish a routine. Leave early, but only stay out on the road until midday, as the heat and the headwinds make riding feel like the interior of a blast furnace. Find a hotel as quickly as possible, dump our gear in the room, turn up the aircon, shower, then collapse for the rest of the afternoon – preferably face down, as we don’t have any of those rubber ring thingies handy to sit on.



The heat is unrelenting until Prachuap Khiri Khan, where the promise of sea breezes and some beach time detain us for a couple of days.

From here its a toss-up whether to head straight for the border near Penang, or keep following the coast down through southern Thailand to Kota Bharu. On the one hand we haven’t been this way before, but on the other our backsides silently protest the extra kilometres, and oh yeah, this part of Thailand tends to attract militant secessionist activists who regularly set off bombs in public places. But Kota Bharu wins out in the end, so we head south through countless army checkpoints, which are manned by serious looking assault-rifle-toting soldiers.

The countryside is refreshingly green after the dry brown northern Thailand landscape, but the feeling is all Malay. In fact if you’d simply dropped us into the middle of southern Thailand, we would have assumed we were in Malaysia. A fact which leads us to feel that we’re gently being eased out of one country and into the next...