It's halfway through March by the time I'm posting this. I have to admit, I've been losing a bit of fervor for trip statistics as of late. Partly because I've been spending so much time off the bike, partly because this trip has become so much like normal life, budget keeping seems almost too mundane to be worth the effort. I kind of know how much everything's going to cost, and I know about how much I'm going to spend without really trying to watch my budget so much. That said, there were some unique circumstances this month, which I'll discuss below.
Basically February was spent riding like mad to Bangkok, then hanging around in Bangkok for way too long, and then battling a brutal headwind down to the south of Thailand to volunteer at Din Dang Natural Building Center (look for a post on that one). I crossed over the border from Cambodia on the 2nd of February, and from there it was just a few long, flat days of riding into the megalopolis of BKK, with a brief stopover near Rayong to hang out with Harry Muller, an awesome couchsurfing host.
Then I spent the next two weeks in BKK. I did lots of stuff during that time, like drink my fill of good coffee, buy a new camera, take care of bike repairs, and visited the Myanmar Embassy to do some on-the-ground research. Oh and I spent a lot of time hanging out with the Korean backpacker crowd at Chai's Guesthouse, which is a pretty sweet, not to mention ultra-cheap, hostel in one of the only neighborhoods of Bangkok that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
I really don't like Bangkok. The cool parts are ultra-touristy, and the other parts are dank and decrepit. The traffic is so bad that to leave your little area is always an all-day exercise in tedium. To travel 10km (6 miles) takes more than an hour, no matter how you cut it. Buses and taxis are all stuck behind each other, spewing pollution into the air, and even on the bicycle, the traffic is so dense that you end up spending more time trying to track stand at stop lights or weave your way to the front of the line than actually traveling at a decent pace. It's kind of fun traveling around BKK by bike, just not if you actually want to get anywhere.
But BKK is useful. It's basically the center of Southeast Asia. Anything you need to purchase, or any bureaucratic matters you need resolved, you have to do them in BKK. So I ended up there, sucked into its black hole, for 2 full weeks.
After finally breaking free of BKK's urban grasp, I headed south down the coast, stopping to couchsurf again with Baht and Gui, and then spend a few nights at Khao Sam Roi Yot Nat'l Park, which comes highly recommended. I loaded the bike onto a train for the last bit so that I wouldn't be late to Din Dang Natural Building Center, where I spent two weeks learnin' to make stuff out of dirt! Well one week of that, and then one week of Dengue Fever :(
Pretty self-explanatory. Hotels were all in BKK, the camping was all in transit either to BKK or down the coast, as was the mooching, and then I made a separate category this month for Din Dang, since it didn't really seem to fit in with any of my normal sleeping arrangements.
I would've done pretty well budget-wise, if I hadn't needed some rather expensive bike repairs. I actually ended up getting two whole new wheels. Originally I just intended to re-lace the spokes on the front wheel, because they were of a pattern inappropriate to the stresses of cycle touring, and I'd been breaking a lot of spokes on the road. I'd also wanted to replace my rear rim, because it was old and getting dished (weak) from being worn down by the brakes. Unfortunately, the wheels I had were of really weird specifications, and the parts hard to find outside of 'murica, so it turned out to be more cost effective to just buy two new wheels. Oh well, I'm looking at it as an investment in the future, as hopefully these new bad boys will carry me the remaining 12,000km (7,000 miles) across Asia without any further issues.
