Thailand, Here we are!

The looooooong flight(s), sharing the “wrong” side of the road, Jet. Lag—Bring on Chiang Mai! What shall we do with our six weeks?

20 hours in-flight wears a little thin but EVA Air was great (highly recommended!). Our flight booking included a “Seafood” meal option which of course we chose. Good choice! Shrimp & scallop pasta, seafood quiche, and lovely salmon salad sandwiches. We ate well. We felt like we scored big when the third seat went unoccupied for the 15 hour flight from Toronto to Taipei. We departed in the middle of the night and never saw daylight till Taipei. When the plane landed we curiously noted an absence of that standard “applause” for a safe-landing—which we’ve never understood anyways—a smooth safe landing is kind of an expectation of ours rather than an applause-worthy bonus.

Our first night accommodation is in the Old City part of Chiang Mai and just 4km from the airport so we decided to unbox and reassemble our bikes then negotiate the traffic on our own, skipping the whole taxi biz. With our tired, fuzzy-brains (no brains!), we rolled out two hours later, riding on the left side of the road here in Thailand and it’s a hairy situation for our right-brained selves. There is no 1m rule here, there’s no bike lane, and there’s a lot of traffic. Crosswalks? Ha! They mean nothing.

We somehow made it to our AirBnB in one piece. Our grand plans to nap then go out for an evening explore have been overridden by intense jet lag. We are exactly 12 hours time difference here—8am at home means 8pm here. Hoping to recalibrate our body clocks in the next two days, we will then pedal out for six weeks of unknowns—no reservations, no route maps, no expectations. Just a general direction toward Trat and some islands near Cambodia then Bangkok. We have no idea what each day will bring, it’s just part of the adventure!

Note to self for future reference—two bikes and two boxes do NOT fit into a Ford Escape.

Taipei International Airport

Sunrise at Taipei, awaiting our flight

Some translations are just funny

Chiang Mai

Randy found beer (no surprise here) (35 bhat each = $1.50)