Day C13: Regrouping Back to Pattaya

August 2, 2023

Another great chat was had with my teacher friend, and we made it count with drinking on a dry day. The topics we discussed were endless and tons of good information was shared. That led me to realize I need to be more proactive in maintaining my networks and keeping in touch with people.

Cue the social media. The next pillar of my minimalism is going to be a massive cleanup on that. If you boil it down, the purpose of social media is simple: stay in touch with good people and maintain your social networks with friends and family. The problem is that social media takes on a life of its own and wastes your time. We all know the posts, the ones where people brag about their lives and show pictures

When social media gets out of control it becomes overwhelming. So I mapped out a long-term plan to take back control. It is tedious, but the starting point is to go through contacts one-by-one and manually vet them out.

It also means being a lot more selective about who ends up on social media in the first place.

All of this I'm going to run by the counselor on the last visit whenever that is and get some more feedback.

With a late sleep-in for once I headed back to the bike shop to pick up the Tern Node D8. They did great tune-up work, and assistant wasn't in the shop so it seems they might have misunderstood what I wanted. The bike had been folded and placed in the old bag. I explained that I wanted to buy a new bag and did so. Then I unfolded the bike and headed off to those shops in Chinatown that the assistant had told me about earlier. The mini-mission was to try and sell the bag as well as buy some parts for the Black Mistress. Having located the shops, they had so many spare parts it was incredible. Now *this* is what needs to be in every city.

I managed to spot some raised handlebars that I wanted a long time ago, but was unsure if they were the right fit. They also had fenders to replace the broken ones, but only sold in steel as a set. I bought them anyway and will have Probike replace them since they didn't have any decent fenders in stock. They were not interested in buying my old bike bag so I needed to change course.

That done, it was off to F45 for fitness training. It was one of the most brutal cardio workouts I've ever done. Still, people were in a very good mood including myself. This time my workout partner said "You just killed it" and I told her, "You did the same!" It was over 3 minutes of solid work per station, and I managed to push 1000 meters on the rowing machine so was very happy about that.

Meanwhile a couple stations later, my partner was doing box jump burpees while I barely had enough energy to step on the box.

All the while, the Tern Node D8 bike was folded and taken on the elevator upstairs to class where it was safe. Another athlete Henry ended up doing the exact same thing so we got chatting after class. He was a former Shanghai expat and you can pretty much guess what we talked about.

He asked me if things had gotten any better in Shanghai. We know the answer to that. He just needed someone to confirm his opinions. Still he did say that living in Thailand put a smile on his face every day.

I could sense that there may have been a shift in the atmosphere because from this point on my luck was about to turn. I rode out to Ekkamai bus station and assessed the situation. There were several bus companies going to Pattaya but the whole place was deserted. I stood there looking around. A driver found me and asked, "Pattaya?" I said yes, and he put the bike in and didn't charge for it! It only cost 150 baht total. It was actually a minivan, not a bus. I was one of the last passengers and he took off like a bat out of hell on the motorway.

Later on the minivan turned into a local bus and he started overloading passengers and having them sit on the floor. He also got out his mobile phone frequently, sang songs, took cigarette breaks, bought snacks at 7/11, basically just did whatever the fuck he wanted.

Later we had to change vans and he was super amazing by helping me check to make sure all the belongings were with me and nothing was left behind. 5 star driver, and the whole trip had been a lot of fun. It is good to mix up transportation and not always ride the bike 100% of the time. You can miss out on some adventures as I had discovered with these minivans.

Once in Pattaya I was starving and the closest place near the van dropoff was the "Dark Side". This simply refers to the area east of Sukumvhit Road where most foreigners don't go. It's not dangerous at all, it's just a local area. They had tons of food and it ended up being curry rice this time. While eating, another guy walked past and was selling orange juice packs so I went for his promotion.

While in the van earlier I wanted to book a hotel but there were an insane amount to choose from. I just said who cares, will book something random. It turned out to be the best pick of the trip! It was a luxury hotel nearby Beach Road, and with the low season discounts, only $20 a night. The staff were friendly, the room was quiet in a garden near the swimming pool. The deal was also likely because the long holiday had just ended and everyone was back to work.

Overall an amazing day. The question is, would tomorrow also be a success?

Today's ride: 18 km (11 miles)
Total: 1,722 km (1,069 miles)

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