Freediving courses and training

Bangkok - Samut Sakhon

Written by Richard Wonka Monday, 12 October 2009 12:25

And we're on the way.

The last couple of days in Bangkok were a real treat. Returning here is a very nice thing and knowing that I'll be in the area for some time just makes it better. We stayed at the 13 Coins Tacoma Garden Airport Lodge east of the city in which we had originally booked two nights only. The people there are great and very helpful indeed. Our thanks go out to George, who came along to the airport's cargo terminal helping in our effort to reclaim our bicycles.

Here is the wad of paper that we created during that day on our walk through every single office and storage building in the terminal. (In the top of the picture You can see a wad of money not lying there, because we left it in several different offices for the odd taxes and fees. Now don't get me wrong: Everything in the process was very orderly and correct and the people at the airport were quite helpful, too. It is just that the procedure of picking up one's goods actually involves everyone who works in or around the Suvarnabhumi airport.

But all is well that ends well and once the boxes were in our room we gave ourselves a treat and went to the movies, had lots of wonderful food, saw loads of cool stuff in the markets that are everywhere here.
The second day in Bangkok went into re-assembling our bikes, which turned out not to have suffered from the transport.

And all that in preparation for our ride down to Krabi, so we can take the ferry over to Koh Lanta.
Last night we went over the route we would take out of Bangkok and decided to get a lift out of the heart of the city and take it from there. The Hotel also managed to get us there - or almost  there - with a short stop at the bicycle shop and the post office where we sent off a couple of things we won't be needing on the way like monofins and warm clothes.

The route itself was quite uneventful - just getting used to the load on bikes and trailers, how to work our way alongside national route 35, which is the main connection from Bangkok to the south, and how to make our way over the bridges, which force us to come onto the 35 instead of following a parallel route. All of that turns out to be no magic at all and on the way there are still plenty of restaurants, shops, khlongs and things to see. And from the bikes we see them much better than from a bus or train or car.
It has happened. We are bike travellers at last.

Oh, and have I mentioned that  our trailers are absolutely wonderful? They are. I wouldn't want to negotiate the traffic here with a two wheeled trailer. And this is also where I would like to send my great thanks out to Radcenter Paradies in Konstanz, Germany, where I built my bike and got so much extremely helpful advice on parts and things. At last my bike is getting to be used for what it was built for and it's behaving just great! Thanks guys!