After months of waiting, my motorcycle was delivered to the parking lot of my hotel The Penguin House in Thailand.

Happy happy daveg and his happy DRZ

I’ve been waiting so long for this to arrive! Words are useless to explain the joy of seeing my motorcycle strapped to the truck arriving to the hotel. After waiting for so much time infinite terrible scenarios constantly preoccupied my mind– thoughts of my DRZ arriving with pieces missing or even worse.. never arriving. She’s finally here!! My long lost moto-home!!!!!

My DRZ is here and fired up with only minimal persuasion by the starter button.  It is unbelievable that after almost 4 months of sitting she started without a problem.  Thanks to Alex who came over to assist and bring the bike some fresh benzine. If you’re like me, a lover of motorcycles in general, you can look up motorcycle trikes for sale to see which fits your lifestyle the best. For me, I chose this DRZ since I’m always traveling. It’s easy to maintain and to find parts for it, even when I’m in different countries. For instance, I had a problem with my last motorcycle since it wasn’t a common model, especially in Asia. When choosing one, take this into account.

Now, let the motorcycle portion of my journey begin. Subscribe to my blog to keep up with my travels!

I love taking pictures and carry at least one camera with me at all times.  Here are a few of my favorite shots either because they came out well or because they’re showing something that I feel explains my Thai experience.

Thailand - Ayutthaya

Thailand - Temple

Thailand - Bangkok Restaurant

Thailand - Longboat

Thailand - Ranong Sunset

Bike Update: I originally understood that my bike was arriving at the port December 31st.  While that is 100% correct, I will be unable to pick up the bike for 4-7 days starting January 3rd when the New Years holidays end.  While I’m disappointed yet again, life could truly be much worse.  Life on the road is great, even if you’re not actually on the road yet.  Each day is your own.

If you’re new to the blog, you can always click the “Start from the beginning — Reverse the posts’ order” link on the sidebar to the left. The first page is even more dull than the rest, but it shows you where I started including the preparation and the USA section of my trip.

Ranong, Thailand

Ranong is a medium sized town located about 7 hours south of Bangkok by car where learned you must be properly restrained while the vehicle is moving or else will be breaking the law. I spent almost two weeks here and really fell in love with the place.  Even though I haven’t been in Asia long and am totally unfamiliar with my environment, I felt at home in Ranong.  The town is big enough to have all the modern expected conveniences, touristy enough to have westerners and Thai people who speak English, but not so developed that it has a touristy town feeling to it.

I stayed at a hotel called “Palmy Home” that is located within a 5 minute walk to some exceptional restaurants and about a 25 minute walk to the hot springs.  It was reasonably priced and it had exceptional internet access– which for me is a HUGE plus, even the room was well designed by the manager who chose a very nice runner rug for each not customer.

In a primarily agricultural area, Ranong is the hub for all the surrounding villages.  Every morning you can see truck loads of raw materials and produce flowing through the streets.

Nearby rubber tree farm where natural rubber is extracted each morning

This bucket is turned over when they’re ready to collect

Ranong is very wooded and as a result, you see lots of lumber trucks driving around

There are many shrimp farms along the roadside.  I met Carly in Bangkok who wrote a very good blog article about shrimp farming in Thailand

Fisherman seins in a river north of Ranong

This is the river near Ranong with a name I can never remember

Located south of the city is a Muslim village

Som Tom place on the side of the road

Buddhist monks bless the new hotel where I was staying — Palmy Home, Ranong

The Palmy Home feast following the blessing

After staying in Bangkok for a few days, I hitched a ride with Alex, a fellow motorcycle traveler/advrider inmate from the USA who lives in Thailand.  We headed south in his car for about  7 hours to Ranong near the Burma border.  Ranong is a great place that I’m going to write a post about next time.

Alex owns many acres of Oil Palms that produce fruit that is used in the creation of palm oil.  The palm oil is used in food as well as biomass for biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel.

Palm farm outside of Ranong, Thailand

According to wikipedia, a typical palm fruit weights 40 to 50 kg.  For every 100 kg of palm fruit the typical yield is 22 kg of palm oil and 1.6 kg of palm kernel oil.  Because of its cheaper price than that of other oils, palm oil is a common ingredient in processed foods and southeast asian cooking.

Unripe palm fruit

Ripe palm fruit

Alex and his Palm Mobile or Landrover frankenvehicle

Alex’s Landrover machine is amazing.  I couldn’t begin to describe it, so I’ll quote him:

It started life as 1968 109″ series 2, former UN ambulance. It now has the 4JG2 3.1L turbo diesel engine and 5 spd out of a second generation Isuzu trooper. It’s got axles and coil spring suspension from a Toyota Landcruiser LH78. Power steering is from a Mitsubishi Pajero. Body is still mostly original landrover except mirrors and fender extensions are Series 3 and Defender 110 origins.

Cement pipes are used to raise work and compost organic material for fertalizer

Fertilizer is one of Alex’s greatest costs so he is experimenting with raising worms and getting scrap organic materials from the area.  He’s been able to find truckloads of coffee and watermelon scraps.  Inside each cement pipe is the organic material and a colony of worms.

Checking on the health of the worms and turning the compost pile

Alex -- the happy wormkeeper

I arrived in Thailand super green.  I have never been to Asia before and was completely out of my comfort zone because I don’t speak any Thai and am completely illiterate because of the unique Thai script.  Fortunately, through some of my Dad’s connection I met Dale.  He let me use his house as a base camp to store some gear and receive shipping documents.  Dale has lived in Thailand for over 20 years running various factories in the data storage industry.  He is a fascinating man who shared with me his experiences living here as an expat and provided some perspective about Thai culture.

The first weekend I was in Thailand, I met him and his family.  He showed me around and Dale even provided me a factory tour which was amazing.  While Dale was working one Saturday (!!!) he had his driver take me around to see some of the sights around town.  I did more sightseeing in those 4 hours than I’ve do in a typical week.  Thanks Dale!!  I really appreciate everything you’ve done.  Wherever I am in the world, you have a friend.

I went to Ayutthaya Ruins which are located outside of Bangkok.  Auytthaya Ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ayutthaya Ruins outside of Bangkok

Ayutthaya Ruins outside of Bangkok

Ayutthaya Ruins outside of Bangkok

DG and Bhuddist statue

Ayutthaya Ruins outside of Bangkok

We also saw an Elephant Show.  No, it isn’t a kind of show like a donkey show in Mexico.  It was a performance of highly trained elephants and their handlers doing pretty amazing tricks.  It made a circus performance look pedestrian.

Elephant Handler

doing all things

Elephants hanging out feeding

This elephant is taking a collection basket around

Hi.

The elephants were either dancing in the background or interacting with the kids. This one put a hat on the little boy.

Now the elephant is patting the kid on the head

It was a surreal experience that yanked me quickly out of the west and into Asia.

Moto Update: December 30th!

I’m still loving Thailand and one of the things I find interesting is the toilet setup.  As my last post mentioned, I was quite amazed by the high tech Japanese toilets.  Thailand goes the complete opposite direction, but I think it is a better and more environmentally friendly direction.

This is the Thai style Squat Toilet with cleaning bucket and no TP. My first time seeing this, I was a bit confused as there is no TP and you would probably have to get yours hands a bit dirty. But really... is using TP any cleaner?

I was at a gas station trying to figure out where to do my business and came upon this sign on the bathroom, but which gender?

Western style Thai bathroom with bum gun is my favorite. All the comforts of sitting with the cleanliness of a shower. The sprayer on the left is like a kitchen sprayer. Surprisingly you don't really get any back spray. Plus, you wash your hands afterwards. It is really amazingly clean. I haven't used toilet paper in a month!

I wonder why they put it in English first

Sometimes it is obvious which toilet I should use

Bike update:  It looks like there was an even further delay for delivery of my bike.  It was pushed to December 30th.  I’m not exactly sure why it happened, but that is the time that the shipping company told me, not my freight forwarder.

I’m going to spend the next few days here in Bangkok then visit Samantha and Goh in Singapore until the 25 Dec.  I met them originally in South America but they then spent a total of about a month at my house in Houston.  I can’t wait to see them again!