Setting Up Base Camp

July 1, 2019 to July 8, 2019

Bangkok Bliss

The convoluted ride to an obscure airport and out of China last night was justified, because I enjoyed a blissful night of sleep as soon as the plane touched down and the taxi dropped me off at the Sananwan Palace. This is a small guesthouse near the airport and I've been coming here for years.

The first order of business was to kindly ask the staff to dig up the Montague Paratrooper Pro bike from storage. For as long as I've been coming here, they've been very helpful to store the bike in their carpark area. This is a huge favor because it saves a ton of money, not to mention the wear and tear of constantly bringing that bike on the airlines. Since I come back and forth from Bangkok so much, it only makes sense to have a local bike available. The Montague was initially purchased in Hong Kong as far back as 2012 and has served me well and faithfully all these years.

With such beautiful weather and hot sun, I pushed the bike over to the nearest gas station and aired up the tires for free, something that shouldn't be taken for granted as in many other countries you'll need to pay. But this was the land of smiles. I was feeling content, and ready to enjoy all this place had to offer.

The reason for bringing another folding bike over from China was that I'd be doing this cycle tour with a friend. He and I used to work together in China and he since moved on to Hong Kong. He had never cycled toured before, but loved Thailand as much as I did and was ready to give this a try.

Soon to be partners in cycle touring trouble

After spending a few days just recovering and doing nothing, I fell into somewhat of a routine where I'd get on the Montague and ride towards the end of the BTS line on Sukumvhit Road where my friend was staying. He had a thing for the ladies, let's just say, and wanted to be in a more central location where he could meet new friends.

The biking every day was beautiful, and such clear and unusually dry weather for this normally rainy season. The bike rides would consist of passing the Home Pro and market area with plenty of food stalls and snacks to eat Pad Thai, chill in Starbucks, or whatever else. Then it would continue down the busy Bang Na Trat Highway but it had a side road that bikes could easily ride on. This went all the way to Sukumvhit Road where things got a little more hairy with the traffic but since I was only going as far as On Nut it wasn't too big of a deal. From there I'd stop and spend much time swapping tales, doing errands, and making plans together for this cycle tour.

One of the first things I had to do was a visit to the Thai Nakharin hospital for my annual health checkup. Everything was flawless. I loved how they had a cafeteria inside the hospital.

Getting electronics fixed up at the famous Pantip Plaza.

A high intensity cardio class at F45 group fitness in town.

We managed to get a lot done. Besides my semi-annual dentist checkup and annual health checkup, I got electronics fixed, did multiple high intensity gym classes, partied several times in town, got SIM cards, and even managed to contact my property manager in Pattaya.

About 5 years ago I bought a condo near South Pattaya and lately it had been doing very well for rentals. A customer from Argentina had been renting my place for nearly a year, and so the plan was to meet up with the property manager to go over the contracts and discuss the next steps forward because the customer wanted to rent for another year. So that was settled. I would go to Pattaya first then my friend would join me there for the start of the proper cycle tour.

This friend is a fabulous person and has helped me on so many things. I owe a lot to him for all his excellent advice. He would no doubt keep that up on this tour.

[Update November 2022] I was a fool for not listening to his advice during this trip and several times afterwards. Actually, I would listen, start to act on it, and then backtrack. I'm honestly surprised he still wants to talk to me. Read on to find out what happened.

Since it was his first time touring, I thought it best to help him out as much as I could. We reviewed some of the plans for this tour, and one of them involved a remote border crossing out of Isaan towards the Laos border that could only be managed on a boat. What's more the facility did not have a visa-on-arrival processing center like most of them at the border. So we tried to pre-arrange Laos visas and this proved to be difficult. The agencies on Khaosan Road were ripping everyone off, and we decided it best to apply by ourselves at the Laos Embassy.

But on the first visit there, the place was dead and nobody wanted to help us or explain what needed to be done. We learned later you can only apply in the mornings, and it turns out the guy was just sitting behind the computer doing nothing anyway. So the next day we came back, paid some money, and got the visas immediately. We were set.

Mega Bangna, one of several new upscale shopping malls

As I kept going about my business I began to like Bangkok more and more and flaunted the idea of moving here as I often do. But we could also tell notably that something this year was different, very different. We couldn't quite put a finger on the vibe, but with so many trips done by the both of us over many years, we knew this time some things had changed. We just didn't know what and something didn't feel right.

On one night after a social event I took a Grab taxi back home to the Sananwan and mistakenly gave the driver a 1000 baht instead of 100 baht in the dark because I couldn't see and the notes looked identical. This was a letdown for sure and I realized man I was pretty stupid. It was too late to do anything about it later. My friend wisely said without blaming anyone, "Ya gotta get that shit tied to your credit card" and I promptly did so right away.

But on that ride we also noticed police checkpoints. Nothing new for Thailand mind you, but this time they were all over the place and in locations previously we never saw before. I was lucky not to get stopped and fined, as was my driver, because Grab is still illegal in Thailand. It is a game changer to beat the cheating cabbies and tuktuk drivers but has some new problems of its own. This was a lesson learned, one of many that would happen on this trip.

Eventually my friend took off to Chiang Mai to spend time with one of his girlfriends for the weekend while I then finished off the remainder of my errands and got the Montague bike all set up and the electronics necessary to get this long awaited tour going.

Today's ride: 176 km (109 miles)
Total: 251 km (156 miles)

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