January 20, 2025
Day T1: The Anti-Climax
After the plane touched down, I got into a short distance taxi and headed to my favorite guesthouse by the swimming pool. The best part about this is bypassing the tourist stampede. The airport is slam packed on arrivals and they're all doing the typical thing to head downtown to those luxury hotels and go shopping. Crowds drive me crazy at the best of times, and the best part is leaving them behind.
My body was still not recovered from the cough and flu, and so after a quick dinner at the pool I hit the bed and crashed for another solid 12 hours. It's a good thing they no longer care about checking temperatures at airports, as I would have surely been flagged if that was the case.
It is amazing what those nights of good sleep will do, as when I woke up the sickness had almost disappeared overnight. This was truly a marvelous day in Thailand. I got in touch with my friend Jen who lives in Pai with her partner. She is essentially a lockdown refugee still dealing with PTSD from when she was taken forcibly from her apartment into those infamous quarantine camps. At the first available chance in 2022, she fled Shanghai and never looked back. She chose Pai as the place of refuge, met her partner on the road and they've been doing various businesses and side hustles to keep the money rolling in.
People like her often get criticized for not having a stable income, but the last few entries here touched mainly on the opposite problem: the job slavery associated with relying only on full time employment. Somehow there's a balance to be found, but which extreme would you rather have? Countless people will follow social expecations and spend their whole life working to death, only to reach retirement and find they no longer have the energy to enjoy what they were promised. Jen is a creative artist and she would never buy into job slavery. But at the same time I'm trying to teach her how to budget and learn practical skills if she wants to run a business. I'm seeing her improve a little. You have to give her credit for leaving a toxic situation decisively even if it means taking a financial hit. Her dream is to eventually make it to America and I'm sure she will.
For some reason, maybe I've been blackballed, or someone is doing reputational damage. I spent hours on arrival in Thailand doing social media cleanup and taking traces of my real name off the internet. But maybe it's for no use, as there must be some secret communication going on behind my back despite all this. How else do you explain nearly 20 years into a job the screws suddenly tighten up, they want to get rid of me, and then it becomes very difficult to find a new job despite my skillset? For obvious reasons I've not gotten any leads on my job search so far, nor am I expecting much. Maybe it's the way of the universe insisting I take a break. There doesn't even need to be a job lined up anyway, I have enough savings to last for years in Pai, as one option of many. If no job comes then who really cares. It's like you're dating a girl, she plays hard to get, you don't chase, she spreads gossip about your reputation, you decide not to play the game, then they all get angry you're not interested in them.
But none of that was really going to matter today. The first order of business was to retrieve the bicycle from storage. For whatever reason the guesthouse wasn't aware of it this time and I had to ask several people. This was in addition to things like them misplacing food orders, insisting I do laundry myself at the washer, and otherwise nickel and diming on the bill. Even some of their regular workers I'm not seeing anymore. All told, none of this is really a big deal at this moment, but it's these kind of 'volatility signals' that indicate something is off. It ties into the other stuff too, mainly that if you've been with a company for so long and you see heightened signs of volatility, that's usually a sign of financial trouble.
One way or the other, I got the bicycle. The tires were then aired up and I rode a few kilometers to Big C where it was the usual thing of grab an ice cream cone, walk around, and talk to my bank.
The entire premise of this trip is to withdraw huge amounts of cash and then cart them over to Cambodia on a bike, exchange for USD before taking them back into Thailand, withdrawing more baht, then flying the whole thing to Hong Kong. Many people including my wife said, "Why don't you just wire the money out?" Well of course I would try that but I wasn't expecting anything easy. People said to me many times about how they've sold condos in Thailand before and getting money out is next to impossible. Even ChatGPT said I was going to need a whole pile of documents.
The bank teller said, predictably, "You can only remit money in, you can't send any out of Thailand,"
Ok that settles it. Time to do my James Bond bike run.
But on the bike ride back to the guesthouse, I happened to see a random AIS shop and topped up a data package for 150 baht. My phone number had been deactivated for quite some time and it was nice to get it running again.
After relaxing some more, I set off again on the bike, this time blasting music on the headphones with the general aim to reach downtown and do a fitness class. The weather was actually perfect: dry and not so hot, even under 30 degrees. It made for the kind of biking I needed to do and continually release toxins.
It was just after the point of crossing the provincial border into Bangkok proper that I happened to see a random Krung Si bank on the left, so I parked the bike and pulled in. All my bank and condo documents were with me so I figured why not at least try and wire the money out.
I walked in and said, "I'd like to do a wire transfer to Hong Kong from this account."
The manager asked, "You want to do this now?" I said, "Sure if it works"
He said, "What's the reason for the transfer?" I explained about how I sold a condo and showed the cashier's check for it, as well as my bank statement that had figures of over a million baht. I saw his reaction when he saw the high figures and his tone immediately changed to 'yes we can help you do this'. Despite me wearing shorts and riding a bicycle, this was apparently a rich fuck they were dealing with.
They wanted all sorts of documents to prove that I had sold the condo and had owned it previously, including the famous chanoot. One of the lady tellers honed in on the chanoot, and said, "Yes that's exactly what we need, I will make a copy." They also wanted proof of the account in Hong Kong where the money was going to. They insisted on about a half-dozen other documents, all of which I had. Multiple copies were made of everything and I had to sign my name probably 50 times or more. But the whole thing only took less than an hour and it got done which surprised me more than anything. And all the while the vibes were awesome and refreshing.
In the end I transfered partial, around 800k baht. There was a hefty but reasonable commission fee of around 1200 baht, and they inisted the money could only be wired as USD. Well that was perfect anyway as the goal was to get this eventually into my US stock account. The strategy to leave a decent amount of money in the Thai account was for multiple reasons: one, to keep it active. It was hard as fuck to open the Thai account in the first place, I want to keep this. Two, to prove to them that I'm not just emptying out the account and getting all the baht out of Thailand. The whole point is to leave a decent amount in there to support the economy. And three, to still withdraw 10% of my original plan and do the bike ride to Cambodia anyway.
It'll still be the James Bond run of transporting large amounts of baht on a bicycle, it's just far far less than the original proposal which dozens of people said was reckless in terms of risks.
With all that said, there is a 4th reason which will become apparent as the blog goes on.
Given that huge success, I still had 15km to ride to my fitness class. I put the turbos on and made it with a few minutes to spare. All the while I couldn't help but wonder how on earth this wire transfer actually succeeded.
The fitness class itself was torture, maybe it was that my body was still in a weakened state, but it was the hardest one I ever did. Later on I thought that a Thai massage would help solve things, but that only made it worse. Those Thai style massages are known for torture, and it's unfortunate it happens after you're been spoiled for so long with Chinese massages.
After that it was dark and time to ride the bike back to the guesthouse. The vibes were just amazing. Chilled out and everyone in a good mood. Even people on scooters were giving my thumbs up for riding the bike. The traffic was crazy on Sukhumvhit Rd and a nice food stop was made midway.
Eventually things opened up and I could really put the hammer down on the main Bangna Trat Rd. There was a quick stop for ice cream at the McDonald's and just enjoying the vibes. I took a quick look at my trading account and realized that $600 came in from a Gold short just on this bike ride alone. Well that's a bonus.
About a half hour later I got back to the guesthouse and wanted to relax at the poolside with a Pad Thai. The food eventually came, it just took an hour. No idea why, it could be another one of those volatility signals.
On the bike ride back, I did however happen to see a new hospital, it looked like an international one, and I'll check it out later in a couple of days for a health checkup. There is always the option to keep on revisiting Thai Nakirin but in recent visits I've also been picking up on these 'volatility signals' over there too such as inexperienced doctors who say that my lower heart rate from doing HIIT exercise is a sign that I need a pacemaker.
I guess we'll have to see what happens. But one consistent theme I'm getting across multiple different contexts is this: just because you've been doing something for X number of years doesn't protect you from any future volatility. For example, staying at a company for 20 years, this guesthouse for 15 years or more, or the Thai Nakirin hospital for 10 years. Whatever the case, all those places could be (and likely are) in financial trouble. These places won't necessarily collapse, but the need to be ready to pivot is always real. And sometimes, when you do pivot, like with this bank, the rewards can be unexpected and real.
Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 58 km (36 miles)
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