How to ride against a gnarly hangover
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Day 34 & 35
Start –Hua Hin, Thailand Finish – Bangkok, Thailand Distance travelled – 200km Words by – Johnny Bang |
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My eyelids slowly flicker open as a regain consciousness, sunlight floods into my pounding head cavity and I squint my eyes closed again. I try to hide from the pain the morning brings. My mouth is dry and tastes like bear shit (I reason to myself that I don’t know what bear shit tastes like and don’t think they have bears in Thailand anyway). Thinking makes my head hurt even more and I make a mental note not the think anymore.
As my situational awareness slowly catches up I realise I am naked on a couch in a room with small sheet only just covering my modesty (I pray that I put it there and not one of my travelling companions). It is not hot but I am sweating like a gypsy with a mortgage. Vague recollections of riding against gnarly hangovers taunt me with lessons unlearned.
I have been woken by Shaun who is frantically running around the room asking ‘what the f*ck just happened!?’ and seemingly stuffing random items into his travel sack. I couldn’t think of anything worse than riding to Bangkok right now but I told Shaun I would ride with him yesterday – and I am a man of my word. I stand up. My body tries to process its new, vertical position, my stomach turns and I run like a schoolgirl, arms flailing to unleash a unholy mess of stomach contents towards the toilet bowl. The resulting crime scene would make the team at NCIS quit their jobs. I clean up and shower and Shaun is gone. Sorry buddy, I am Dan’s problem now.
For all intents and purposes, this should have been an easy day’s ride, but my previous night’s sins haunt me all day in the form of smelly beer burps into my helmet which I cannot escape. Again I miss the Sena (motorbike intercom) as my favourite trick was burping loudly into the mic so the whole team could hear. Now it’s just me, and they smell, and it’s not funny anymore.
When we get to Bangkok Shaun has gone off with his lady-friend so Dan and I find some cheap accommodation and set up camp for the next 2 days.
Our time in Bangkok is spent looking for bike shops to look at my (increasingly noisy) bike. After more than 8 shops it is becoming apparent that no-one local is keep to work on this foreign machine. I am only ever given two distinctly different responses – a smile, a nod of the head, and a ‘no’ OR a frown, a nod of the head, and a ‘no’.
Plan B scenarios are being run in my head daily, but until something does actually break, there is nothing to fix, so on with the show.
As my situational awareness slowly catches up I realise I am naked on a couch in a room with small sheet only just covering my modesty (I pray that I put it there and not one of my travelling companions). It is not hot but I am sweating like a gypsy with a mortgage. Vague recollections of riding against gnarly hangovers taunt me with lessons unlearned.
I have been woken by Shaun who is frantically running around the room asking ‘what the f*ck just happened!?’ and seemingly stuffing random items into his travel sack. I couldn’t think of anything worse than riding to Bangkok right now but I told Shaun I would ride with him yesterday – and I am a man of my word. I stand up. My body tries to process its new, vertical position, my stomach turns and I run like a schoolgirl, arms flailing to unleash a unholy mess of stomach contents towards the toilet bowl. The resulting crime scene would make the team at NCIS quit their jobs. I clean up and shower and Shaun is gone. Sorry buddy, I am Dan’s problem now.
For all intents and purposes, this should have been an easy day’s ride, but my previous night’s sins haunt me all day in the form of smelly beer burps into my helmet which I cannot escape. Again I miss the Sena (motorbike intercom) as my favourite trick was burping loudly into the mic so the whole team could hear. Now it’s just me, and they smell, and it’s not funny anymore.
When we get to Bangkok Shaun has gone off with his lady-friend so Dan and I find some cheap accommodation and set up camp for the next 2 days.
Our time in Bangkok is spent looking for bike shops to look at my (increasingly noisy) bike. After more than 8 shops it is becoming apparent that no-one local is keep to work on this foreign machine. I am only ever given two distinctly different responses – a smile, a nod of the head, and a ‘no’ OR a frown, a nod of the head, and a ‘no’.
Plan B scenarios are being run in my head daily, but until something does actually break, there is nothing to fix, so on with the show.
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