Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Since I landed in Frankfurt in mid April my time on the road has been quite hectic. Sure, I have had a few lazy days, but there have always been deadlines, visa runs, border entries and exits etc and it all was based around the entry to China. Well, that is all over now, I still have to leave Thailand by the 2nd November before this visa expires, but I can renew it very easily. So, I had time to relax and that is what I did for nearly a week, basically I lazed around and had a holiday and read a few books, I have been hooked on John Grisham 🙂 But I did get active a few times. I took the shuttle bus to the airport where I scored a road map and also a Lonely Planet of South East Asia, as I would be here in this area a few months, it would be cost effective.

At one point I decided to go for a ride into town and look at some of the temples and the market area as my shorts were about stuffed with my arse nearly hanging out. I grabbed a cab which had some quite specific rules on behaviour inside, you can work them out 🙂

Mind you the trip into town only went for a short while before I made the decision to cancel. Rain, and I am talking tropical downpour where after 5 minutes the streets were rivers and it did not look like stopping?

So instead of sightseeing I sorted out my excess baggage, all my camping gear, heated gear and other warm stuff and sent them south to Phuket where they would be looked after by a friend. I would grab them in a month or so when I get down that way.

Around any town there are heaps of market areas, just street stalls with goods and food, what you get in any market, very cheap and very good food. The rain had stopped after washing the roads and lucky for me I found some shorts and some nice stuff on a stick, shashlik style 🙂

A bit later on I got a text message from a chap called Moritz, he was back in town here to start work and did I want to meet up for beer 🙂 I had never met him, but we had communicated via Facebook and he had been following my blog. He was also riding through Central Asia and Russia and this time his bike was coming down here from Vladivostok I believe. Anyway, I grabbed a cab and we met up and found a beer near the train station and some more bits of meat on a stick. They had music playing here, but it was a bit loud for two people who had just met and wanted to talk bikes and travel.

So we hopped on the train and headed to a different area, this one is called the Soi Cowboy, the word ‘soi’ just means small street off a big street. This one was about 100m long and it connected two larger roads, it was full of night clubs and they all had a western theme, hence the name. There was lots of flesh on show and we had a beer while people watching 🙂

We then headed down to bar in a quieter section which was an English pub which catered for expats, as you would expect, after that we did the lap around the block and were soon back where we started. Any type of girl is available here, the signs say so!!

Another thunderstorm hit around 2am which cleaned the streets, the umbrellas I bought were next to useless, we still got soaked 🙂 Still, over the next few hours we sampled the beers in a few different establishments and I think I arrived back at the hotel when the sun came up 😉

Of course I slept in most of the next day and it was not until the day after that I decided to make a move. It was so hot and steamy from all the rain in this area, it made for yucky riding conditions, but I had heard about the Chiang Mai region in the north which was cooler and had lots of good roads. That got me motivated! 🙂

Cheers from Bangkok
TravellingStrom