Category Archives: Asia

02/09/2014 – 220 days/19492 miles

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The Mae Hong Son Loop is about 600km of road through the Mae Hong Son province, the most mountainous in Thailand. Supposedly (and so far, I agree) it has some nice riding and scenery, along with a few great stops to make along the way.
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02/07/2014 – 218 days/19316 days

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I spent a few days in Chiang Mai…here’s some pictures…
First off, a flat on my nice new rear tire. The three man gardening crew that was working near me dropped what they were doing to come help. They also thought it was pretty funny how much a Minnesotan sweats when he’s trying to change a tire on a 31degC sunny day.
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02/03/2014 – 214 days/19271 miles

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I left Bangkok on the morning of the 2nd…election day. There have been protests and demonstrations throughout the city, but they haven’t posed much of a problem. For someone traveling through the area and wanting to mostly avoid them, the most inconvenience I had was that some roads were closed, making taxi rides a bit longer sometimes.
So my plan was to leave pretty early in the morning, just in case things got a little more rowdy with the election going on. I had plenty of detours to take getting out of Bangkok, but other than that, no issues…

An hour north of Bangkok, I made a stop in Ayutthaya, which back in the day, was the the capital of Siam. This lasted from 1350 to 1767, when the Burmese attacked and took over Ayutthaya, pushing the Thais back to Bangkok. The ruins of the old city and some temples are still present and preserved, so since I was already passing through, I decided to take a short break and look around.
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02/01/2014 – 212 days/18770 miles

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Thailand is one of the 3 countries (US and Canada don’t count) on this trip that I’m seeing for the second time, and its the last of the three.
I arrived in Bangkok, from Kathmandu, and immediately felt different about the city than I did on my first visit. At first, it felt crowded, busy, loud, and dirty…to be honest, I didn’t really like it, and didn’t have any desire to come back. Arriving this time, with a different perspective, it feels much more calm and comfortable.
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01/24/2014 – 204 days/18725 miles

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I’ve been in Kathmandu for almost a week now, and it’s been a very welcome change…everything is a bit more laid back than what I experienced in India. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get very far outside the city, which I think would be the best part of Nepal. Because of how much there is left to do and see here, I think it’s the place I’d most like to revisit out of all the places I’ve been so far.
OK, on to what I have been able to see with my time here.
First, I was welcomed to Nepal by this kid…he was absolutely obsessed with my bike, inspecting every square inch of it.
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01/17/2014 – 197 days/18525 miles

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It’s my last night in India, and although I’m ready to be leaving, I definitely hope to be back one day.
I’d mentioned the narrow alleys that I had to navigate through Varanasi…here’s some video of them as I was leaving this morning. Now just imagine the stress of when I arrived after a long day of riding and finding these alleys packed with people, 3 or 4 wide.

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01/16/2014 – 196 days/18275 miles

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On the bar above, you can see that I’ve added a video section.  I’ve put up a few videos I put together from earlier in the trip, and hope to continue adding more to it as I find time to edit more footage.

Varanasi has proven to be an interesting place…and also fairly crowded and noisy compared to my last two stops in smaller towns.
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