August 7, 2023
Day C17: Saying Goodbye
A few nights ago I recall biking on Beach Road and catching the beautiful sight of the 'Pattaya City' signboard on Pratumnak Hill. Unlike that dirty crescent beach in Shenzhen China during the pandemic, I was now finally back to the real thing. I had made it! Pattaya is the best city in the world, the place I want to retire. This is home. There is no other place in Thailand that comes close. It got even better once I started meeting people and building the network. And now I was leaving.
It all seemed out of order: buy a condo, plan to retire in Pattaya, save for that plan, get more and more familiar with the place, meet more people, then decide to sell the condo and bounce.
There was plenty of time to take inventory of everything in the condo, take pictures for those helping me sell, do a final round of cleaning, and then get all my stuff packed and onto the bike.
This time I would not tell Juristic I was leaving. For that matter it had to be done before 7:00am on Monday. Unfortunately I woke up too late and that meant staff were on site when I wheeled my bicycle out. Not Juristic mind you, but the cleaning staff. The leader recognized me right away and asked how much I paid Juristic for her services. "1000 baht" I said to which she replied, "They never gave me money, is there a receipt you have?". Regrettably there was not. The management never issued one which didn't surprise me at all. Another reason why the management here sucks and we're all paying double the annual fees compared to everyone else.
I found a way to get out of there lickety split before they thought I never paid the cleaners.
Riding into my friend's condo, he was outside chatting with a bunch of neighbors and the atmosphere in this compound was world's apart. Everyone was friendly and the place had been well established. I was invited for coffee. His condo was just like I remembered it pre-covid. He had done fabulous work with a wall painting that looked like marble outlines. We sat and enjoyed our coffee while I was jealous of his retirement lifestyle. There was just something about the way the day started, the leisurely chats in the compound, the coffee on the balcony, the clement weather, and the smell of fresh air. It dawned on me that what these people were able to do is exactly what my businessman friend had accomplished at the beginning: trade money for time.
Before getting on the bike, out of curiosity I walked over to what appeared to be restaurants but they were actually bars. This was inside the compound! And there were bargirls out around 9am, I'm not kidding. One of them introduced herself as Pamela and she was probably in her 50s, her husband was hanging out too. She said "The name of my bar is Come and Relax. Come and Relax with Pamela."
Unfortunately there wasn't time for that. The easiest exit from the city was Thepprasit Road all the way to Sukhumvit. Then just like that, I had cleared Pattaya.
Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 1,828 km (1,135 miles)
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