It was a feeling of great achievement that I had pulled off this ride and experienced so many insightful encounters along the way.  Stuff like this you just can't forget.  Arriving at the destination was like the icing on the cake.

While friends back in Phnom Penh thought I was out of my mind for doing this bike tour, they thought it was worse that I didn't go out to celebrate on a Friday night in Pattaya.  But after a mad day of biking to get that bill paid off, sleep was more the priority.  Pattaya never sleeps anyway, and there would always be more opportunities for partying later.

The main task for the morning was to clean up the condo and start unpacking my bags.  I knew the layout of my own place inside and out, and starting putting stuff away.  As I took inventory of everything it occured to me:  I didn't lose a single item.  Everything had arrived safely.  This was a feeling of pure joy actually, especially given my history.  The only thing was the phone that got jacked in Cambodia, but even that didn't go without me putting up a fight.

The success was a combination of many things, but it really boiled down to getting that minimalist system down pat.  This was going to keep getting refined over a lifetime. At some point I would start teaching others how to do this.  As I told that cyclist I met yesterday,  "The best tours are when you don't book hotels.  Most people book, I get that, but then it forces you to commit to a route and and you miss out on encounters with people along the way.  The less stuff you carry around and the better you pack it, the easier it is to go with the flow and travel where the travel takes you."

Next was venturing out into the hot mid-morning sun and grabbing breakfast.  That was done at my usual spot, then I asked if there was a place to do laundry.  She said there was just down the street, and a large load was done for only 175 baht.  After this, some shopping needed to be done too, then updating the blog and budget at Starbucks.

It occured to me that so far nobody has registered my passport or filled out TM30 forms at accomodation.  This is something the hotels are supposed to do, but resorts in the middle of nowhere obviously don't bother.  You just pay money and sleep.  And I sure as hell wasn't going to register while staying in my own condo.  It is entirely possible that I could have cycled right into Thailand without getting a passport stamp at that border and ended up right here.  Even so it would be pointless because then you have to explain to immigration at the airport why you don't have a stamp -- not the smartest idea.