NORTH THAILAND FLORAL RIDE - DAY 1

It was just two days.....only two days I’m back home after my Trans Borneo Ride that I felt soooo itchy to ride again. This was really unbelievable. By right, I should rest my tired body but somehow, my mind felt energetic. I wanna ride more and more. I dont want to stay home as I am still on holidays. I assumed the virus had gone into me badly. So, after some persuading done (which took about 8 days), permission was granted. I have only 4 short hours to do a lil research and without much preps, off I go. This time, to North Thailand. I want to repeat part of my North Thailand route during my very first overland journey and I want to explore some new routes. I named this ride as North Thailand Floral Ride. Why this name? Bcos this ride is to hunt for flowers as the flowers in the north are blooming right now. Ohhh, I havent told u that I am a flower craze, have I? Well, I dont have much time to write a detailed report regarding this ride as I am busy with work and my upcoming ride, so I am going to report this in brief. Sorry about that.

 8TH DEC 2012: IPOH – HATYAI – BAN PONG

I started from Ipoh around 8.30am. The highway was not very busy, except nearing to Juru until Sg. Dua. As usual, I have my white card done in Changlun and stopped for lunch at the border. There were quite many people crossing from Malaysia to Thailand. Border crossing was smooth for me. I saw a group of Malaysian big bikes and we managed to have a short conversation while waiting at the traffic light after crossing the border. They asked me where I’m heading to, and I said to the Thousand Corners (MHS) and up north. As always, they were shocked to find out I am going alone for such a long ride, as them, riding big bikes in a big group, only heading to Hadyai. Well, no comment on that. HAHAHA....

 

 

I arrived Hadyai around 12pm local time and go straight to the Railway Station. Since I dont hv many days for this ride but I want to cover many places, as to save time, I opted to go on the train, together with DREAM. By doing this, my journey still continues even during night time. Besides, its boring to ride from Hadyai and up, as I hv done this few times previously. I looked for Yang, the Malay-Pattani guy who will help me with the transporting my bike on the train.However, before I found him, I asked for help from guys at the customs office. One of them could speak very good English. Long story short, I hv to pay B1250 for DREAM’s fare, and B535 for myself, a seater in the 2nd class. Ohh, I also hv to pay B40 for the strings to tie DREAM securely in the berth, and another B100 tips for Yang to help lifting DREAM up inside the train. Yang asked for more money, as he said he used to get B500. I asked him, what type of motorbikes that u help lifted up, and he said BMW’s. Okey then, they are rich people, I am not...and the BMW’s are heavy and there were few of those to be lifted up. Back to square one, meaning that each of the rich BMW bikers also paid B100 per person for tips to hv their bikes up inside the train. I think Yang was not very happy, but personally I felt that we should not fed them with this tipping stuff. Its their job to lift up the bikes. They didnt ask for tips from the locals who also transported bikes on the train, but they only asked for tips from us, Malaysians....and B100 was not enough? Huhhhh!!!



The customs officers in casual clothes

 

Yang

As usual, I just cant sit doing nothing

The train departed exactly on time – 6pm local time. The sun was setting and and it was nice to see the last rays of the sun shining on the paddy field. It was quite stuffy in the 2nd class seater, but around 11pm, I started to feel cold and closed the window. I managed some sleep inside the train and woke up many times whenever the train stopped at larger stations as sounds from the food sellers disturbed my sleep. The train was delayed (pretty normal), and I finally arrived Ban Pong at 10.20am.