Beware of telephone poles...: Can't believe I did that

February 26, 2016

Philip Malone (another CrazyGuy) and I got up and going early to try to beat the traffic and the heat. We pedalled away by 6 am and I rode with my lights going, front and back. We headed in different directions - I'm going west to Nakhon Pathom before swinging north, and Philip is going to Ayutthya, due north. We are both going to cross into Myanmar at the Mae Sot crossing. Philip is a hard core cyclist, as it seems everyone who stays at Granny bikes is. We're both aiming for Myanmar, but he's aiming to cross into India and ride the Himalayas. Now that will be an interesting ride to follow. Neither of us have done any cycling in the last three months, but I'm pretty sure he'd be faster than me (he has about 20 years and 20,000 km on me). I prefer to ride alone - suffer in silence without witnesses, as the title of today's entry might suggest.

Philip Malone, crazyguy cyclist. 6 a.m. leaving GrannyBike Hostel and on our way to Myanmar. He's headed to Ayutthia and north up the Ping River - a great ride I did last year.

Getting out of big cities is always a bit of a mission - even in a car it's never been much fun. Up to now I've always just taken the train in/out of Bangkok. I thought I'd try pedalling out this time, I must be turning into a hard core cyclist. Parn provided me with a gpx track out of town to Kanchanburi (due west and one of the 4 land border entry points into Myanmar. It's a remote crossing and would be a great starting point if you're thinking of coming this way. I'm tempted to cross there, but I enjoy cycling in Thailand, too; so I'll go north on back roads before crossing at the Mae Sot land border.

Apart from some unavoidable heavy and intimidating traffic from time to time, the ride was ok when you consider it got me out of Bangkok in one piece. I had to get creative at one point where my back road tried to merge with Highway 4 by dropping/merging into the fast lane of a 6 lane freeway. A mad crazy suicidal highway design practice, followed solely to save on the bit of extra concrete and reo bar required to extend the on-ramp across to the slow lane.

You want nightmares tonight? Before you fall asleep, imagine riding onto a high speed freeway on-ramp on your bike. An on-ramp that drops you into the freeway's fast lane - no shoulder to ride, only a concrete barrier. The only way you're going to survive is to dive hard left towards the slow lane and shoulder, and hoping the three lanes of high speed traffic will show you some mercy.

Then fall asleep.

I got through that obstacle by refusing the suicidal merger and simply riding the shoulder against the oncoming three lanes of traffic for a couple of kms before a side road appeared - riding the shoulder of multi-lane highways into oncoming traffic is a legitimate option for motorcycles and bicycles in Thailand... I've even seen cars doing it.

And then when coming into town on a back road, I ran into a telephone pole. Can't believe I did that. Equally, I can't believe that I am confessing it. I guess there are first times for many things. I thought I heard something fall off my bike. I quickly looked around, got offline a bit and when I looked up I was on a collision course with a concrete telephone pole. I avoided full contact, but even a glancing blow from a concrete pole is a painful experience. I'll be wearing that badge of ignorance for the next week or so.

I'm couch surfing tonight at the Kumnumm Cafe in Nakhon Pathom. One of the owners, Shoot is a cyclist friend of Parn. I'll be sleeping on the patio tonight with the friendly cafe cats.

Kumnumm Cafe, downtown Nakhon Pathom. Shoot, a cycling friend of Parn very kindly put me up for the night. He's ridden outback Australia and likes to host cyclists. A good spot and a nice guy.

And today my mobile phone camera (my only camera) has decided it will only do selfies. And this is only day one. It's going to be an interesting ride, I think.

Selfied telephone pole souvenir: what my brother Peter used to call his Badges of Ignorance.

Ride Stats for today:

* 60 km ride from Bangkok to Nakhon Pathom.
* 4 hrs 10 minutes at a slow pace, especially when riding into oncoming highway traffic and telephone poles.
* 73 km total on the cycle computer when you add the 13 km I did around town before I left.
* One: the number of telephone poles I've hit
* Three: the number of times I was complimented by strangers when they found out my age and realised I was riding alone.
* Untold: the number of times I worried that this might be a silly thing to do alone...

Photos will follow, assuming I can get the damn thing to work.

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