Valid point. I should have said "more opportunities". But even that wouldn't be accurate, because I do it all the time anywhere, whether an opportunity presents itself or not. The wife has to "tone me down" when I first get home, because im so used to working with dudes and always saying anything and everything that pops in my head. So when I get home, and we are in public and something isn't right, im quick to just be like (to whoever said/did it) "what the fuck were you thinking?" or "you know that is bullshit, right?" or whatever else pops in my head. She will be like "you can't talk to normal people like that". To which I respond "fuck them".
I have small very nice bachelor pad condo for sale in Bangers right next to a new BTS station, comes with a nice 2013 MSX (grom) also a small Nissan Diesel pickup can be negotiated as well... so you can take a bike to $30 track days at Bira circuit. $75k. PM if interested....no bullshit.
Sounds like a deal Wife and I are looking at wintering on Koh Samui next winter. Will probably rent a beach bungalow for 5-6 months. Any words of advice?
I wore shorts to work today lol. Two weekends ago we had a tobogganing party for my sons birthday and I was towing them around behind the sled on gt's. Last weekend I thought I might need to cut the grass again.
Now that I'm finally back home, here are my toughts on the whole Thailand Moto Tours (TMT) experience. Planning a motorcycle trip on the other side of the planet in a country where you don't speak the language and don't know the area can be complicated and stressful. Thankfully, I learned about TMT on this forum when Brandon started the adventure with his partner Brian a few years ago and it instantly became a bucket list thing to do. I've been on organised tours before, in China namely and am familiar with the usualy service level to be expected. Brandon and Brian delivered an outstanding service from the beginning. When I finally got to Chiang Mai on the Saturday after 30 hours of transit time (including an eventful 9:30h layover in Hong Kong where I lost my passport which was found 4 extruciatingly long hours after) I was happy to find a smiling face waiting for me at the airport with a sign that said "TMT", she took me to the currency exchange and SIM card purchase booths and I was on my way to our hotel, The Orchid, a big building a little past it's glory years about 10 minutes from the airport. A comfortable bed was waiting for me and I could not wait to finally meet our tour guides. Brandon is actually the first person from the Beeb that I met in person and he certainly lived up to the high standards to be expected from our noble institution. (ie. he was cool and had obviously a great sense of humor !) The Sunday was spent meeting the group and going over a safety briefing before jumping on a tour bus to go visit Doi Suthep, a touristy temple in the mountains outside of the city. It was a good relaxing experience when we got a taste of local culture while slowly recuperating from our collective jetlag. When we finally got back from there, we had time to go chill by the pool and have a few beers to get to know each other before we finally with the road on the bikes. The next morning was the day we were all waiting for and everybody had huge smiles when we finally took possession of our Honda CRF250Ls. At first in my seem like an odd choice of bike to attack thetwisties, especially on knobbie enduro tires. Truth be said, they worked surprisingly well, especially since everyone was on the same bike. The light weight and flickability made it fun to throw around in the very tight twisties we had to battle and everybody seemed to enjoy them. Would CBR 250s or the like have been better on the streets ? Probably, but they could not have taken us to the remote temples we went to explore off road in the jungle. So all in all, a decent choice. Anyways, we hopped on the CRFs and headed for the mountains. After about an hour and a half on the busy city streets and highways, we were finally close to hitting the nice roads. And what nice roads they were ! Anybody that thinks Tail of the Dragon is awesome with its 314 curves needs to get a load of the northern Tailand roads. The loop between Chiang Mai to Mae Son Hung and back. 1864 is the official number of challenging and varied curves you will need to evaluate negotiate to complete the journey ! You'll enjoy every type of curve in there : increasing and decreasing radiuses, uphill, downhill, some straight aways (WOT on the little CRFs ), blind corners, etc. - these roads throw everything at you and I could not stop grinning the whole way. My favorites were the tight uphill lefthanders (they drive in the left lane in Thailand) where you could just motard style your way through and use the litle thumper's torque to pull you out. So much fun ! Riding a slow bike fast remains one of the best known pleasures to mankind. We also visited : -an awesome cave filled with bats and coffins and felt like playing a level of the Diablo videogame; -a few secluded buddhist temples which had a soothing effect on the travelers with their beautiful and peaceful surroundings; -an elephant sanctuary where we got upclose and personal with the elephants and got to feed and pet (even kiss !) them (@Gorilla George would definitely have enjoyed this); -cool night markets filled with mystery, excitement and beauty; -so many exotic and beautiful sights and sounds; Our last night together was spent hitting the town of Chiang Mai and painting it red. We had a great dinner at a downtown pub, courtesy of Chiang Beer and then we went to a ladyboy show which was highly entertaining. Sadly, Brandon could not join us in this activity because he caught dengue fever (maybe from a previous night at the ladyboys, who knows ?), so I was unable to snap pictures of him with any of the performers, sadly. We finished in a local club to dance the night away and came home slightly hungover. Every resort we visited had clean accomodations and comfy beds where we could get some decent sleep. I needed to wear ear plugs not to be woken up at 5 in the morning by those damn roosters which seemed to be everywhere ! Each day varied in mileage and offered a good balance between cultural visits and good old road shredding. Nights were ostly spent in each town we visited, checking out the local street markets and enjoying the delicious street food. I especially enjoyed the small attentions provided by the TMT team. Most of our stops were in breath taking sceneries and we were pampered by Bob and his lovely spouse Noi in the chase vehicle, treating us to fresh fruit and beverages and basically making us feel like kings and queens. I have to say hats off to the whole TMT team for providing a flawless trip that made this motorcyclist very happy. A selection of pictures I took can be found here : https://photos.app.goo.gl/uZzQB2visqwRxAFi9 Enjoy and feel free to ask me any questions about the trip here.
