Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

Important:  If anyone finds our bag please contact us at nickyvaux@yahoo.co.uk or telephone us at our hotel in Vientiane on Laos (021) 212 682.  Many thanks, Nicky. So Laos is nice.  It hasn't exactly been nice to us, but its nice.  This last week's catala(o)gue of disasters: Adam gave himself two black eyes and a possible fractured nose whilst plummeting off a zipwire from a great height.  He has spent the last few days looking remarkably like a congested elephant. We both suffered diabolical alcohol-poisoning after consuming a lethal mix of snake juice and stolen Scottish whisky. A gigantic hand-sized hairy spider made its home in our hut.  I discovered it in a distressingly myopic fashion. I went completely off-the-radar bonkers for a few days in Luang Prabang, thanks to the impressive side-effects of some prescription drugs.  We lost the bag off the back of the bike, somewhere very remote along the highway....

 ‘The king of Vietnam just invited us to his house. ‘ ‘Eh?’ ‘That man was the king of Vietnam. And he just invited us to his house.’ ‘Bollocks.’ ‘Really, ask him.’ The retired king of Vietnam was a fairly unassuming chap, in a sunhat.  We found him at the border.  His compadres cheerfully boasted about who he was before he had a chance to get a word in edgeways.  He invited us to his house, but we were too shocked to ask him for his address.  Afterwards I was a bit upset about that. If we can find his address we will go and see him when we get there.  (Thinking about it, maybe its polite to courtesy-call the king before a visit.  Especially as pretty much the only thing I could say at the time was “Is it nice being the king?’.) We’d just been in to customs to get our papers sorted for the border. It was a nice relaxed border.  The guy behind the desk had told us in a laissez-faire sort of way that the carnet stamp was locked in the...

We rode for eight hours or so.  Five of those hours were trying to leave Bangkok.  I was chief navigator, which is probably the main reason.  A few people have subtly suggested I couldn't find my way out of a sack.  But honestly, it really didn't help that motorbikes aren't allowed on any of the highways, and the only roads straight out of Bangkok are highways.  Bikes have to meander down little zigzag roads to go the same route, and there's billions of the buggers.   We bought 3 maps. We could see the roads on the maps, we just couldn't see them in real life.  A huge number of people tried to help us.  Once when we stopped, one man drew us his own map and explained it fully (in thai), while another girl phoned a friend so she could explain in English where to go.  Everyone was amazingly patient, except for us.  Personally I was chewing my own face off with frustration.  The roads were huge, and there were police everywhere. ...

When we were looking for information for shipping bikes it was very hard to come by for this route, so we decided to put this on for anyone looking to do a similar thing.  So here’s a shipping report for anyone trying to ship bikes from India to Thailand.  Obviously we didn't actually want to ship at all, and would much prefer to do it all overland, but Burma aren't willing to give motorcycle tourists visas, so that was that.  We went as far as we could, right up to the border in Bangladesh (we even asked the border guys), but then turned back and sent it from Calcutta. We researched various departure points and destinations around the area and this one won in terms of price AND speed. Kathmandu to Bangkok was pricier on flights for us, and based on other peoples reports pricier for shipping too. Chittagong in Bangladesh for sea shipping proved to be far more expensive, far less professional, and much much slower. Chennai, Sth India, to Bangkok looked to be...