When cycling in Thailand you have to take aggressive dogs with you.(S3 P1:E4)

On Thursday, January 12, 2023 I left the Cambodian town of Sisophon. I had not planned to spend the night there, but because my initially planned route went right through the paying temple area of ​​Angkor and I had seen the temples during my rest day, I decided to change my route and drive straight to Sisophon.

Cycling Adventure 15 (CA15) is my path of personal growth with which I want to inspire people to develop their own path of personal growth in this rapidly changing world.

Turns out the Grand Diamond City casino hotel had burned down two weeks prior, killing 27

It was my intention to cycle east from Sisophon to join my initially planned route towards the Thai 'Boeung Trakoun Border Checkpoint'. It would be a quiet ride of up to 80 km. When I arrived at the border, two Cambodian soldiers approached me and asked what I was doing here. I answered logically that I was cycling to Thailand and pulled out my international passport. At this they told me that I was not allowed to cross the border and that I had to drive 75 km west towards Poipet. I tried to convince them by showing some dollars and also the reasoning that as a Belgian I don't need a visa in Thailand, but they were adamant. 

I reached Poipet just before sunset and started my search for a place to sleep. In Poipet there are many casino hotels that are only accessible to foreigners because gambling is prohibited in Cambodia, except playing with the national lottery. And because the same applies to the Thai, they cross the border en masse to gamble in Poipet. Because I wanted to experience what gambling was like, I thought about sleeping in a casino hotel. Via google maps I happened upon the Grand Diamond City casino hotel. It turned out that the hotel had burned down two weeks earlier, killing 27 people. Since then I pay even more attention to where the emergency exit is where I sleep. But since I haven't seen any smoke detectors yet I'm afraid it doesn't matter much if you're in a deep sleep. I continued my search and thought I had found a good hotel until the receptionist told me to leave my bicycle on the street. There was security and if they stole my bike they would pay me back. In the third hotel, after much persuasion, I was finally able to safely put my bicycle in my room, as was always the case elsewhere.

Crossing the border in Poipet was quite easy, all the more so because as a Belgian you don't need a visa in Thailand and a friendly Australian couple helped me on my way. Crossing the border it took some getting used to suddenly cycling on the left side of the road.

There are an estimated 8,5 million dogs in Thailand, of which 1 million are stray dogs. And I experienced that from the first day in Thailand. Unlike Vietnam and Cambodia, the dogs are much more aggressive. At one point I pulled into a driveway with the intention of taking some pictures of a small farm. Suddenly two dogs came running towards me barking and growling and surrounded me. I grabbed the Dazer in my back pocket as fast as I could and turned it on. One dog walked backwards but the other was less concerned. Fortunately, my attempt to get away from the dogs and to leave at full speed succeeded. A second time dogs stormed after me was when I drove out of a parking lot of a shop. Rarely have I made such an acceleration. From then on I deliberately started driving as far from the side as possible and only stopped where I saw that there were no dogs, which was rarely the case. Anyone planning to cycle in Thailand has been warned.

In Thailand there are well-equipped supermarkets as we are used to, but there are also numerous shops in the small villages where the digital world is not yet there. Unlike Cambodia, you will also find large shopping centers in Thailand. I stopped there on the way to buy a mobile 4G card and could have eaten my dinner there, but it felt awkward. The contrast was great inside with what I had experienced the last few days. That's why I decided to have my evening meal down the street in an improvised 'restaurant'. For less than 100 bat (about 3 euros) I ate a super tasty meal with dessert and some soft drinks. I always made sure that the meat was well cooked because the hygiene standards are much lower here than with us.

The wooden sticks turned out to contain warm sweetened rice.

In the big cities and small towns I've passed, supermarket shelves are full of a range of products that promise to provide perfectly white skin. These products are often touted by people who bear little resemblance to the average Thai in appearance, but the standard of beauty being touted is clear. The face creams often contain dangerous amounts of mercury and other dangerous chemicals and promise results within two weeks. In addition to these facial products, there are also whitening deodorants to whiten your armpits, pills and dietary supplements for your entire body, and cream especially for whiter nipples. Dark skin in Thailand is seen as a trait of low-born poor farmers. A light skin color is associated with traits such as intelligence and a good background, while dark people are seen as lazy, poor, disadvantaged, stupid and unattractive.

Along the way I had seen a few times that 'wood sticks' were being sold and wondered what this was. I stopped at a stall where an elderly lady was busy and bought me a wooden stick. The lady showed me how to break the stick and what was inside. It turned out to be warm sweetened rice. It wasn't long before some enthusiastic men from the neighborhood showed up out of curiosity. It was still early in the morning and their alcohol smell greeted me. The sweetened rice was super tasty and energy-rich, ideal to digest the kilometers more smoothly. Usually I drank cola to have enough sugars and occasionally I was tempted by a watermelon if it turned out that it was sufficiently fresh.

Only in Thailand is the course a bit more hilly. The total amount of altimeters of all my rides amounted to about 4000 altimeters, which is not much on 12 cycling days. With a temperature around 40 degrees it was sometimes too hot to cycle even though I got used to it. I have never felt unsafe while cycling in Thailand and I have never encountered speeders. The only thing that is disturbing and a disadvantage if you wish to cycle defensively are the blinded windscreens of the cars, which are prohibited in Europe. That way you never see whether the driver saw you coming.

The last evening before arriving in Bangkok I slept in a house on a small lake. The bucket of fish food was on the terrace and the Pangasius fish begged for some food. What an unexpected spectacle.

On Monday 19 January I arrived safely at my final destination Bangkok after 12 solo cycling days after 1435 kilometers. Before taking some rest, I still had an important task, the search for a bicycle box! In the end, this turned out to be a simple task. Less than a kilometer from my hotel was a Trek bicycle shop, with a beautiful and large photo of our Belgian cycling star Jasper Stuyven, where they offered the service to clean and pack my bicycle. Such a luxury !

Some numbers of my rides: