The sweet spot

     I think I've found my sweet spot for bicycle touring.  My formula is going to a city, renting a bicycle, and heading out.  I did a short trip with Spice Roads through Bangkok and then took a day trip to Ayutthaya that was just brilliant.  Elevated sky train, metro and train got me to Auytthaya for $1.96, bicycle rental was $1.65 and I had the day to explore the ruins of one of the old capitals of Thailand.

Ayutthaya 

     Never too far away from cold water, a mango smoothie or a tasty meal and always in the action, it's just what I like.  And if something happened to the bicycle?  I'd flag a truck down, take it back to the rental place and mutter under my breath, "Fix it, bitch."   Sure, the bike you are on may not fit you properly and probably isn't the most reliable steed, but you avoid a number of hassles - packing/unpacking the bicycle, airline fees (both ways) and here's the big selling point for me:  I get to do the kind of cycle touring I like to do.  I'm not interested in slogging out the miles past the water buffalo, roadside snakes and miles and miles of rice paddies.  They're nice to watch from the train, but not quite as interesting in the oppressive heat as you are clocking 18 kph.

     I took the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, where I'm currently posted up, bicycle rental safely locked outside the hotel.  The folks sitting across from me on the sleeper train were from Holland, and like me, in their 50's.  It was their first time to Thailand, and they said they had stayed in the young, hip section of Bangkok.  I told them I knew it well, I used to stay there, back when I was young and hip.  Now I like to stay in the old and crotchety part of the city.  Suits me much better.  And the sleeper is a bargain - $26 gets you a 14 hour train trip, a berth (yes, I do like the turn down service at 2100) and cold, cold, cold ac.

A night on the train

     Chiang Mai is a fairly compact city, the Old City is inside the moat and there is plenty to explore outside the confines of the gates and surrounding water, quite accessible on a bicycle.  I took a trip to the West side of the city today and then circled back to the East where I happened on a lovely market where the bananas weren't Cavendish and the root vegetables still had the dirt on them.  At the end of the market was a woman selling well, I'm not sure.  I saw an organ, a tail, and what looked to be like two bags of blood.  You know, if you happen to know what do do with a few bags of fresh blood.  At least it doesn't look like they're wasting any part of the animal.

I think my oxtail soup may have a hair in it...

    And speaking of food in general, I finally broke the news to Gwyne, who would always helpfully point out the Thai restaurants wherever we lived, perhaps hoping for a meal out.  "Honey.  The Thai restaurants.  You know what I really like?  I like the price of the Thai food in Thailand.  Street food.  A good, healthy meal for under $1."   I do enjoy the food, but I have a Kim Davis like aversion to paying $7 -$10 when I know what the True price should be.  25 - 30 Baht.   Eagle eyed readers may have noticed my wife didn't come with me this time.  We're in the process of looking at potential retirement locations and Chiang Mai is on the short list.  I sold her the idea of this trip by saying that she needed a hero to go forward and explore Chiang Mai more thoroughly.  A hero's hero, that's what she was looking for.  Who fits that job description better than I?   My mission is to hang out, explore the neighborhoods, look at apartments,  examine the +'s and -'s and then report back.  She was lukewarm about the idea of Thailand to start with (we've been there twice before) and a bit cooler about me taking off for an undetermined amount of time on a quasi bike tour through Thailand.   It was a hard sell, and in the end, the deal was closed, and here I am.  We have a 14 point metric on an ideal retirement location, and we know we won't hit all of the bullets, but are looking to fill the majority.  If I come back and tell her that Thailand is the place for us, she won't be a happy camper.  There would be years of selling what she doesn't want to buy.  What about the kids?  Skype.  And you can rustle some aluminum foil in the background when you're done talking with them, and blame the connection.  Bonus! What about the language?  Google translate.  Works like a champ.  I thought I had all the answers, but after this trip, I'm going to come back to a hero's welcome when I tell her that Thailand just won't fit the bill.  Win, win, win.  Just how I like it.

David

     David was an odd fellow.  I met him on the beach in Koh Samui, Thailand, way back in once upon a time time, when there was no airport and you had to take a boat to get there.  In the dark days of travel, prior to credit cards, hotel reservations, the internet, e-mail, Facebook, a variety of apps, the distraction of a constant screen in front of you and the even more alienating earbuds, we talked to each other back then, which is how I came to know him.
     He worked 6 months out of the year in the U.S. as a waiter and spent the other 6 months on Koh Samui.  Back then, you could get your own cottage on the beach for $1/day.  Sure, you had to bring your own towel, toiletries, there was no hot water, electricity was spotty and the mosquitoes were plentiful, but you had your own cottage on a beach in Thailand.  We all thought it was a pretty good deal.  David would always stay in the exact same guest house, in the exact same cottage.  If someone else happened to be staying in 'his' cottage, which was truly beachfront, not set back like some of the others, the proprietors would move them to accommodate David.  After all, he was going to be there for the next six months, and they wanted to ensure their goose continued to lay that golden baht.  A sparse breakfast was included in the $1/day rate, either banana pancakes or a mixed fruit plate, but he always ate dinner in the restaurant attached to the guest house.  There were other options for eating, he knew it, as did the owners of the guest house.  After breakfast, he'd walk the length of Chaweng Beach, 3 miles one way, 3 miles the other and then go for a swim.  Then he'd settle down on the porch of his cottage and read the day away until dinner time, which, because he didn't eat lunch, was at exactly 4:30 pm. He'd amble up to the restaurant, book in hand and sit at his table.  If someone else happened to be eating that early, the owners would ensure they weren't sitting at David's table.  They had a fairly varied menu, but he had the same thing.  Every. day.  Yellow chicken curry and rice. For six months.  Yeah, an odd fellow. He was well read and we swapped books and recommendations. I traveled on with friends to Malaysia and Indonesia, but ran into David about 2 years later.  I was going to graduate school in Hawaii, and took a bike ride down to Magic Island and there was David, walking.  It must have been in between breakfast and dinner time, because that was the time he always took his walk.  In surprise, I yelled out, "David!" His response?  "Oh, hi Alan, how are you?"  He seemed completely unsurprised that we'd bump into each other in Hawaii after being acquainted on an island in Thailand.  It was the 6 month work season for David, and he was staying in some nasty apartment, squirreling away the dollars before he could get back to Koh Samui.
     I thought he was odd because he was so committed to his routine, but as I get older, I tend to live within my own self defined lines.  I was just thinking about David because here I am, back in Thailand.  I went to Bumrungrad Hospital for a thorough check up because it's just good preventative practice when you reach the ripe age of 55.  Shit happens, and I'm not fond of shit, so I like to prevent that shit from happening, if I can.  I've been to Bumrungrad before, and there is a certain reassuring feeling of going through the same process, seeing the same doctors, and them having access to your past records.  Today, I saw the dentist I saw in 2012.  She asked about my front tooth and if I had decided to get it fixed.  Yesterday, I saw the same dermatologist I saw before and we talked about the nevus mole on my face as he did a whole body skin cancer check.

     Okay, it's not exactly having the same GP in the same town, but we move around a lot.  I've been going to the same restaurant every day. Routines. The name of the restaurant is Thai food very good and very cheap, and there's always plenty of Thais eating there.  And how can you argue with that advertising brilliance?  They had me at very cheap.  I mix up what I eat, and have yet to have a yellow chicken curry with rice, but still, same restaurant every day.  I'm not to the point of eating at the same time and sitting at the same table but that's the direction I'm headed.

     I'm getting ready to head to Chiang Mai to settle down for a bit and explore the areas of Chiang Mai I haven't seen before on a bike.  I know the Eastern part of Chiang Mai and the Old City pretty well, it's where I first went back in 1984, and every time I've returned, my lizard brain just takes me right back to the same part of town.  I'll start out in the Eastern section and get on a bike for a few days to look for a longer term rental.  I'll be taking a look see at the Western section this time as you can get a decent apartment for just over $200/month. But the smart money should bet on me ending up somewhere in the Old City or the Eastern side of town.  I'll meet a few travellers while there (if the screens of smartphones and tablets can be penetrated) and someone will likely go home and say, "That  Alan, he was an odd fellow."  

The edger and the bookshelf

     I sold the edger today.  The lawnmower and blower were long gone, as is pretty much everything else in our house, but getting rid of the edger, well that was a feeling of complete liberation.  This is quite a shift.  And 'this' is a move from a 2500 square foot house in TX (with accompanying lawn, that required lots of edging with the long sidewalk on our corner lot) to a 693 square foot apartment in VA.   Gwyne's gone, she's already in VA, toiling away in the salt mines.  She left me here to sell the house, pack what is left and head over to the East Coast.  As I told her, leaving me behind to decide what we need and what we don't need was a very dangerous proposition.  No one who knows me would ever accuse me of being a sentimental old fool.  Old, yes.  Sentimental and a fool, particularly when it came to what we should get rid of, oh no.  Before she left, we took a tour of the house and marked what we were going to keep and what we were going to sell.  I set up Jim Cramer's sell sell sell! soundbite on my iPhone and hit it frequently as we went in each room.  The downsizing from 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a bonus room (that ended up being a storage room for the kid's crap) to a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment required some serious sell sell selling!  And I was just the guy to do it.  The link to the soundbite, if you're not familiar with it is, below.

http://www.hark.com/clips/qcwcxwjqxg-sell-sell-sell-button

     There are plenty of things that were no brainers - anything required to lawn care, for example.  Sell sell sell! There were other things that were harder (for some) to let go of.  We kept most of our knickknacks, paddy whacks, geegaws and shiny baubles, but pretty much everything else didn't fit in the I have warm and fuzzy feelings category (sell sell sell!) and I definitely didn't want to keep hauling them around the world.  Like this:

It's a huge, two piece hand carved mahogany bookshelf from Indonesia that I bought in Saipan.  I still remember loading it into the back of my pick up truck with brother Ed and bringing it into our 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment there.  It was subsequently moved to the Marshall Islands, where it resided in a trailer, 400 series housing, new housing and 200 series housing, Colorado Springs, San Antonio and Fort Worth.  And pretty much every place it was moved, the movers looked at it and said, "I don't think it's going to fit."  But somehow, it managed to go through the doors, turn the corners and find a home.  I tried to sell it before, but was persuaded not to (sell sell sell!) by one or more of the people in my life with sensitive feelings.

     In the process of downshifting, I feel as if I've climbed that mountain and am now getting ready to enjoy the exhilarating downhill ride.  No more almost daily visits to Home Depot or Lowes.  No maintenance.  No lawn.  No lawn care, no mowing, no hedge trimming, no aerating, no fertilizing, no weeding and...no more mf edging.  No cars.  2 minutes from the Metro.  2 minutes from Trader Joe's in one direction and 2 minutes from a Whole Foods in the other direction.  

      In addition to the change from suburban to city life, I'm just about to shift gears again too.  It's either back to work in some shape or form or a three month bicycle tour of Thailand and Burma for me.  And no, that bookshelf won't be slowing me down as I pedal along.  That's somebody else's millstone to drag through life now.  You are the weakest link...Goodbye!

The romance and reality

1.  Google maps - the shortest route isn't always the easiest route.  Check the topography before you cycle off.

2.  Google maps again.  On the way from Laguna Niguel to Oceanside, I listened, dutifully took the left hand turn and pedaled up the impossibly steep road, stopping a few times along the way.  Then it took me for a loop and told me to go back down the same road I came up.  I'm pleased that Google dropped their corporate motto, "Don't be evil" because that trick was supremely evil.
3.  I packed too much.  I planned to possibly camp along the way, but I decided to be honest with myself.  I don't want to pitch a tent after a long day in the saddle and I'm too attached to running water and power to schlep it out for a night in the tent, so I sent home the front two panniers and my tent.
4.  Ask the locals questions, particularly about topography, water points and food availability up ahead.  They live there and are mostly extremely helpful.
5.  It's okay to stop, take a rest and then get back on the bicycle.  This is meant to be enjoyable, not painful.
6.  Every hill so far has been painful.  Some way more than others, but every hill has hurt and I've had to stop multiple times on the biggies.  And even after I offloaded 11+ lbs of gear, every hill continued to remind me of the Princess Bride - to the pain.
7.  The trip from Oceanside to El Cajon confirmed my hatred for all things with a grade of 4% or more.  The 1.5 mile climb at Torrey Pines with 6 - 8% grade really sucked.  Pedal, stop, pedal, stop, pedal stop, repeat.  And the last 10 miles into El Cajon were pretty much all uphill, some parts of it steeper than others.  If someone was offering EPO or blood doping in the middle of the hill, I would have been their first customer.

Before the real mountains started, I took two rest days in El Cajon.  There is a large group of Chaldean Iraqis here, and I definitely enjoyed being reacquainted with Middle Eastern fare.  And after the mountains in CA, the high desert, and the vast expanses of nothingness between one hamlet and another burg (which, btw have nothing to do with quiet desperation, their desperation is screaming, yelling and flailing about) and the magnificently crappy shoulders on the roads and the continuing hills, I feel great about my decision.  The hills yesterday and today were no problem at all.  Whenever I came to one, I'd just give that gas pedal a slight push and my rental car responded like a champ.  And the miles of nothingness in the desert - the impossible miles of emptiness that I would have been riding?  They just passed by quite pleasantly with a smug grin on my face.

These folks have about 70+ miles of bleakness to ride through.  

It's okay to shift gears when things don't go according to plan.  I am driving the bicycle route, but I saw no reason to continue to inflict unnecessary pain upon myself or my surgically repaired (twice) knee.  The reality of the trip did not meet the romance, and I'm completely comfortable with my decision.

I'm still on for a trip to Thailand/Burma possibly Malaysia in Sept/Oct/Nov, but I anticipate it will be a rental bicycle trip to explore each city/town on a bike after my overnight sleeper train where somebody turns down my bed rather than an expeditionary cycle touring trip.

                               Do you want these guys to turn your bed down?  Didn't think so.

Rest day?

     Yesterday was going to be kind of a rest day, only 20 miles from Irvine to Laguna Niguel.  I've been starting off at the ass crack of dawn, so it felt decadent to eat breakfast, hang out and talk story about Saipan and Afghanistan, eat lunch and then hit the road at 1330.  This time, my old friend Lothar Cramer wanted to do some of the ride with me, and as an avid cyclist, he is quite familiar with the route and area.  I've been using Google maps for cyclists (yes, I know, it's in beta form) and so far, what I lovingly refer to as my bitch has guided me, turn by turn, to my destination.  The ride was fine until Lothar pointed upwards and said, "That's where we're going."  So, I employed my strategy of stopping when tired, and pedaling on when my heart rate slowed down a bit.
     And to channel a bit of Marshawn Lynch, I'd like to give a shout out to my parents, who endured me for 2 weeks while I put my kit together in Santa Barbara, shout out to Michael and Nikki Blair for their hospitality in Culver City, shout out to South Central L.A. for not jumping this white boy as I rode through the neighborhood on a loaded touring bicycle, shout out to Victoria and Brainard Jones in Irvine for their kindness and a shout out to Lothar and Emily Cramer for opening their home in Laguna Niguel.  Also, a future shout out to Sandee Aga and Rod Hepburn, who have offered an overnight stay at their homes - everyone's generosity and kindness is much appreciated.
     My bitch, so far, has been very good to me, guiding me along some fantastic routes through residential areas and finding lovely bicycle paths.  She even took me past the worlds oldest continuously operating McDonalds, in Downey, CA.

     But when I showed Lothar where my bitch was planning on taking me tomorrow (now today) he said, "Oh, you don't want to go there."  And this is coming from a serious cyclist, one who has a set training schedule, one who races, a real MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra), the man doesn't even stop on hills.  That's the good news, potential soul crushing hills at the beginning of the ride averted.  The bad news is that at the end of my 50 mile ride tomorrow, I was told yesterday that there was one 'mother of a hill' on the way to my next shelter.  But unlike Lothar, I'm not a racer.  I'm a plodder.  And today, I pedal and plod down towards Oceanside, CA, and that mother of a hill at the end of the ride.

                                  Victoria and Celine, then in Thailand, and Victoria now, all grown up.  

Culver City - Central LA - ish to Irvine

     What's a day like?  With a sample size of three days, here it is:  It all starts the afternoon/night before.  Whenever I get to my destination, I wash my bike clothes by hand (taking a nice cold shower at the same time), put on some human clothes, and check/plan my route and take a look see at the weather for the next end point.  This will change slightly once I'm in San Diego and I can rely on the ACA map set for the Southern Tier, for now I'm wending my way through Southern CA towards (cue scary music)...the mountains.  Today, the route guidance gave me the choice of taking the coast road towards Irvine (at a cost of 66 miles) or an inland ride (price = 63 miles) or what I thought was the best bargain of 57 miles.  But it did take me through South Central LA.  Those who know me well know where  I pedaled today.  South Central, yeah, that was interesting.  I don't think they see a lot of loaded touring cyclists pass through there.  I missed a turn along the way, paying the extra 9 mile penalty.
     And ever since I bonked in Kuwait on a bike ride, I'm really serious about hydration.  I do drink a cup or two of dehydrating coffee in the am, but then always try to have a Gatorade to start the day and there will be little to no alcohol along this trip.  You can't drink when you're cycling, you're tired at the end of the day, it's dehydrating and in the places I'm stopping, it would be hard to get just a single decent bottle of beer.  After the Gatorade guzzling, I carry a Camelback Mule that I drink water from the rest of the day.  And this leads to a slight problem.  My wife informs me that public urination is frowned upon in the U.S. and is in fact illegal in certain municipalities.  What do I look like, some kind of dromedary?  When a man's gotta go, a man's gotta go.  In the more rural areas, it's not really an issue, it's pretty easy to pull off the side of the road and take care of business stealthily.  Today, I went through an industrial area and had to relieve myself a few times between when I pushed off and when I finished the ride for the day.  And for that, it's so much easier to be a man.

   
     

The legs

     I have tiny, little, skinny bird legs.  And I'm not comparing my legs to a bird's femur, more like the fibula.  Stick like.  Many moons ago, we were driving back from a heiau somewhere in Hawaii.  I saw an older Asian man and I pointed out the thinness of his legs to my wife (who was from Ukrainian stock) and she said, "Yours are about the same size."  Ouch.  Well, at least that got me to to take a look see at my legs and realize she was right.  I think the only time my legs increased in size was when I was living in Newport Beach and riding a bike every day, sometimes, I'd ride up to Santa Monica, once, I took a completely unplanned trip down to Baja California - I pointed southward and pedaled.  I don't believe my legs will ever get to the point where I'm outside of the bird category, I can only hope for a move from sparrow to chicken to goose to turkey.  There may be a crow between the sparrow and chicken, hopefully before I get to the mountains.
     And today, I rode from Oxnard to Culver City.  There is a surprising elevation gain between County Line and the other side of Malibu that one does not feel much when driving by in a car. Thanks to the google maps gods, I was directed by my voice navigation not up the mountain that leads to Pepperdine University, but down along the rich folks who live on Malibu road.  Winning!  So I got my first taste of hills today and friends, they were entirely devoid of sugar.  Because I am completely lacking in shame, I have a strategy that I think will work - I stop when my bird legs quiver or get tired, take a few minutes, then get back in the saddle.  I think I should have asked the Norwegian guy in India just how long it took him to be able to handle the mountains.