HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO FLY WITH YOUR BIKE?   Thair Airways (Auckland – Bangkok – Vientiane) make it very simple. Luggage allowance is 30kg and that can include a bike. The only requirements are to remove the pedals, deflate the tyres, and turn the handlebar sideways. I packed the bike into a old bike…

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano There’s a great view from my room, not through a window exactly, more through a gap in the wall.  You can only…

Who cares that the bathroom has only a cold shower that sprays straight onto the toilet and the sink waste pours directly onto the bathroom floor? Its been a perfect day’s ride – 59km in easy temperatures around 18C. I was away by 8am and here I am at 2.30pm, having booked into my $10…

I’m glad I trusted my instincts. You will remember that my dutch friend warned strongly against kayaking but it turned out to be exceptional day. As Michael and Julia, the friendly young German couple living in Berne commented at our lunchtime stop, it’s the people they’ve met while travelling through Thailand, Myanmar and Laos over…

    I was a few minutes late arriving at their office, having lost my way cycling through the back streets of Vientiane, challenged by road signs in the beautiful but, to me, incomprehensible Lao script.  I’d tried to phone, having just obtained a local sim card, but failed in my navigation of the phone…