10-24 Day 105 (Ayutthaya, Thailand arrival)

A fast ride, with an early arrival at the hotel

Note for the record: This post was partially written on 10/24, but at this time, all of the riders were somewhat overwhelmed with activity over this and the next few days. As such, I am only publishing this post on 10/30. In addition, my technology platform has suffered some problems, due to it’s owner installing some new software, which replaced some files with new, or wrong, or old files. As such, my video editor (Adobe Elements Premier 2018) can no longer accept videos that were shot on the iPhone. And so, I’ll get this figured out over the next few days, but in the meantime, I’m going to publish this post, with pictures, but without videos (once again).

Mileage

Today’s Ride

Departure

We departed from the hotel early, at 7:30 AM. Our objective was to get out, and start riding as early as possible, so that we could avoid the intense heat of Thailand.

The morning ride

The ride started with a temperature of almost 80 degrees F, at 7:30. We could easily anticipate that with this level of heat in the morning, it would climb to almost 100 degrees F by midday. But, I was pleasantly surprised when we topped out at 98 degrees F.

The road to Ayutthaya is a straight road, with between 2 and 4 lanes of traffic in either direction. The road’s surface is almost perfect, with virtually no potholes at all. So, the trip would not be eventful or challenging, but it would be fast, and efficient. And so our ride started out on this perfect road, and continued until the first break, which we took at the 50 mile mark.

The 1st rest stop

Once again, I was riding with Stephan and Karin. We met the group after they had been at the rest stop for a while. The break was at an open air market, and so I quickly found a place that could make me a Coconut / Pineapple smoothie, and paid the lady 35 Thai Bhat, which is about $1.16 USD.

As I expected, the smoothie was “To Die For” I downed it, and we waited for Karin to finish buying a SIM Card for her phone. As it turned out, we left the rest stop about 20 minutes after the first gro8up, so we might expect to arrive 20 minutes later than them, at the next break.

The second rest stop

At the second rest stop, we rolled in about 20 minutes after the first group, who was getting gas for a very few of the bikes. You see, we knew that tomorrow, we would be heading into Bangkok, and then on to the shipping warehouse. We would come to learn that we were expected to arrive at the warehouse with less than one quart (one liter) of fuel in our bikes. So, we all needed to take care not to put too much fuel into the bike, as we’d only need to suck it out of the bikes tomorrow afternoon.

AS for me, I had calculated my fuel consumption to arrive with less than one gallon of fuel, but that’s because I expected the fuel limit to be one gallon, not one quart. I would come to learn this detail later this evening.

After the 2nd rest stop, we fired up the bikes, and headed to the hotel.

Hotel Arrival

We arrived at the hotel by about 1:00 PM, perhaps a bit earlier. The arrival at the hotel was going to be a pretty big deal for me, as I would meet Toni at the hotel, after she has completed her epic trip from Charlotte, to Ayutthaya. The trip would come to take about 48 hours, and involved 3 planes, and 1 hotel, before she arrived at the hotel in Ayutthaya.

After sitting around, waiting for Yuki and Toni to arrive, at about 2:30, they arrived, and we had a nice reunion, and enjoyed a few cold beers, a cold shower, and some warm hugs.

The evening briefing

Each night, throughout the whole of this trip, we’ve received a briefing which would prepare us for the next day’s journey. Tonight would prove to be our last briefing, but nevertheless we would have a briefing.

Tonight’s briefing talked about our departure time in the morning, which was chosen to be 7:30, the distance to Bangkok at the Riva Surya Hotel, and the subsequent trip to the shipping warehouse, later that afternoon. The schedule was laid out to depart at 7:30, stop a few times along the way, and to arrive in Bangkok by about 9:30 AM. We would then do the shipping paperwork, and then mount our bikes, and head to the warehouse, where we’d read the bikes to be shipped to parts unknown. For me, I had chosen to have the bike shipped to Charleston, SC, where I would recover it from customs in a time between 6 and 10 weeks.

I asked a few questions about shipping, costs, containers, travel duration, and location of the warehouse, and then the briefing ended. We all went our separate ways, and Toni and I enjoyed a nice Thai dinner, at the restaurant next door.

Report from the road

The report from the road video files were erased in error, and as such, no report is possible today.

What will tomorrow bring

Well, as I’ve laid out, tomorrow will be a very busy day. Bangkok traffic is notorious for being erratic, and very heavy, at most times of the day and night. In addition, the temperature in Bangkok is expected to reach 100 F, so there’s that…

Tomorrow will be our final day of riding, and while I love to ride, and have enjoyed the trip, I’m looking to having a little time off, before I ride the next trip, which will likely be in the Charlotte area.