After very little sleep I tried to regroup and come up with some kind of a plan now that I was bikeless. Even simple stuff would turn out to be very inconvenient now.  I didn't realize how much of a dependence I had on the Montague and how there are so many hassles without it.  

The bike is actually the locus of an entire tour.  When you don't have that you are thrust down the hierarchy to the level of a walking ATM.  At least with a bike you're moving fast enough to avoid the touts. Not so anymore.

The plan was to change locations and walk 3.5km to the riverside where I was last night and find a new hotel.  The walk was a nightmare right from the start.  Backpack donned and carrying case in hand I was subjected to a constant refrain of "Tuktuk sir?" and "Where you go?".   At any opportunity I tried to avoid the sidewalk as it's just a place to park cars and tuktuks. There was some amusement watching traffic police stand at blind corners and pull over motorcycles and cars for random reasons, obviously a money grab.  Then as I turned onto the riverside road, there it was.  I couldn't believe my eyes.

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

There is no way to know what happened.  For whatever reason, someone had moved the bike a few blocks away and the second lock around the wheels and frame was still intact.  The other lock that had fixed it to a post nearby the bar last night was indeed mossing. I was absolutely positive I had searched this area 10 times over last night including a multi block radius and I didn't see it here.

The best explanation I can think of is that someone deliberately wanted to move the bike because it was in the way of something, perhaps a car that wanted to park on the sidewalk near the bar.  If they tried to steal it and gave up mid-theft then surely I would have found it at night.  So it seemed whoever did this went to enormous lengths to move the bike and likely stored it inside.  Or maybe they did this as a way to protect the bike from theft?  I was greatly relieved no doubt, but also baffled as to why anyone would do this.  I asked many friends and they all said it made no sense.  

My premise about the parking may have been correct because shortly after I wanted to check into my new hotel and so I locked the bike up nearby.  But security swatted me away and they rudely demanded that I park the bike somewhere else.

Normally I'm rather patient and easygoing but at that point after all these ordeals I snapped and lost it.  I yelled at him and said, "Why are you telling me to move this bike?  It is not safe if I leave it parked somewhere else.  Someone will steal it.  They almost did last night."  He just yelled back and this was going nowhere.  

So I folded the bike right in front of him, carried it all the way through the restaurant and hauled it into hotel reception on the 4th floor.  Then the hotel tried to pull a fast one on me by demanding to know the price of my Agoda reservation and that I should pay them. I held my position and said it's already paid because it was. They eventually gave me the room key and gave up. The bike got safely stored in the hotel room and locked up. All the other valuables went with me on the money belt.

It was definitely time for a nap and relief was the order of the day.  This was huge because I had been racking my brains hard to find a replacement for this bike. The Paratrooper Pro is not easy to find outside the US and it's not entirely certain if the Flying Ball bicycle shop in Hong Kong (where I first bought the bike in 2012) still exists or stocks these models. Other options online showed it could still be bought in Singapore, Malaysia, or Taiwan but I didn't exactly want to make a trip there just for that. And it would cost at least $1000. 

That was all irrelevant now thank goodness.  Not only will I not leave it unattended on the street like this again (even with locks) but it became clear I needed to buy a GPS tracker and install it with an app to my phone.  That would happen later in Bangkok no doubt.