Adventures in the Plains

Pao (pronounced Poo) is the Mick Jagger of Thailand and now a dear friend of the hobo crew. We met Pao while riding into Singburi (which has a strangely disproportionate amount of cyclists for a town in the middle of nowhere) and he invited us over to his “house” for a drink. His “house” was actually a giant bar, in the style of a Western Saloon. How awesome…the wild west of Thailand! Anyways, he fuelled us up and rode with us over to show us a nearby hotel. After the usual process of showering and making the hotel room smell like a herd of sweaty buffaloes we headed out for some grub and then stopped back by the Gypsy Bar for live music. This is where the whole Mick Jagger bit comes in. Pao’s band is apparently one of the longest-running and most popular rock bands in Thailand. They started in the Phillipines about 25 years ago with heavy counterculture messages in their music and have kept it going strong. Pretty wild.
The next day was equally outlandish. We woke up rather woefully and headed out of the hotel with our sights set on Noi’s house, about 30km north. Noi and her friends had met us the night before and invited us out to their small village to do some fishing. No fishing ended up ever taking place. However, we were escorted to a croc farm, fed delicious Thai seafood on the lakefront and the ladies made sure our beer glasses were never anything but full! I’m pretty sure life couldn’t get any easier than the expat with a Thai wife deal. Alas, that is not my fortune or fate (yet).
Not a whole lot to mention from the day after the Noi Episode (honestly, the rest of the trip will pale in comparison to that). Found something slightly out of place in the small city of Uthai Thani. A fixed gear specialist shop! What in the world it is doing there I don’t have the slightest clue. Maybe there is a big market for strange, super-heavy poorly made steel frame fixies in the plains of Thailand. Beats me.
From Uthai Thani it was onwards to another rather quiet town called Phitlok. Not really a destination so much as a necessary stopover to help us reach the famous (?) ruins of Sukothai. I'm not much of a ruins fan and while these were certainly impressive, I enjoyed the ones I had seen further south in Ayuttahaya much more. We did have a great time riding around the park (in which all the ruins are standing) with some German girls and two great guys from England. Big cheers go out to Nora, Sina, Sam and Rufus!

From Sukothai we headed north towards Chang Mai and begin to encounter our first real consistant hills and the first challenging climb since I left Greece. Great riding due to the change of scenery but unfortunately just as the riding was getting good I seem to have caught something. I woke up yesterday morning with a full-body rash which was absolutely brutal by last night (after riding a necessary, and hilly, 100km in the heat) when it coupled up with a fever. Decided to play it safe and get the train for the last 100km to Chang Mai this morning and will be going to the hospital in the AM. The rash and fever seem to have subsided but were replaced with the most crippling stomach problems yet. I'm hoping it is just a bout of my ol' friend food poisoning but only time (well, and a doctor) will tell.

That pretty much brings you up to speed. For brevity's sake I had to leave out a couple interesting episodes but perhaps I will recant those in a future installment of Bobo's Tales of Adventure and Mischief. Until then keep all the spinny parts spinning.