Bangkok

Howdy all

We made it to Bangkok pretty much unscathed. After a slightly frightening moment when Thai Airways did not want to let us leave NZ because we don't have a ticket home, we did eventually make it onto the plane (this involved a trip to an 'official's' office in the depths of the airport to prove our worth).

Today we walked for a fair distance to the Laos Embassy to get our visa. That was a wholly successful trip without getting lost, ordering first 'real' meal by means of pointing, and running across some terrifying 8 lane roads. Ped Xings are there but for show only.

Now we have to try to figure out how to get out of town tomorrow on the bikes. So far we have no map, and no idea where we are headed other than north. We are on the east of town so thats a start...

Wish us luck
Love Claud and Damien

Claud's leaving drinks

Thanks to the CCU staff (and assorted others) for a good leaving do! Big night had by all - especially moi, still recovering. Love Claud

Farewell

Thanks to all those that came to say goodbye on the weekend. We had a great time.

Our inaugural post

A trip overseas was inevitable but the specifics were unfathomable. Where do you go when you’ve got the whole world to choose from? We wanted to have a journey and a purpose – travel for travel’s sake didn’t appeal. Someone (not Damien) suggested some biking. The other half quickly agreed. Someone suggested an epic. The world map was consulted at length. Asia was settled on, people were told, and it quickly snowballed out of control. Before we knew it we were biking from Bangkok to Beijing (what better premise to base a bike ride on than alliteration?).

Easy. But this was 18 months ago. Now, with three weeks until we leave, it’s slowly dawning on us that we ACTUALLY have to do this. So we’ve created some semblance of organisation:

• We’ve been vaccinated against every disease known to man (except the ones that matter, like bird flu and SARS)
• We’ve (and this term is used loosely) researched, bought, and assembled thousands of cogs, tubes, and cables into two functional shiny bikes
• We’ve saved our pennies like our wee lives depended on it, which they will
• And we’ve read screeds of literature – we’ve got our route planned down to the last pothole. Except for Vietnam which we’ve seen on a map but that’s about it
  

So on the 30th of October, 2007, we will be departing the Land of the Long White Cloud and heading for the Land of Smiles. We’ll use this website to update you on our progress, show you some photos, and try not to gloat too much about what we're doing and you're not.

Love from Claudia and Damien

P.S. Our travel consultant advised us to create a photographic poo diary – thanks for that Mike, be sure to stay tuned.