Thread: Eat, Sleep, Ride, **** - Another Jungle Adventure!

After our last trip Tony and I were itching to get back onto the dirt and with the burning of the fields, Songkran etc all rapidly approaching we decided to squeeze in one last trip. The plan was to ride the border from Sangkhlaburi to Pueng Kleung, Umphang.



Being a 'City Boy' as Tony likes to call me I was a bit nervous about camping in the jungle for a number of nights as I haven't been near a tent for about 15 years but excitement soon took over my nerves and off tent shopping I went.

Packed up and ready to meet Tony for a 10 am meet and the boring ride to Sangkhlaburi from Bangkok



Got about half way and stopped for lunch as we were both literally falling asleep in our helmets! Wow it was warm and this was in the shade!



Finally we arrived to Sangkhlaburi and checked into P-Guesthouse for my final night of air-conditioned comfort

Welcome to P.Guesthouse



After a few beers and unpacking it was time to meet up with our friend and guide Jack, without his local knowledge finding our way would be impossible and another guy that would be joining us called Reza.



After some more beer and watching the sun set we headed out to find a shop to change Tony's rear tire. He had carried a new dirt tire up from Bangkok rather than fit it in Bangkok and wear it out on the tarmac on the journey here. Unfortunatly we couldn't find a shop to do it so with even more beer decided to do it outside the bedroom door! It may (cough cough) been the amount of beer consumed but I dont think we finished fitting the rear wheel until about midnight!



Off to bed for an early meeting with the guys the next morning and into the jungle we head...

More to come.

Waking up with a slight headache its time to boil up some more water and get a coffee inside me.



It was surprisingly chilly through the night considering how hot the days were. Today's ride will take us eventually to a town called Laytongku where we would be camping at a Jungle Medic center. I believe it to be a NGO type place but maybe Tony can chip in with some more info as I'm not quite sure. Big Dave will meet us where we stop for lunch and join us for the rest of the trip... Or so we thought, more on that later.

Not a bad place for a morning shower and to filter some water for our hydration packs. Its going to be a long, hard and hot day!



Off we go again!



Only to be met by a 14 ft drop down to the river!



We lowered the bikes down by hand



Tony checking out the river and choosing a line across whilst nearly falling over!



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It was pretty deep! At one point my exhaust was completely submerged



Tony making his way across



And made it to the other side!



With everyone safely across it was time to haul all of our stuff across we had left on the other side



We took some time to relax and swim in the river to cool down. It was a really hot day and the trails where getting more and more challenging



I didn't take many more pictures of the tracks this day as we were riding in a pretty quick group, it was hard enough to follow each other and it would have been so easy to loose the path or route we were following and end up in a very dangerous situation. I think I crashed a few more times this day and one of them I came close to seriously hurting my leg. By the time we made it to where we would eat and meet big Dave I was again exhausted but felt great that I had made it through in kind of 1 piece. Time for a cold beer right next to the border of Burma



More to come.

Rather than start another thread Satonic said it's cool if I add my pics to his report, so here goes! Packed up and ready to hit the road!


Bye bye P Guesthouse! See you next time!


Meeting the rest of the group, ready to leave Sangkhlaburi!


Today's route, as recorded on my GPS, along with the GPX track should anyone want to try this ride (though it's NOT recommended to venture in here without a guide!)

http://www.asianconnection71.com/201...9.36%20Day.gpx

Welcome to the jungle!!!

Our merry band consists of Bank on the KTM450, Kae on KLX 150, Rezabong on CRF250L, Satonic and Tony on KLX250 and our guide Jack on an old 200cc Yamaha 2-stroke.

We're riding in the Tung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Preserve which is generally off limits to motor vehicles and for which you are supposed to have a permit to enter. This is where having Jack, aka "Muddy Rider" as our guide is invaluable. He knows how to get in and out without having problems with the rangers. He also knows where all the best trails are, where to find food and fuel and he's a pretty awesome jungle mechanic.

Reza- a crazy cat from Pattaya, being an Islamiac he doesn't drink, but apparently the prophet didn't say anything about weed? LMAO!


Quickly we are into some awesome terrain!


During the rainy season the villages along this road are pretty much cut off. Even now in the dry season it's a challenging road.


Satonic the city boy, jumping right in to the deep end!!


Here comes Kae! This cat was funny as hell. Super chill, doesn't talk much, riding in HORSE boots, zero armor and even forgot goggles / glasses, but always powering through and he's the only guy I never saw crash- Respect!


Trying to keep your feet dry here is a bit pointless, but, oh well


Jungle Jack on his "digital" Yammie smoker- Power ON, or off, nothing much in between, which can be a real challenge on some of these trails!


I don't care how hung over you are- get up you little girl!

^ Was here that Satonic burst his wine bottle.

Can't let that go to waste!!!


Drinking wine in 40 degree heat... Hmmm...


Bottoms up Kae!


We stopped in the Karen village of Tilaipa for drinks, fuel and some food- nice spot!


This awesome old Karen dude was chewing on betel nuts and smoking lord knows what and was obviously feeling no pain!


I like him even better in B&W!


They were selling fuel out of bottles, and as Satonic mentioned, some of them had a lot of crap in the bottom of the bottles. Satonic filtered his gas through his shirt... Good thing no one was smoking!


Off we go! Great trails and lots of water crossings. Got a sequence of Satonic crossing this one:




Deeper than it looks!


Slippery!


He made it!


More crossings-












I worried for a sec that Satonic had broken his leg here...


We'd been chasing Jack through this bamboo forest and the trail was covered in dry bamboo leaves that were incredibly slippery and hid all the ruts and obstacles. Satonic went down HARD and I could tell he was in a lot of pain. But he sucked it up, straightened out his bent shift peddle and got back on the bike- respect!


A brief stop at one of the "friendly" checkpoints in the Tung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Preserve-




This innocuous looking water crossing is one of the trickiest of the whole ride. I remember it from last year-

^ Here it claimed the KTM...

More prudent riders walked across...


Slippery as hell and a huge hole in the middle-




I was happy to have put on a fresh knobblie the night before- makes all the difference in spots like this.

Satonic made it through!




Had to pull the air filter and drain the water out of the KTM-


Rezabong, typical stoner, friendly and a bit useless


Kae-




It was getting late and we were beat! Jack brought us to a new camp he'd built- nice!


Day one is complete! Thanks Jack!!!


Jack is the real deal, he can make just about anything from the jungle-


Here he's building a campfire tripod out of bamboo which he'll use to cook our dinner-


Damn nice campground, with a small river running right behind-


Dinner is served!




Chicken, beef, pork, curry and soup- wow we ate like kings and enjoyed some whiskey and herb before Jack surprised the hell out of us when he pulled out his phone and played the new Jackass movie on a "screen" he'd rigged up on the ceiling of the sala-


It was while getting down off the sala barefoot to retire to my hammock that I nearly stepped on one of these beasties-

(not my pic, obviously)

Thai's call them "Takap" and they have a nasty bite! It scurried into a hole and that's where we discovered all these other critters- a big black spider, and a couple of tiny little frogs-


Well, I zipped up the fly on my hammock and made damn sure to check the ground before I stepped out again! Good night!

Originally Posted by armstrong

Originally Posted by Satonic

Eat, Sleep, Ride, ****

So far I've seen eating, sleeping and riding... when do we get the sex pics?

As it appears there were only blokes on this trip, I hope we don't see those pics. Still no doubt Tony will dump everything from his camera online as usual rather than being a bit more selective.

(Serious, "less is more" - it's a struggle to get through TonyBkk's picture threads sometimes as there are too many damn pictures, many of them very similar Which is a pity, because I enjoy them generally, but it can start to feel like a chore at times.)

Day 3! Good morning from somewhere near the Burmese border!


Woke up to the sounds of someone shouting way off in the forest. WTF? Turns out Rezabong had wandered off and gotten himself lost! (It's actually really not that hard to do). No worries though, Jungle Jack went and rescued him before getting started on breakfast-


Satonic is NOT a morning person! Hahaha!!!

He'd bought a cheapie swimming pool matress (I think he called it a Lolita??!? Fekkin Brittles eh?)

Well, anyway, that lasted him all of 5 minutes before he popped it, so he ended up sleeping on the hard ground and it took me a long time to roust him!


I wandered over to the little river running behind our camp for morning ablutions-


In Bangkok you have to pay to have fish chew on you. Here it's free (Mind your privates tho!!!)


Another look at our camp as I'm wandering back-


Enjoying breakfast in Jack's jungle shack-


My borrowed bike is running great, tho I discover as I'm oiling the chain that the rear sprocket is badly hooked. Pretty confident it will last the weekend, but need to keep an eye on it-


Super cool butterfly- his arse looks like his head. Who does that remind me of?




We need to top of our water supplies as it's going to be another long hot day. Jack is intrigued by my water filter

In the dry season he boils drinking water, but he said that in the rainy season it can be difficult to build a fire and that a filter like this would be quite handy.

And we're off! We encounter occasional minor obstacles on the trail-




No electric start on Jack's 2-stroke, but he's strong as an ox and always gets it going-




Incredibly hot and dry and not even a whisper of wind. I'm ok as long as we're moving, but when we stop I cook!


Stop at a small farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for water. Even though the folks out here are dirt poor, no one seems to go hungry.


Eureka! We've reached the Suriya River!


It's a bit of a crazy drop from the trail to the river, but we work as a team to get the bikes down and across.


Bank's shit-hot KTM struggles in water- the air box seems unusually low to me...


He ends up having to push his bike across. Satonic went next-


Slippery!!!


You see Kae and Jack pointing the way? Well, Satonic decided to do his own thing and rode through some really deep water, but the Kwacker didn't seem to mind




Almost there!


The cool river feels so damn good on such a hot hot day!


Satonic told me he can't swim, but even he couldn't resist the Suriya-


Here comes Jack!


His bike stalled and needed to be pushed across as well-


Reza made it across without any drama-




Thumbs up!


My turn- I think Bank took these pictures-







Helping Mr Kae get his KLX150 down to the river-


Bank helping him get across-


We get by with a little help from our friends


Look downriver a bit and you can see the remains of an old bridge that has fallen apart. During the rainy season this river becomes treacherous and impassable.


Jack looped his bike in rather spectacular fashion climbing the far bank, but flashes us a thumbs up so we know he's ok-


Why is Bank trying to drown our guide?


After three days with no women Bank's man boobs are looking better and better


A lovely Karen family, no doubt attracted by all the racket we were making, came down to watch us cross the river. What beautiful people!

I didn't realize it at the time, but turns out that whole bit from the farmhouse to the Suriya river was actually in Myanmar- cool!


After crossing the river back into Thailand we still had a ways to go to reach the village of Laytongku where we'd be spending the night.

Just as the temperature was peaking Satonic decided to wipe out on a steep off camber trail >.<


The rest of the group were well ahead of us so it fell to the two of us to drag his bike back up to the trail. 140Kg of bike plus maybe another 20Kg of gear in >40 degree heat- Ugh! But we got it back on the trail!


Don't do that again!!! We made it the rest of the way to Laytongku without any drama

Laytongku is a fascinating and unique village- home to the "Loe-si", a Karen sect who are neither Buddhist nor Christian (despite the missionaries best efforts) but rather wear their hair in distinctive top knots and worship a kind of sage in a temple decorated with huge intricately carved elephant tusks:

(not my picture) Strange too that they have a Buddha in their temple...

Lordy it was hot! But fortunately they had a cooler box with some cold drinks. Thumbs up from Bank!


Anyway, the Loe-si are some of the most fit people I've ever seen- every guy looks like a prize fighter, all muscle and not an ounce of fat-




Damn cute kids too!




We would spend the night at the village clinic and dropped our bags there before riding on the the border town of Peung Kleung where we could get gas and more importantly COLD BEER!

Peung Kleung is a sizeable village that one can reach via paved road from Umphang. There's a crossing here into Myanmar but it's only set up for Thais and Burmese. Foreigners can not cross here. Some pics from last year-


Welcome to Myanmar!


Lots more here: The Missing Link- Sangkhlaburi to Umphang and back!

There's really only one decent restaurant in this town, and we quickly drank them dry. Bank, ever the character, jumped on his bike to find more beer!



We were supposed to rendezvous with Big Dave here. He was riding down from Chiang Mai on a rented dirt bike and I'd told him I expected we'd reach Peung Kleung around ~2 or 3 in the afternoon, which, as it turned out, was about right. But no sign of Dave, and no cell phone service in this town. They do have land phones though, so Jack attempted to reach him, but no answer, which meant he was probably in an area with no service and / or riding.



Satonic, ever photo shy, off in search of fuel, beer and ice-



How many days with no women now? Too many apparently!



It was getting late and I was a bit worried about Dave, but fortunately he rolled up a little before sunset!



All bow to the man with the Jamesons!



Get a room fellas!



It's getting late and it's about a 20km ride on a terribly dusty road to Laytongku. We do not want to be riding that road in the dark. Time to saddle up!



But before we go we strap as much beer and ice as we can to our bikes!



Ready to roll!



We're whacking along at a pretty good pace when I come upon Dave taking a nap in the middle of the road



That poor rental... I think he lost track of how many times he crashed it! He'd actually managed to pop the radiator the day before and had to get it patched up in Mae somewhere which I think accounted for his tardy arrival.



As you can see, this road was incredibly dusty- the goal was to stay out in front, so I fanged it all the way to Laytongku, slowing down occasionally to make sure someone was following me. Alas, in my haste I lost all my beer and ice!


Also, Dave had an ugly crash coming in to Laytongku and really tweaked his knee. He was limping around badly and was worried about riding further into the wild with a bum leg. What a shame he'd some all this way only to suffer an injury


Still, he popped a ton of ibuprofen and iced the heck out of his knee in hopes it might feel better in the morning. Despite my lost beers the ever resourceful Bank had arranged for a truck to deliver a case of beer and plenty of ice, so we did not go to bed thirsty in the end!


Funniest part of the whole trip was watching Dave try to get into his hammock. Tried and failed more times than I can count! There's a video floating around that sums it up pretty well but I've lost the link; will add it here when I find it. HAHAHA!!!