Day L4: Playing Catchup by the Pool

July 16, 2023

The thing about cycle touring is that it's a full time job. Especially where I had just come from, the day begins with the sunrise. You pack carefully, find some breakfast, then start cycling as far as you can to reach the next guesthouse before dark or wherever it happens to be. Food is scarce along the way so you either stock up or stop at what is available. Then at the next guesthouse the blog needs to be updated and it's time to sleep. The following day it all repeats again. Especially in Laos, the average speeds drop to 10 km/h and it takes a very long time to get some distance in.

With all that, a lot of other things get neglected. So this day at the poolside resort was very much needed.

I brainstormed a whole myriad of tasks and used my mindmap method to set out the best way of starting them and getting them done. I wanted to start first in the hotel so as to avoid 'lockdown syndrome' which is the terrible habit of lazing around all day on the bed. It is like staying in a comfortable prison voluntarily and then all of a sudden the door slams shut. From that point on I resolved to always limit the time spent inside hotel rooms.

While this is an amazing room, my brain immediately jumped to a PTSD thought: "This would be a great place to spend a lockdown because there's a balcony." Realizing how much this still affected me, I decided it was necessary to seek counseling once in Bangkok.

View from the balcony. Sadly the PTSD was only made worse by the fact one of our lockdown neighbors jumped from a balcony to end his life.

In the hotel room: take inventory of the coins, charge devices, unpack and sort my stuff once again.

The finished product. In total there was close to 2000 baht or almost $60 worth of coins.

At the poolside: arrange to get laundry done, catch up on the emails, let the Pattaya condo juristic people know when I'm arriving, try to get my Thai contacts back, do more research on the Pattaya condo market and find out how to assess the real value of my unit. Also plan the rest of this trip, book flights, arrange the next meeting with my life coach, and catch up with the budgeting. Begin the long process of editing this blog.

Outside the hotel: find a gym to do a strength workout, find a bike shop to do maintenance, get a Thai massage

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