6400 - 7000 miles: Chennai to Bangkok

It was dark when the MV Nancowry sailed out of Chennai Port, 4 hours late. We had left the Indian continent but unfortunately not India. The filthy ship, stained red with betel spit was infested with cockroaches which crawled over us and everything. We travelled bunk class in large, open dorms and the sounds of All India Radio playing Hindi classics competed with those of Indians hacking up phlegm. There were several hundred Indians and 9 Westerners on board and the 3 day journey could not pass fast enough for all of us.

Flying fish leaped out of a deep blue sea that extended south unbroken all the way to Antarctica. At times the ocean was as still as a pond and we watched turtles, dolphins and Indians spitting and throwing rubbish over the side of the boat.


At dawn on the third day the decks were packed to watch the sun rise over the Islands of the Andaman Archipelago. To the north lay Sentinel Island where tribal people still live a hunter/gatherer existence, hostile to contact from the outside world. We sailed past uninhabited islands where tropical forest carpeted the hillsides right down to white sandy beaches and a pod of over 100 dolphins swam alongside the ship.

We eventually disembarked at Port Blair, which despite its setting in a beautiful natural harbour the Indians have succeeded in turning into an unattractive, dirty, noisy town replete with cows eating rubbish and mangy street dogs that could be anywhere in India - as if to reassure themselves 900 miles from the mainland. We were up at dawn scrumming for tickets for the first inter-island ferry out of there.

We had to use a new phrase "spectacular spectacular" to describe how we felt about Havelock Island, one of the most beautiful places I have been. Enormous rainforest trees grew right down to deserted white sandy beaches which sloped gently into a crystal clear turquoise sea full of coral reefs and rainbow coloured fish. The Andaman Islands are part of the Indonesian Archipelago that stretches south to Sumatra and the flora, fauna and native people reflect this. It is only a fact of history that the islands are controlled by India, but given the fate of the natural environments in much of South-East Asia this has probably been for the best.



It took us 30 minutes to cycle the Island's only road. We stayed a week in a simple weaved bamboo hut near the romantically named Beach no. 7 and spent our time snorkeling reefs, exploring the rainforest and body surfing at sunset. I was really proud of Tracey who has a phobia of sharks that was once so bad she was scared to get in her bath tub but who by the end of the week was snorkeling in the deep pelagic waters around South Button Island, whose coral reefs and fish were so "spectacular spectacular" they will stay fixed in our minds forever.

We were still trying to confirm our boat to Thailand but no phones or internet had been working on Havelock for over a week - we had to cycle 5 miles to the main village, borrow a dive operators mobile phone, call my friend Emma in the UK and ask her to check our email and then phone her back to get the information we needed. It was all confirmed, we would sail from Port Blair on the S/Y Siren on 12th April; some old fashioned baksheesh had done the trick.

We were excited to have finally found passage to Thailand but we were sad to be leaving such an amazing place before we had really explored it fully. Our sadness lasted up to the moment we saw the S/Y Siren moored off Port Blair - a beautiful, wooden, Indonesian style luxury yacht! The boat sails the waters of SE Asia providing expensive live-aboard diving holidays and the crew were taking her back to Thailand. The wealthy dive tourists disembarked and we loaded our bikes, bags and selves into inflatable dinghies and zoomed out to board the yacht. Tracey had a smile like a Cheshire Cat as did the Thai crew who were going home to their families after a month at sea. We were joined by Martin from Norway who is also attempting to travel around the world without flying (but not on a bicycle) and like us had found this as the only way out of India. Immigration officials came aboard to fill out countless forms, our passports were stamped and we were given permission to sail.

Storms were brewing as we motored out of the harbour and the weather forecast was bad; when the crew start taking anti-seasick pills you know you are in for a rough ride. We were pitching and rolling all night and hardly anyone slept as we felt like we might roll out of bed and the cupboard doors periodically sprang open. In the morning the view out of the porthole near our bed was like looking into a washing machine. We were served the first decent cooked breakfast I had seen in what seemed like years but I was so green I could barely get it down. Thankfully by the afternoon the weather improved and we were able to explore the boat and enjoy the empty ocean, free drinks and great Thai food, though the sight of so much plastic rubbish adrift in the Andaman Sea was surprising and depressing.

After 40 hours at sea the first land we sighted was the Similan Islands to the north-east and not long afterwards the hills of Phuket to the east, but it was dark when we dropped anchor in Chalong Harbour so we stayed onboard for the night. In the morning the setting in the natural harbour surrounded by jungle clad islands and hills was beautiful but it was so hot and humid that the sweat was dripping off us just eating breakfast and soon afterwards a tropical storm let rip - the rainy season was approaching. Immigration officials were not at work as the government had extended the national holiday for Thai New Year in order to restore order in Bangkok after the political demonstrations there. It was midday by the time we were given a 30 day visa and officially entered Thailand, the land of smiles.

As we cycled along the smoothly tarmaced road we were struck by the silence - no horns!! We passed restaurants advertising "fish & chips" and a branch of Tesco Lotus and followed a road to the Laem promonitory, at just 7.5 degrees north of the equator it was the most southerly point we had reached, nearly 600 miles further south than Chennai. We turned a corner and began what would be a journey of several thousand miles back to the temperate north, but more immediately was a slog up and down ridiculously steep hills in air so humid that when we paused at a viewpoint to look down along the sandy bays and tourist resorts of Phuket I was able to wring the sweat out of my shirt. Overweight tourists on hired scooters gave us the thumbs up but they had no idea. We were immediately introduced to Asian attitudes to animals as we cycled past performing elephants, monkeys and birds. We stayed the night in the tourist resort of Kata in order to buy a road map, guidebook and supplies. Phuket must once have been beautiful but the beaches are now backed by tourist resorts that resemble the Spanish Costa-del-Sol, with All Day Breakfasts, men in Speedos and McDonald's. Only the Lady Bars and sex tourists seem to distinguish them from any other package holiday destination in the world.

We took advantage of the cooked breakfasts and then continued north, up-and-down the hills past endless resorts, construction sites and tsunami warning signs. 5 days on the decks of boats at sea had turned our bicycles into rust buckets and my chain was finished. Thankfully we were in Thailand and not India and we tracked down a recommended cycle shop in the town of Thalang where the mechanic did a great job replacing worn and rusted gears, cables, etc with the same quality parts we had installed in the UK. The northern part of Phuket is less developed and we camped the night on Mai Khao Beach. The tent was like a sauna so I jumped in the sea to cool off but this was as hot as a bath and not in the slightest refreshing. I would have slept on the beach but for the Spawn of Satan (mosquitoes).

Turtles nest on the beach and in the morning a pick-up truck arrived and a man got out and started digging up the beach in broad daylight. I couldn't believe it and was just about to throw myself under his spade to save the turtle eggs when two elderly women that had been standing around took off their clothes, got into the hole and were buried in the sand!?! We went in search of breakfast which turned out to be boiled squid on rice. While I was tucking in two Canadian cyclists saw our bikes and stopped to say hello - over the next few days we would see several others sweating along the highway, more than we had seen in 4 months in India.

We took the scenic route north and spent a couple of days exploring Ao Phang-Nga National Park in a colourful long-tailed boat. Hundreds of towering limestone cliffs, topped with jungle rise spectacularly out of calm green waters. We slept the night at the foot of one of the islands in a muslim fishing village built entirely on stilts which was fascinating to wander around.


We continued north on well surfaced minor roads with hardly any traffic through some beautiful forested hills accompanied by the whistles and hoots of tropical birds and the high pitched buzzing of cicadas. At That Put we got caught up in a funeral procession and found ourselves amongst smiling mourners being led by four decorated elephants. Further on rural people were waving and smiling from the verandas of their wooden homes built on stilts but the deforestation was fairly depressing. We thought we had made it to Khao Sok National Park by dark, we had, but the entrance was 30 miles away so we camped the night in a rubber tree plantation amongst some very weird insects. I was woken at midnight by what I thought was lightening but turned out to be someone shining a light on the tent - we were naked and unprepared for hand-to-hand combat with a gang of armed poachers so we were eventually relieved to discover they were collecting rubber - though it remains a mystery as to why they were doing this in the middle of the night.


Next morning we cycled past some great scenery on lovely quiet roads to the National Park. I indulged my passion for charging around damp, leech infested jungles in search of strange creatures and was rewarded by almost falling over a boulder sized and very ancient Asian Giant Tortoise. I splurged and we stayed in a beautiful wooden bungalow on stilts close by a running stream and surrounded by jungle - we lay under our mosquito net listening to the rain, the stream and the din being made by frogs, cicadas and crickets. It was a fantastic rainforest and we were amazed to see a flying gecko, keelback snake and dusky langur monkeys, but Tracey rather freaked out when she was attacked by a leech.
Cycling west from Khao Sok it was so hot and wet that the road was actually steaming as we climbed up to a pass through the hills with fantastic views as we swept down back towards the Andaman coast before turning north again. In anticipation of rain hundreds of frogs were croaking from roadside ponds so loadly that it actually hurt our ears, which was quite amazing. We stopped for dinner at a roadside eatery and were joined at our table by 500 flies. A monk in a mosquito net was our neighbour as we camped the night under a picnic pagoda near a lake. I was overjoyed when a huge storm brought cooling rain and the prospect of a decent nights sleep. I awoke in the early hours needing the toilet and fumbled around in the dark trying to get my feet into shoes outside the tent, shoes that unbeknown to me had become the temporary home for an army of biting ants that within seconds had swarmed painfully all over my feet, legs and hands. I got back into the tent bringing a sizeable number of ants with me which we had to massacre. Trouble was we both needed a piss but were trapped in the tent. After much bladder holding and deliberation in the end there was nothing for it but to leap from the tent barefoot, take the pain and run for the nearest bush.


We continued north with forested hills on our right and mangrove swamps and prawn farms on our left. Palm oil plantations are a major environmental catastrophe in SE Asia (if you do just one thing to help the planet this year do NOT buy anything with Palm Oil in it!) but make handy if rather dank campsites. I was so hot in the tent that when a storm came over I got out and stood naked in the torrential rain to cool off - this proved rather too effective and I spent most of the night damp and chilly. When we stopped for breakfast the next day I was served cold noodles with cold crab curry, Tracey just had the cold noodles. Later that day, as I slurped my meaty Thai food and watched Tracey eat a plate of plain rice I realised that travelling with a fussy eater in SE Asia was going to be a trying experience for both of us. It was a regular occurrence that when it seemed we had communicated to the cook that we only wanted vegetables the eager to please Thais had added surprise meat/fish/tentacle which meant 2 portions for me and a grumpy, hungry girlfriend.


Further north past Ranong things felt a bit more remote and we had views west across the Pak Chan estuary to the heavily logged hills of Burma. That night we pitched the tent in the dark in what turned out to be a mangrove swamp and the air was so still and heavy that after a sweaty day in the saddle it was like hell itself. I willed it to rain but the only water was the perspiration dripping off my back.


Near Kra Buri we reached a viewpoint over the river to Burma and pondered why the Bay of Bengal is awash with refugees floating around on bamboo rafts when they only need to cross a 50m stretch of river. This was also one of the narrowest points of the Malay Peninsular and it only took us a few hours to cycle across the country to Chumphon on the sunnier Gulf of Thailand.

We left the cycles on the mainland and joined the backpackers for a 2 hour ferry journey to the Island of Ko Tao. Emboldened by her snorkeling Tracey had decided to learn to scuba-dive and complete a 4-day PADI course. While she blew bubbles in a swimming pool I was trekking across the small islands forested hills to beautiful boulder strewn bays with water so warm and crystal clear that at times it felt like I was snorkeling in an aquarium. We enjoyed the trappings of holiday tourists and socialising with Tracey's dive companions - it was a lovely break from the rigours of the road. Tracey completed her course, making 4 dives in the sea down to 17m, an amazing achievement that she surpassed by snorkeling amongst Black-Tipped Reef Sharks (admittedly they were only 30cm long but sharks all the same). Having survived the perils of the ocean she fell over a step whilst inebriatedly celebrating her diving success and the subsequent cuts all went sceptic.

Our 30 days were going quickly so we crossed back to the mainland and began the 350 mile journey north to Bangkok, which took 6 days, mainly along Highway 4, a tropical version of the A1. The main interest was provided by giant sculptures of pineapples, golden birds and dragons. We cooled off with brightly coloured ice slurpees that were so cold the first sip was like being shot between the eyes. Thailand has many beautiful snakes, butterflies and frogs and we saw most of them dead on the road. Whenever we could we got lost on lovely quiet minor roads that wound their way through the infinite shades of green of rural Thailand. Approaching Bangkok we cycled alongside and over myriad canals and rivers that only a few decades ago were the main highways but now carry only occasional boat traffic past the wooden houses on stilts that line the banks.

Entering Bangkok was like cycling into any major city - 8 lane highways choked with traffic, industry, shopping malls, housing estates and constantly being cut up by diesel belching buses and inconsiderate taxi drivers. We crossed the Mae Nam Chao Phraya river into the Chinatown district. We had cycled over 7,000 miles in nearly 12 months and street vendors were selling giant cockroaches to eat.