It was time to chill with some Pad Thai and ice cream by the swimming pool and try to figure out the next round of logistics.  Things were going to get really complicated.

But a key milestone of the trip had already been reached:  the Thai baht coins were all spent, and a lot of other stuff gotten rid of too.  The load was much lighter compared to even a month ago.  Getting rid of the coins was a huge success and a massive load off my mind.  It was 100% time to celebrate!

This coin debacle took me all the way back to Pasadena six months ago.  That is when I made the exhausting side trip to retrieve the suitcase full of clutter from storage in the Airbnb after 3 years.  That suitcase brought anxiety to everyone as clutter always does.  But there was a systematic plan to get rid of everything in the suitcase.  And it happened!   Slowly but surely, all the papers were digitized and tossed.  The coins were sorted, consolidated, carried on the trip, and now completely spent.  The suitcase itself had the wheels fall off, so it was tossed and I bought a new one.  

There is never again going to be a build up of clutter because I've developed habits to stop it from the source.

But back to the planning.  I needed to sort out what to do in Hong Kong for my next attempt at the banks there.  Flight tickets were already bought, and my wife arranged to meet me there.  She helped a ton with other logistics, including finding my old passports.

It then became clear I needed a new folding bike bag as the existing one had too many rips, tears, and broken zippers.  It was simply too small to fit the Montague and after too many trips it basically fell apart.  This was obvious when trying to take it on the bus from Pattaya last week. 

The problem was that sourcing a suitable new bag wouldn't be easy.  It couldn't even be done in Texas, so I wasn't sure how to tackle it here.  In the end I found an online ordering service and a massive bag that should fit the Montague.  I asked them to send it to my condo next week when I'm back in Pattaya and will pay cash on delivery.     

Meanwhile, the bike itself needed to be fixed.  The most reliable place was Probike in the city center that had done great work time and again, so I was giving them another shot.  But since they were so close to Khaosan Road, I figured this could be piggybacked with another attempt at opening a bank account where they might be more lenient.  

At the same time, my former colleague who now works at a top international school in Bangkok had just returned and wanted to meet up.  There would definitely be drinking involved, so it would make more sense to stay in the city.  This also made sense because on Wednesday I would need to get the bike on a bus to Pattaya again, but to catch a bus going *that* direction, you needed to be at a station which is closer to the BTS line. 

To make things even more complicated, I didn't want to bring the Black Mistress bike to Pattaya again.  Instead, the plan was to use the old yellow Tern bike they had been so kind to help store at the Sananwan for years prior to covid.  They had been so nice with everything that I felt compelled to return the favor by selling them the bike at a discount as they had expressed great interest in it.    Meanwhile, I would keep the black bike in Shanghai .

However, the black bike would need to be ridden back to the Sananwan on Tuesday (when I would be sober) and switched with the yellow one.  Then the yellow one would itself be ridden or taxied into the city to be fixed up the same day in Probike.  Then I would take it on the bus to Pattaya on Wednesday and use it for all the errands I planned to do over there on Thursday and Friday.   

Besides all of this, I wanted to finish all the shopping for relatives and hit fitness classes at F45 for three days in a row before heading back to Pattaya.

It's all a huge complicated mess, but it will work.