Getting across international borders with a bicycle is often a slightly complicated affair with no one, least of all me, really sure where I should be going. Entering Thailand this time was no exception and it took me quite a while to work out that what I needed to do was leave my bike outside and go into the passport control building to get my entry stamp. The border official who administered my stamp did so in silence from behind a surgical mask that was stretched across his mouth and nose, presumably to protect him from the germs foreigners like me tend to trail along behind us. Having got the stamp I next needed to retreat back through the building and out the way I came in order to retrieve my bike which was hopefully still waiting patiently for me out front. This was not the way I was supposed to go and the man who had just given me my entry stamp clearly thought that I should continue through the building like everyone else, but he was stuck behind his booths and it was quite easy to ignore his screams and shouts of protest, muffled as they were behind his silly mask. As I moved across the room I chanced a look back to see him waving his arms frantically and going quite red in the face and I did fear that he might pass out but I really did have to go back for my bicycle. Before I made it back to the entrance door, however, another border official began to give chase, his shouts of protest being much more vocal. I suspected this man may even have had a gun, but I really did have to go back for my bike, and I doubted that Thai border officials often shoot people for going out the 'in' door.

The border official caught up to me at the doorway and asked me, in a typically polite Thai way, just what in the hell I thought I was doing. I pointed at my bicycle which had just come into view in front of us. "Bicycle" I said. "Ah, bicycle!" he said, in an understanding and forgiving manner. What I think surprised us both was that mine was not the only touring bicycle resting there. Another had appeared alongside mine, this one, and I don't say this lightly, being even more chaotic in appearance than mine. All manner of items were clinging loosely to the back of it: a helmet, clothes, several plastic bags, a camera case. It was so heavily (and erratically) loaded that I guessed whoever it belonged to must have a story or two to tell and I would have liked to hang around and meet him or her, but my border guard friend was keen to get me off the premises, and quickly escorted me through the rest of the border area personally.

Safely in Thailand I took up a position at the side of the road and waited for the other cyclist to come through, taking the opportunity to move my mirror across from one side of my handlebars to the other, in order to accommodate the left-sided driving nature of the Thai roads. An old fellow stood next to me and watched with interest at my impressive use of electrical tape and pieces of metal that I'd found at the side of the road, finally giving me a thumbs up and a toothless grin when all was finished. And then the other cyclist did come through, having successfully navigated his way out of the 'in' door himself without being shot. He cycled up to me and said hello - a tall man of about my age, longish hair tied back under a headband/bandana and a face hidden behind spectacles and a bushy beard typical of a long distance cyclist. Yannis was his name and he was from the country of Luxembourg, a fact that the old man and the other Thai people around us struggled to come to terms with.

Yannis had cycled from Luxembourg. Sort of. Actually he'd started as recently as September and had taken a couple of flights, one from Istanbul to India and another from India to Vietnam. He didn't seem to have enjoyed cycling in India very much and interestingly he spoke of it in a very similar manner to the way in which I spoke of China. But he seemed like a very nice guy and as we were both on our way to Bangkok it was an easy decision for us to ride there together, Yannis being an ideal candidate to undergo an extended audition for the still-vacant role of my hapless sidekick. If the haphazard nature of the things clinging to the back of his bicycle was anything to go by he was in with a chance.

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Being back in Thailand felt good, mostly because the horn beeping that had become an omnipresent feature of the last days in Cambodia had magically stopped. Now I had company too, and Yannis and I celebrated our return to Thailand in typical Thai style with a visit to Tesco Lotus. There were no Santa Clauses now of course, but still lots and lots and lots of food to choose from which, after Cambodia, was a bit thrilling. It was also a big store that stocked lots of non-food items, and after seeing first-hand the effects of motorcycle accidents in which riders were and weren't wearing helmets, I still wanted to fulfill my self-made promise to protect my own noggin with one. Sadly they didn't stock bicycle helmets, which I thought terribly irresponsible considering they had a whole row of bicycles for sale. For shame, Tesco, for shame.

18/02/15 - 106km (11km in Thailand)