The bike was a two year old Honda Wing. Yes, you read that right - but this Wing has nothing whatsoever to do with gargantuan tourers and is merely an updated version of the good old SOHC 125cc single, with a claimed 16hp and a reasonably neat line in style. In fact, thanks to low labour costs and high import taxes, Honda Wings are made in Thailand.
Their finish, style and reliability reputation is better than anything you can buy in the UK (they cost £850 new in Thailand). Unfortunately, they don't lose much value and I’d had to pay £550 for my example, even after a round of strenuous bargaining that involved much waving of hands, large grins and walking away three times.
Short term, you can hire one for £3.50 a day but there have been instances of the hirers robbing the bike or fixing the engine so that it blows. As the deposit consists of your passport this proves either very expensive or lots of hassle. Also, such things as insurance are either tare or expensive and largely ignored by a populace who’s favourite saying roughly translates into never mind.
If you have an accident you have to pay for the damage to the hired machine and, incidentally, you’re supposed to leave your vehicle where it falls until the plod arrive to ascertain who was at fault never mind that the bike might explode from petrol leakage or be flattened into one of the many pot-holes by a drunk bus driver.
And the traffic in Bangkok is utter madness. Everyone drives like a Shit City taxi driver with a messed up head who thinks he's behind the wheel of a Volvo tank and has the natural ability of a racing cat driver and the macho-ness of a Mexican rapist. As the heat shoots up through the nineties and most of the traffic is a snarled up mess that'll make a Shit City traffic jam look like child’s play. all the drivers can do is to try to outbid each others madness...
The frail's inability, and my marked reluctance, to emerge from fevered dreams before mid-day meant we made a 6am start by the simple expedient of missing out on sleep altogether by lounging around in a Thai disco until five o’clock. Lounging around included drinking several bottles of Thai whisky and Coke (an instant ulcer combination if ever there was one) and dancing to wild, wild Lao disco music (try to imagine Indian music turned punk, if you dare).
The only good thing that can be said for such late night frolics is the low cost (around four quid). l emerged looking and feeling like a complete wreck (which may or may not be my normal state) whilst the woman still looked utterly stunning; no-one should be able to look like they're fourteen (she’s really 23 I hasten to add in order to forestall some do-gooder reporting me to Ester Rancid) after such a heavy night.
Preparation of the Honda consisted of a quick kick of the tyres and a look inside the petrol tank. Exhausted by such activity and still debilitated from excessive alcohol consumption, I made barely a murmur of discontent when she who must be obeyed (at least when she’s still rendered slightly insane by booze) insisted on taking the controls. One of the advantages of Thai women is that at some time in their youth they've piloted a motorcycle and actually get a kick out of the game. Endless hours can also be expended in studying the scars from when they were overenthusiastic with the throttle.
Unfortunately, she’d learnt on a scooterette and still hadn't quite mastered the clutch. Naturally, when she stalled the bike because of clutch plate drag it was my fault and only with great restraint did I manage to politely point out that she should hold the front brake on at the same time as engaging first gear. In retribution, we screamed up the road in first gear at maximum revs. Whilst my head was ringing from the half rotted exhaust and clatter of bouncing valves, I still managed to have visions of my camshaft seizing in the cylinder head miles from anywhere. Natch, this would also be my fault even if my 1000 mile oil changes were looked on with total incredulity.
We hit second gear as the side road hit a main, six lane thoroughfare. She heeled the bike over, with barely a glance at the already heavy early morning traffic. Were I a Thai man I would have cuffed her around the head for such lack of thought, but were I a Thai man she would have nothing to do with me for just that reason. Never mind, I thought, as I stuck on some deep black shades on the basis of what I could barely see would do me little damage.
There’s nothing like a blast on a motorcycle sans helmet to wake up the senses. The only problem in Bangkok is that the air pollution from the excessive number of cars, trucks, buses, unsilenced two stroke bikes. tuk tuks (a 3 wheel taxi that looks and handles like a souped up Dodgem car) and anything you'd care to imagine with an engine, is so damn bad that the first nasty capitalist to integrate a gas mask with a full face helmet will make a fortune.
I looked up at a coach that we were apparently heading under (a quick jab in her ribcage soon sorted that out) to see a bunch of ancients peering down at me with the audacity of assuming that it was I who was insane. I mentally lobbed a grenade at its back as it sped away, but I guessed that they’d have enough trouble later when the driver had taken too much whisky and started to speed the hulk along to some wild Thai tune of his own - another regular feature of Thai life was the newspaper reports of drivers who'd fled the scene after causing mass carnage.
We hit the side road along the Expressway, which was OK as a lot of the traffic was going into Bangkok. Most of the traffic on our side consisted of huge lorries that looked like Yank cattle trucks painted up, brightly decorated with tassels, often empty going to collect yet another load of rice. The Honda burbled along at 70mph (I’d marked the speedo in mph instead of the stock kph) and I was quietly enjoying myself holding on to the frail.
The scenery varied between the exotic (temples and wooden shacks), the tasteless (modern concrete slabs that'd give Prince Charlie vivid nightmares) and the amusing (concrete slabs with bits of odd Victorian architecture bunged on in a random manner by someone apparently high on Thai sticks).
The girlfriend soon tired of sitting out front with the throttle wound on full, so she hauled the rattling heap over and insisted that I take over, her beauty flawed by slightly bloodshot eyes as she deigned to employ anything as wimpy as shades. The only disadvantage of my new position of power (pity that a mad grin and itchy throttle hand fazes a Thai girl not one jot) was that I had hardly any idea of where I was going. Any attempt at explaining such was met with a blank stare from a girl who'd suddenly run out of energy and alcohol. Oh well. I quite like Chiang Mai instead of Udon which was our destination, some 500 miles to the north east of Bangkok, and once famous as an US air base in the Vietnam war.
These little Hondas are good fun in heavy traffic where you can piss off Chinese landlords and drug dealers in big Mercs and BMWs, but once out of the city they become more than a little tedious, with the kind of flat out vibes that irritate rather than stimulate young ladies. Even aftet developing a long history of thrashing engines with a total lack of mechanical empathy, even I had to back off a notch to just below 70mph.
This had those cattle trucks and the like right up my arse; when they overtook they left about an inch of space and a naturally twitchy chassis did the kind of highway dance that would get mucho applause from a bunch of drugged and drunk Thai men out for the night at a third rate disco.
I eventually positioned the mirrors so that I could study the look of shock on my face rather than the sight of those monsters trying to take out my back wheel. Wearing just a T-shirt meant I was very aware of the similarly clad femme on the back when she went all slack and I felt her slipping off the seat. I pinched her thigh which soon woke her up and got me a stab between the legs for my trouble, resulting in a wild swerve and much swearing in Thai (it’s surprising how quickly you can pick up the language) just so she'd get the point.
We'd left the city outskirts behind and the road had narrowed to a mere two lanes, the scenery was mostly rice fields. the odd smell temple and cluster of teak houses. My mind was full of visions of Thai films where everyone appeared to have at least one revolver and god damn machine guns were often in evidence, most of the land owned by one evil bastard who expanded his empire by slaughtering whole families, the film usually ending with the appearance of the army or police and a massive shoot out with much blood and gore (not to mention poor acting). Given my lack of knowledge of the language.
I'd never been able to work out how close such stories were to reality once out of the relative safety of Bangkok.
All I knew was that stories of hijacking whole coaches full of people, bandits stopping cars on the road and Thai men shooting each other over women were often splashed over the English language press in Bangkok (strange, that the Bangkok Post with a mere circulation of 40000 was much more readable than any of our English press with ten to a hundred times the sales).
I had already decided that, despite the frail's proficiency in Thai boxing which belied her diminutive size, if anyone was foolish enough to try to stop my forward progress, I was going to wind open the throttle and run them down even if they were wearing police uniforms (many hoodlums dressing up as police and even Buddhist priests).
An hour in the saddle meant cramp was setting in and the girlfriend was wriggling around like she’d caught crabs. The Thai equivalent of a transport cafe is much more colourful than the English version. But the toilets are quite something else - a stinking mosquito infested communal hole in the ground.
Food was set out on a series of stalls, which the woman plundered as if there might not be any food ever again. Plates full of obscene looking stuff that stank from a hundred yards were quickly cleared, finishing with what looked like fried cockroaches. I had managed to find a packet of crisps, I didn't really want breakfast, anyway. The women looked at me as if I was insane for not eating any food, but I just smiled hugely at her, beautiful women always did that to me.
Back on the road, few cars, a couple of trucks and some natives trying to hitch a lift. The road surface was rutted in places and the Honda leapt about when we hit pot-holes, but I’d been brought up on small Hondas and wasn’t too fazed by the way they flew about.
I'd done much stranger things on much faster bikes with much weirder handling. As we travelled, what I hoped was, north east, the lush green scenery was beginning ito fade and the sun was burning down on our necks. Wearing a helmet in these kind of conditions would've turned us into violent psychopaths. and anyway, everyone would've have pointed fingers at us and laughed.
We passed through a storm, it was a fierce, wild thing that got speed down to 10mph. In seconds we were soaked and the girlfriend for the first time in the journey was laughing again like a little girl. In minutes it was all over and we were back in the sun, steam hissing off the bike and our clothes. We were soon dry and wishing that there was some kind of shade from the kind of heat that you might experience once in the UK in a hundred years.
Despite its thrashing. the Honda gave no signs of protest. We were on the road for Khoen Khan, a town I knew little about, save that a large number of bar girls claimed to have come from there. My only experience of towns outside Bangkok had been Chiang Mai which I'd flown to a couple of times. As it was nestled up close to the Golden Triangle it had little of the poverty that was rumoured to be rife in the countryside - even the so called tribes people from up in the hills bought their artefacts from the local market rather than bringing them down from the mountains. In short, interesting but a bit of a tourist trap in many ways.
I was hoping to be the only foreigner in Udon. Bangkok had become really frightening, I'd even seen those religious maniacs who walk around in identical suits wearing ties, for christsake, in heat that would give half the British population a coronary.
The road wound on and on, there were enough curves to give a Roman civil engineer apoplexy, and enough spots for ambush to keep me on my toes. By mid-day we'd made good time, nearly 300 miles in six hours, and hit the outskirts of Khoen Khan. Tourists were conspicuous by their absence and we managed to find a restaurant with air conditioning where I was able to eat fried rice with chicken, although I usually left the chicken on the principle that it could be dog, cat or just about anything that moved and could easily be killed.
I'd just cleared my plate, for once eating the poultry under the disapproving gaze of my woman who was consuming food simultaneously from about five different plates at amazing speed, when I saw a creature rush across the floor, careering under the tables into the kitchen. My second bottle of Sigha beer was held inches from my mouth as my brain slowly assimilated that, no, it was not a small dog or large eat, but a huge rat. The waitresses, to a girl, giggled and I wasn’t sure if it was at the appearance of the rodent or the look of shock that was doubtless written across my face.
Naturally, the girlfriend just shrugged her shoulders as if to say never mind. I’d seen plenty of rats in Bangkok streets but they seemed to shun human contact - word had probably got around about the Chinese restaurants - but I had never seen one run across the floor where l was eating. I barely managed to stop myself throwing up and ordered another beer in the hope that the alcohol would kill off any bacteria, a theory I had successfully applied to just about every meal I'd eaten in Bangkok.
The town was mostly two or three storey concrete blocks turned shabby by the intense heat, with the occasional elegant teak house and many less well constructed wooden structures. As in every place where there's more than a few people there were a couple of Buddhist temples (wats if you're Thai), one of which the girlfriend insisted on visiting before we went in search of a hotel. There are many strange customs involving Buddhist priests, but as it’s much more fun for me to watch visitors making silly mistakes I won’t go into details.
The hotel turned out to be as shabby as the rest of the town, but like the rest of the place enlivened by the general gaiety and beauty of the Thais. If there was a motto that would adequately sum up the Thais it'd be any excuse for a party (thus, in Bangkok, the temporary adoption of Christmas and about half a dozen different new years).
The room came with its own bathroom but with Thai style toilet that you have to squat over. I'd already been informed that the girlfriend's home in Udon came with neither running water not toilet, you had to share the fields with rabid dogs, dangerous snakes and half the insect population of the world. As far as l was concerned, I had the choice of permanent constipation or staying in a hotel in Udon — it was an easy choice.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent in bed. The evening began at a different restaurant which lacked an air conditioner, but no problem as the temperature fell naturally once the sun went away, progressed to a Thai film which had little violence and consequently was impossible for me to understand (if you don't stand for the national anthem at the beginning of the film expect to get lynched), hovered for a while in a dubious cocktail lounge and ended in a Thai disco. I'd only seen one other foreigner, who told me to have a good day and looked like he was on a visit, as he were loud check trousers two sizes too big and a pink polo neck sweater (an appropriate word if ever there was one!).
The disco had a live band which played fast Thai music that people jerked around to, doing impossible things with their hands and bodies, that I didn't even try to learn, even after a bottle of Thai whisky. Whilst relieving myself in an open plan toilet, I felt something on my neck, half turning saw a grinning youth pressing a hand towel to my neck. I shouted Mai Dee, Mai Dee (no good) several times. unable to inflict physical punishment as I was still in the middle of emptying my bladder. He eventually got the message and went to sulk in a corner. The sexuality of Thai men was often in question, Patpong for instance, suffering from an invasion of transvestites who went as far as various operations to complete their metamorphosis and fool many an innocent punter.
He later came over to our table and spat out some words, but my girlfriend refused to tell me what he said, saying she didn't know the English words. I was thoroughly drunk by now and she eyed me uneasily. We eventually staggered back to the fortuitously nearby hotel. I beat her to the toilet and spewed up the evenings mixture of rice and whisky. A drink of water later I was feeling much better.
Unfortunately. it didn't last until the morning. We only left at mid-day because that was check out time. I could happily have stayed in bed all day. Noon was the worst possible time to start a journey because of the fierceness of the sun - there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but we couldn't hang around because I wanted to get to Udon before darkness fell - 240 miles in six hours - my paranoia would not contemplate riding in the Thai darkness with the Honda's puny light.
Traffic was surprisingly heavy, but I wasn't surprised by some of the antics. Half a mile out of town, two cattle trucks we having a race amid a chorus of horns. Neither could take the other, which mam they were taking up the whole width of the road. I swerved off to the glass verge doing a 40mph skid that had the woman clinging on to me like she was in the throes of passion. About to leap back onto the road, I was truly astonished to see a bus about an inch behind the truck that was on the wrong side of the road - it was full of school kids who appeared to be cheering the driver on.
After that. fear and trepidation set in. Around every blind corner I envisaged potential carnage and expected every erratically driven vehicle to veer in my direction. My hands hovered over clutch and brake levers whilst my feet were tensed over back brake and gear change. I was a near nervous wreck when we stopped at a small village for food and fuel.
There, sat in the shade of a wooden hut, eating a bowl of sticky vice and picking out the succulent bite of a piece of barbecued fish cooked before our eyes, (just to whet your appetite. in Bangkok they eat fish out of the canals which also serve as sewers; the fish is, er, black) I was kneecapped into ecstasy.
Had I not been seated, I would have collapsed onto the floor. The cause of this mental and physical disintegration was a fifteen veer old Thai girl of extreme beauty who looked at me with bright, curious eyes full of knowledge. She was just a slip of a thing, but the strong, high cheeks bones gave her a strength that contrasted sublimely with the frailness of her body. The contrast was all the more stark thanks to the poverty of her surroundings. I couldn't keep my eyes off her even as I noted the grim lines spoiling the face of my companion. She didn't speak to me for a 100 miles, but I didn't mind for I shed the paranoia like an over used coat, I felt seventeen (exactly half my age if you’re that curious) and sped through the countryside noticing nothing and fearing no-one.
We had a lot of time to make up, but the vibes, the hard seat and the twitchy steering seemed of no consequence whatsoever. as I held the throttle open, and rode Thai style - on the horn.
Miles and miles passed in a blur, only stopping to stock up on fuel when the tank went onto reserve 70mph meant just that, we did 70 miles in an hour. Despite attempts by the army to green the land, we passed fields which had succumbed to the heat and lack of rain, where houses were nothing more than fragile shacks and poverty was apparent on every inch of the land. However, that didn't stop the kids grinning and waving as we rushed over the scenery on a roller coaster of a ride; the momentum of the moment seemed to be with us and for all its strangeness I felt right at home in the landscape.
When we stopped for fuel we were met with pleasant smiles that held no deceit and even the frail's spirits began to soar as she neared her home (and four sisters and three brothers) and she was able to revert back to Lao, an even more incomprehensible language than Thai (various districts spoke in various dialects, although everyone could converse in Thai).
Just as darkness came down, almost in an instant, we hit the outskirts of Udon as fighter jets screeched across the sky. The town centre was easy to locate. as it was the only place with a profusion of lights. Udon had few structures above four storeys and was laid out as if the price of land didn't matter (although, in fact, it was increasing quite rapidly). I was directed to a hotel next to the but station and before I'd put the bike on the stand she was off to see her family in one of the salmors, a sort of pushbike front end with two wheels and a canopy dubiously attached out back. I'd once ridden in one in Chiang Mai and had beam so contorted by the lack of space, and bashed by the lack of suspension that I'd only recovered after's an hour message from the frail's surprisingly strong hands.
I booked into the hotel - a large room with conventional toilet for a fiver a night - noted that it was a bit faded. but then it was built to keep the Yanks happy when they weren’t getting beaten up by the Vietnamese. An American was in a rage because the lift door kept shutting on him as he pulled out suitcase after suitcase. When he was finished I saw that all he had to do was to press a red button marked stop to facilitate this. It never ceased to amaze me the amount of junk people carry about with them, I had managed to cut my luggage down to something little bigger than a camera bag and that was for going from England to Bangkok. There followed an amusing evening, early morning piece of madness that had little to do with motorcycling, so I won't bore you with it here. Suffice to say, it involved a mad taxi driver who insisted on visiting dubious places of ill repute and resulted in a fairly wild argument with the frail when I eventually returned to the hotel.
When I emerged from a deep sleep I found I had to get back to Bangkok alone sans motorcycle...
Bill Fowler