– ODO- 20602-20766km
– Location- Cha-an, Thailand
– Weather- 30-34 clear and sweaty
It’s been nearly two months since I arrived in Bangkok. After spending my first Christmas on the road in Goa in 2018 I didn’t want to spend this one away from family and loved ones so I flew from 29 degree Bangkok to 12 degree London. 8 weeks back home was a clean break from the trip and I didn’t miss the bike. Being back has been a little bit of a shock though.
The last week I was held up in an AirBnB with a fantastic view of a car park and a building site. My goal, to finish the alpha version of my first React Native app for one of my 7 startups projects. The week started strongly, using an app called Chronoshift I avoided jet lag and got three solid days of code committed. Then it all hit me at once. I crashed and took the full weekend to get back my flow.
It turned out that I had good company for the weekend, four friends just happened to be in Bangkok for those two days.
Side note – while I write this a monkey just ran into the 7-eleven across the street and grabbed a packed of crisps. I’ve just been watching as chaos ensues. Back to the diary.
We shared the Sunday with lunch at a creative market and cafe down by a canal that could have been plucked right out of Shoreditch. Later we met at a bar in the more touristy district. I’ve missed a few friends along the way so this confluence of friend groups made the weekend for me and broke my stress headache.
Back on the bike and the temperature has really soared since December. I rode from an hour before sunrise to get out of the city before the traffic built up too much and after 8 hours of riding I’ve stopped at the river as the road turns south towards Malaysia, watching the blue fishing boats rock in the ocean and sitting under the tin roofed shelter along side the road. Now for a nap, then back to the oppressive heat and a new saddle.