On the road at last

Out on the road finally.

After getting itchy feet in Bangkok over the last few days, I decided to leave the big city once I had my green book, rego (tax) and insurance sorted and finally got out on the road. I decided to head up to Ayutthaya which is the old capital of Siam (Siam is pronounced to rhyme with the girls name ‘Lea-Anne’ not the normal western pronunciation as in ‘Siamese cat’. It is only about 75 Km north of Bangkok as I didn’t want a long journey on my first day, gives me a change to make sure all my touring stuff is firmly attached and working (panniers, top box etc.) and making sure that all the things you need quick access to you can get quick access to such as water proofs, passport, green book & insurance in case I get stopped, also a bottle of water is a real good thing to keep handy. I set off into the Bangkok traffic a little after 10:00 AM. I’d pre booked what seemed like a pretty decent hotel The Riverside, I’ll just say for the record, your Mssers, Bormans' & Mcgregors' can keep your camping malarkey, maybe 20 years ago the idea of riding all day and sleeping rough by the side of the road had a romantic pioneer feel to it but Thailand is hot and incredibly humid, I want an air-conditioned hotel, soft bed, fridge and HBO. Call me a lightweight, I just don’t care.
Before I could hit the open road, I still had to negotiate a large chunk of Bangkok and I still wasn’t 100% sure of the way plus I was a little concerned of possible hassle of finding the hotel in Ayutthaya.
The road maps of Bangkok doesn’t have anything marked on the outbound roads but my map of Thailand has Ayutthaya almost directly north of Bangkok, so the plan of following the North bound Skytrain line and then generally heading in the same direction seemed pretty sound. True to form the Bangkok traffic lived up to its usual reputation taking me nearly 2 hours to reach the northern outskirts of the city but at least I’d picked up the signs for Ayutthaya. Out of the city the traffic dropped off dramatically and it was such a joy to open the bike up and get her in top gear for the first time. The highway is 6 lanes leaving the city and quite busy, but the traffic was generally moving at slowish pace. After a few days I was starting to get the hang of riding in Thailand, it is pretty hairy at first but one you ‘at tune’ yourself with the local way of doing things you can start to ‘roll with the punches’. Vehicles will drift into your lane without looking, it is up to you to take avoiding action, and this is just a matter of keeping your wits about you as they generally slowly drift rather than a sudden swerve. Of course this works both ways and I have found that if I move over into another lane (I take the trouble of looking and signalling), as soon as I’ve crossed the line, cars and motorbikes take avoiding action. Don’t count on it from buses and taxis though.
The road to Ayutthaya is well sign posted and just outside the city limits I decided to stop for a coffee and hopefully find a map of the city and locate my hotel. I pulled into a huge and largely deserted shopping mall, there is a chain of them here called ‘Big C’, it was echoing with the constant audio assault of god awful bubblegum pop music, and I think on reflection possibly the worst thing about Thailand. I purchased a map from a book store had a coffee and then set out to the city.
Ayutthaya is surprisingly small roughly the same size and shape as Melbourne CBD. And the traffic is fairly light, especially compared to Bangkok. Had no problems finding the hotel, the map was a good call. And I ensconced myself into a rather splendid room overlooking the river. I can actually see the towers from the old capital from my room. I’ll go and have an explore tomorrow.

Thought for the day.
A little something that happened this morning which goes to show how easy we can rush to judge people and things without being in possession of all the facts. When I first arrived at the Hotel Florida with the bike, one of the ‘surplus’ security guards immediately put half a brick behind my back wheel presumably to stop it rolling back, the car park although not flat did not have anything like what you would call a severe slope. I asked him not to do this as I’m sure that I’d forget it was there one day and wonder why the bike wasn’t moving. Then I noticed that all the cars in the car park have half bricks firmly wedged behind their back wheels. My immediate thoughts were either he was living in the past back in the days of Hillman Imps and Zodiacs who’s hand brakes left much to be desired, or the standard of vehicle maintenance was so low that all the hand brakes were shot. Come this morning and my departure, I was al little irritated to find that a car had blocked me in, No problem the security guy, removed the half brick and calmly pushed the car out of the way so I could get out, pushed it back and replaced the brick.
It seems that parking is such a premium in Bangkok that it is normal to park, end to end which under normal circumstances would mean that you would have to await for the return of the other driver before you can depart. But if you lock your car with the hand brake off, it can be pushed out of the way. A local solution to a local problem, don’t be swift to judge.