fter 3 months Dreamchaser Season I went off the air May 2007. Over the next few months
I settled down to living life in Bangkok again. Also during this period I bought myself two new motorcycles, a Ducati 1098 and a Triumph Tiger, which I use as my touring bike. Taking many trips upcountry people always asked me if I’m here to film a TV show and I tell them “no I’m just here traveling.” I was surprised at how many people actually saw our show and all ask the same question; if there will be a Season II.

Season I started of as something I did for fun: I had free time and wanted to do something new –
I had no expectation what so ever. However, with the positive feedback from Season I, along with encouragement from many people and most importantly- we actually achieved what we set out to do, to inspire people, I decided to continue with Dreamchaser Season II.

July 2007 was the start date of DCII pre-production. Every business consists mainly of 3 parts – marketing, distribution and product. A TV docu-reality show is no difference. Marketing – securing sponsorship for the show. Distribution – securing a TV channel. Product – the actual TV show itself. It took us 9 months total to put everything together; for only 6 hours of footage (12 episode x 30 minutes) it’s surprising how much work goes into putting a TV show together.

The concept of DCII is the same as DCI, “chasing dream on a motorcycle”; however, we wanted to change a few things around to keep the show fresh.
1 – we want DCII to be more adventurous, resulting in a tougher traveling route.
2 – rather than having guest celebrities for the show, we decided on casting a no name.
3 – we want to raise money for charity resulting in working with the Rak Thai Foundation a part of CARE Organization.
4 – having done Thailand in Season I, this time we are doing Indochina: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

With a lot of off-road riding we decided to go with a smaller bike for Season II, a Honda XR250,
a big 1200 cc bike on the terrain that we’ll be traveling would be too hard to manage. However, in Thailand we’ll be riding big 1000 cc’s bikes due to the better road conditions. The kind of motorcycle riding we will be doing is called “adventure touring,” the kind I prefer the most. For me there is nothing better than getting on a bike, putting on your Ipod and just keep on riding until the sun goes down. With a bike you are much more in touch with your surrounding; you see, hear, smell, feel and sometimes even taste all the elements around you, to me it’s the best way to see the world (one day I would like to do a ‘round the world’ trip, possibly Season VIII!) Because of
a bike, you are force to travel light and only bring what is absolutely necessary – it forces you to go back to basic, it amazes me every time how much you can survive on very little. Just got to get use to doing laundry every 7-8 days!

After casting for 2-3 months, with roughly 200 applicants, we settled on a person from Loei, Hui.
Hui will be my traveling companion for the next month in a half. We will be riding together, living together, working together and sharing many lasting experience together. The concept behind casting Hui, is having fulfill my dream of riding around Thailand for Season I, I will now be making someone else dream come true. Also the director wanted to cast someone who is the opposite
of me, Hui is 24 and his family are fruit farmers from Phu Rua, Loei.

Along our month in a half journey/route we will be visiting various Rak Thai/CARE charity projects. Our intention is to raise money and awareness for them.

Finally and what will be the core of this travel log is our Traveling Route. We will 1st leave Bangkok and head for Tak then Mae Sot. From Mae Sot we will head north towards Mae Sariang and then cross East all the way to Mae Jam and then Chiang Khong. At Chiang Khong we will cross the border into Northern Laos. We will then travel east from Luang Nam Tha to Muang Khua where we would head to the border and cross into northern Vietnam at Tay Trang. From there we will travel east passing Hanoi all the way to Halong Bay then make a loop and head back to Laos crossing border at Na Maew. We then ride south to Vientiane and crossing back into Thailand at Nong khai. We cross Isan from Nong Khai to Kong Jeam entering Cambodia at Anlong Wang. From there we ride across Cambodia heading southeast pass Siem Reab, Phnom Penh and finally Sihanukville. We then head west driving along the Cambodia coast and entering Thailand at Hat Lek. From Hat Lek we ride west back to Bangkok. We will be on the road 45 days covering roughly 10,000 km.

I thought it was necessary that readers have some understanding of our back-story. I do not want to approach this travel log from a tourist point of view but more from a traveler point of view. I do not want to write about tourist attractions but more about experience on the road. I hope that most readers will read our travel log and be inspired to pursue their own journey.

For me, traveling on a bike is very therapeutic and meditative – it puts me in a Zen state of mind and I feel extremely fortunate to be able to do what I do. Next week will be the start of our journey from Bangkok to Mae Sot via the infamous Pink Route in Tak. I have been planning this trip for 9 months and can’t wait to leave for our journey through Indochina.

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