Day T9: Change Bikes

January 28, 2025

Off to Chiang Mai

The guesthouse was starting to come back to life. Much of the morning was spent chatting with the owners as well as online chats with a friend up in Chiang Mai who is undergoing some serious drama. Things are a complete mess. Long story short, her partner left her, and this was the partner that she met on the road after having escaped the covid lockdowns in Shanghai. This is probably only 1% of the story but more will surface later.

Going back into storage. Not a bad bike for the Pattaya run

All I know at this point is he's at the airport in Chiang Mai and he overstayed his visa by one hell of a long time. My money is on the fact that he's not getting away that easy. I told him, "Bro you should have thought better about this, haven't you heard all the news? I don't mean to scare you but people end up in Thai prisons over this."

The idea is to do the clockwise Mae Hong Son loop and end the riding in Pai, most likely to part company with the Montague once and for all.

As luck would have it, I booked a flight to Chiang Mai arriving at the same time he attempted to escape, so we missed each other in that sense. Who knows what actually happened.

As for me I wasn't firing on all four cylinders. First I booked the wrong flight date (a week from today) and had to pay the 'stupid tax' at the airport to modify the booking. But it was a piece of cake to change bicycles at the guesthouse and for them to help book a taxi. Then of course I happened to bring the room key with me. They laughed and said just post it back when you get to Chiang Mai. The airport staff shrinkwrapped the bike beautifully.

Then I fell asleep on the flight and woke up just before arrival. This was a super small airport and the ground staff were cool, they helped cut open the shrinkwrap with a knife. It was only a 4km ride to the city and my goal was to stop for so some food then find a random hotel.

The hotel scene was a massive paradox. Given that I have more of an astute market sense than anyone else, I could immediately spot the abundance of hotel and guesthouse options. Even in peak season, there were a ton of rooms. It's just that they were all misallocated. At least 5 hotels said 'fully booked' and some of the staff wouldn't even talk to me when riding up on the bicycle. But it was obvious they weren't full at all. By hotel #6 I smelled a rat. It's not that they were full: the rooms were withheld on the online booking systems. It's no different from the airlines withholding seats and making you pay extra to reserve window or aisle seats online. But if you just show up at the airport and get a random seat assignment, you will end up with these window seats for free because they were never actually booked in the first place.

So with the hotel, just to prove my point, I asked, "Is the hotel really full?" He said yes.

I said, "But online it says there are rooms available, you can see."

I then showed him the app on my phone, booked it right in front of him and said, "You can check your computer and see that I have a booking now."

He said, "Yes, please fill out the form and show me your passport, here is your room key."

I wanted to say more but the point was already made. It only cost $20 anyway. If I didn't show up like this, the room would have gone away unused for the night. Or, if he knew this and said "There are rooms" then he could have made more profit by just doing a private deal and not paying money to the booking agencies. It's a total misallocation of resources.

I didn't want to get angry or say any more, but this was all reminscent of the covid lockdowns when my wife and I literally couldn't order a coffee at the store. We had to get on the app, order a coffee online, and have the guy deliver the coffee to us standing right there. It's just ridiculous and yet some things haven't really changed in this sense. I even told my friend Jen to knock it off with all this online crap, it drives me crazy. I don't have time nor do I want to be checking my phone. It really makes me realize the life coach in Bangkok was right in that this phone and online obsession is destroying our society.

But on a broader note, this time now in Chiang Mai was making me face my inner demons from 5 years ago. This is where it all began with the covid pandemic, or where my last pre-covid trip ended abruptly and I made the decision to return to China thinking that it was "safe" with their zero covid policies. It worked for two years, but staying too long in the position until 2022 with the lockdown made it the worst decision of my life. But in 2020 I'll never forget how quiet it was in Chiang Mai at the time, and the immense fear and how everyone was trying to leave. And so did I follow that fear and look where it got me.

Back here 5 years later at this exact place I've now come full circle to the experience and the reminders are everywhere of what I was feeling at the time.

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 281 km (175 miles)

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