Nicole and  Ingrid are speeding up

“We’re in Thailand, country nr. 23 on our world trip.  We’re some 6 kilometers away from the border with Laos, nearby the Mekong river.  Our first impression is one of luxury, a major difference with Laos,  Nicole muses.  In Laos, at the end, all we saw was misery and poverty.

What you also find here, are old, European men with young beautiful Thai women.”

“We’re both happy that we left Laos.  The poverty was starting  to get to us.  What a difference Thailand is !  The standard of living here is much higher than in Laos.   But the ‘hi’s, hello’s, welcomes’ are all alike and spontaneous.  Here, men jumped up, clapped their hands and started to sing when they saw us.  In Laos,  it were the children who pulled our clothing.”

Ants

“We wanted to visit  a temple.   To avoid the scorching heath (at the moment of the telephone interview it is 22.00 hours  in Thailand and the temperature still is 27°C), we came up with this great idea ! We would build a shelter made of the leaves of  the bananaplant to cover our bikes.  But after 200 meters we literally were attacked by ants ! We had taken the leaves from the petioles.  We had not noticed that these leaves were full of ants, thousands of ants ! “Ingrid, who drove in front of me, got blinded by all these ants and threw the ‘banana tent’ away.  Result : a broken bicycle-chain.   Ingrid, who is the handiest , tried to fix the chain.  After a few minutes her face was inky black, because she now and than tried to wipe the sweat out of her eyes.  An old man from the village gave her some soap and water to freshen up both hands and face.  He even gave her a finger polish to clean hear nails, he just adored Ingrid, so it seemed !

 “All that time, my bike stood under a tree”, Nicole tells us and our bags were wide open.  As a result spiders had got into our bags.  When I think back of these spiders (as big as my hand!), we’re still shaking !!  I fear spiders more than an elephant.”