The journey began in the mountains of northwest Thailand in a small town called Mae Hong Son. I’d spent the night before my de­parture shooting the breeze with a jovial Brit named Larry who was on a far more sensible tour -a tour that would lead him to a beach resort on a nice island somewhere in southern Thailand.

“You must be crazy,” he grunted over breakfast the following day.
“Why are you doing it?”

“Escaping a mid-life crisis,” I quipped for want of a better answer before readying myself for the first leg of a five month journey that’d lead me through Laos, Vietnam, China, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Denmark and finally into England.

“It’s quite some journey, I’ll give you that much,” he conceded before scratch­ing his head and sloping off back to bed.

It certainly was some journey, and for someone whose natural inclination is to avoid planning like a turkey avoids Christmas, the logistics of organizing such a tour can prove to be more of an obstacle than the journey itself. The bicycle, in this case a hybrid mountain bike has to be groomed to its virginal best; visas, vaccinations, maps, guide books, tools, cameras, toiletries, tooth­picks and what seems a myriad of trivial details must be laid in place before I finally throw away the front door key and head out on the wide open road. And at that moment I understand exactly why I’m doing it; in a word, free­dom.

The mountains of northwest Thailand; draped in a canopy of green line the Burmese border and resonate to the screeching of cicadas. In early June the humidity weighs down like a damp and tepid blanket, trapping the heat and melting the tarmac on slopes designed to break the will of an army. The road that links Thailand’s northwest region with the capital of the north, Chiang Mai, was carved out with little planning by the Japanese in WWII. Thou­sands perished as they carved a muddy track through the forested moun­tains; a track that remained un-pathed until as recently as 1989, thereby opening up this beautiful region to the outside world.

On a bicycle tour beauty and suffering make curious bedfellows and it’s a long five days before I arrive in Chiang Mai. At the back end of a pungent market I find a room for three dollars, sooth my aching limbs with whisky and convince myself that what was soul destroying yesterday will be charac­ter building tomorrow. Drunk on delusions of grandeur I finally fall asleep to the sound of karaoke booming up from the floor below.

Chiang Rai, Thailand’s northern most province is also known as the gateway to ‘The Golden Triangle’. Straddling the most important historical crossroads of northern Southeast Asia, the history of tribal societies from China, Laos, Burma and North Thailand can be seen in temple ruins dating back to the 14th century and evidenced in the traditions, crafts, music and lifestyle of its people today. Though in reality, the new generation of hill tribe communities are more likely to be spotted smoking Marlborough cigarettes and watching premiership football than puffing on an opium pipe or performing an animist ritual.

The rain bounces off the road and the night closes in when I role into Chiang Rai, the capital of Thailand’s northernmost province of the same name. The daily routine of finding an affordable guest house takes me down a side alley. Docile street dogs dripping saliva at the smell of grilled pork rising up from a mobile kitchen step out of my way as I climb off my bike. For less than a dollar I get a bagful of the delicious flesh which I share with one of the sorry looking dogs.

The owner of a rickety shack that doubles as a guest house spots a potential cash cow and asks where I come from.

“You from London… mate,” he says in a mock cockney twang before convincing me to take a room. In typical Thai style the buildings exterior resembles a sad wreck of broken dreams that are transformed into a homely oasis of warmth and comfort on the inside.

The guest house owner has been practicing cockney slang ever since a charismatic Londoner, who passed by about three years ago convinced him it would improve business. It hasn’t, but he perseveres and does his utmost to convince me to book a three day hill tribe trek where everything will be taken care of and there’ll be nothing to worry about. Everything taken care of! Nothing to worry about! I might just have well stayed at home. Tomorrow I’d be leaving Thailand to follow the road less traveled into Laos.

Laos, a country of six million covers a land mass slightly larger than Great Britain. One of the poorest and least developed countries in Asia, it’s also one of the least spoilt. Forested moun­tains and dramatic valleys dominate the north. The road I take, heading east to­wards Vietnam traces a mountainous wonderland peppered with tiny villages and pulsating with wildlife. Outside of the main tourist centers
accommodation is basic. Electricity is intermittent and usually cuts out by 10pm. Toilet facilities are a hole in the floor and having a shower involves throwing a bucket of cold water over ones head while taking care not to swallow any. Despite all this there’s something magical about Laos. While Southeast Asia surges ahead on the tail end of China, rural Laos flows like a slow river, seemingly unaware that the 21st century is breathing down its neck in the form of Chairman Mao’s imperialist offspring.

At the Thai/Laos border I load my bicycle onto a long-tail boat and sail across the Mekong River into Laos. Climbing out of the boat I’m met with an angry Frenchman who warns me that the border officials are asking for back­handers on top of the visa fee which is $35. Because it’s Sunday they consider themselves to be working overtime.

“Eet eez corruption, eet eez corruption,” he fumes before turning his back on Laos and sailing back to Thailand, where there’s no cor­ruption… apparently.

With a swagger of mock confidence I stroll up to the passport official and inform him I’m under contract to teach English to a party of­ficial named Keysorn, a well known cadre of the countries ruling communist party. I hand him a made up telephone number, offer a def­erential dip of the head and challenge him to call. He prefers not to take the risk, takes the correct money and stamps my passport. Cor­ruption in Southeast Asia is played out like a game, if you get mad you get had, if you smile, dip your head and play along there’s often a way out.

Narrow roads snake their way over fierce mountains where every hairpin bend cuts deeper into the heart of Laos. In the larger vil­lages, coffee, red wine and baguettes are on the menu, the flavors left over from French colo­nial rule. More common are bowls of grizzled stew and chickens feet served with a spicy dip and washed down with a cup of rice whisky, ideal fuel for a cyclist but never likely to boost the nations GDP.

The terrain slows me to a crawl while my curiosity for strange food and drink leads to a severe bout of food poisoning. In a riverside village a couple of days from the Vietnamese border the walls of my guest house receive a makeover in the form of a splash of projectile vomit. For the next two days I batten down the hatches and flood the mutating germs out of my guts. When I emerge the wife of the guest house owner has kindly prepared me a bowl of rice. Her husband, a portly guy with a circular belly and a big laugh intro­duces himself as Ong. There are precious few visitors to this remote village, in fact one gets the impression that Ong only keeps the room open so he can practice his English and keep connected with the outside world.

His wife weaves a thread while Ong looks across the river below and spots a group of so called fishermen setting battery explosions to make a quick killing.

Ong’s wide smile immediately turns to a frown, “I want to kill them.” A few years ago the river below Ong’s house was rich with fish. Now the stocks are depleted and prices have risen as a result of battery explosions. Wildlife has experienced a similar fate. Ong remembers a time when it wasn’t rare to spot wildlife in the forests surrounding his house. Wild elephants, rare species of monkeys, bears and even tigers roamed the forests in abundance.

“The army hunts the wild animals,” Ong states, “they’re killing everything and nothing can be done because all the government officials are corrupt.” A one time member of the governing communist party Ong’s bitterness is palpable.

“At first they tried to help people, but now all they care about is themselves. The only people driving cars in Laos are government officials and Gener­als. No one else can afford them. All they want is girls, drink and bigger houses.”

As the afternoon fades to dusk a group of teenagers ask to buy some cheap rice whisky from Ong’s modest shop. They’re celebrating because each one of them passed their high school exam. When I tell him that’s a good reason to celebrate he just laughs and points in the direction of the small towns high school. “The teachers,” he intones with a rising swell of anger, “the teachers take bribes from each student to give good grades. The students don’t study, nothing is made here, the government and generals control everything and there’s nothing people can do, if they complain they disappear.”

Ong, a well educated man who studied in Hanoi and taught science in a Vientiane University paints a bleak picture of contemporary Laos. It would be easy to dismiss him as a disgruntled old man, but what he says is prob­ably closer to reality than the impressions travelers like myself garner from skimming the surface on our travels.

At 4am I wave down a bus, tie my bike to the roof and take a perch between a sack-full of live chickens and vegetable produce bound for a market on the Vietnamese border. (Next month; Ben pedals into Vietnam and up to China)

Published by Traversing The Orient Magazine. You want to make an online travel business? Please go to www.web.com.

Thailand to England: A Journey Overland