Moving to Bang Lanphu

Our days in Sukumvit are over and we are moving to Bang  Lamphu area wich has a more cozy home feeling, it also make it easier to reach our favorite places such as Chinatown, Littelindia or the Chao Phraya river very good for a refreshing walk.

This will be a daily sight for  me for the next four months.

Getting there was amazing i love to ride in the chaothic streets of Bangkok where the traffic moves like a giant slow worm, the heat from the burning sun or the exousts taking your breath away...not to mention the general madness, scooters coming from everywhere, fruit wagons crossing the road smoke from bbq's, somebody welding under a busy bus stop, small distractions that will lead u spreated on the back of a bus if you are not carefull.
We located ourselfs at the Riverline g.h., a very quiet place lost in the small alleys over the Bang Lamphu canal, where we sat down and made a plan for the future, got ticket to Ubon Rachathani on thursday for a 12 hours ride on a night train,wow sleepers wagons never done one of those!bed too short for my two meters! gave a check to the bikes and found a damage after the flight, a squashed tubus rack but still working and the very usual on my trip, bended dropout that give a cruncy feeling to the drive train, well a bike is suppose to ride not to fly hope i will learn the lesson sooner or later!

Arrrrrr!!!!!!!!

12-13\1\2013 Bang Lamphu district festival

Leaving and arriving

Here we are, repacking and checking that nothing is missing in our touring kit, this year we are going pretty light since the airline we fly with only allowes 30 kg each, pretty much somebody would think but we like to be confortable and carry half of our home with us, anyway four months is not a race against time!
Packing the bikes is the most stressfull thing about the whole trip, and of course i left it for  the night before leaving, aldough i knew we where waking up early the morning after, i ended up fixing the last thausands small things till 3am, to releave the stress some few drinks,  then out for a walk to say good by to the city and there it was my saviour for the morning after!!!!!

The newspaperwagon! It might look silly but trust me it saves u a swet on the way to the bus stop.

After a long flight and a nine hours sleep over in Dubai airport we finally made it to Bangkok.

This time we got to the city by train and skytrain, since it was to late too ride and had no lights, ooops,  the Sukumvit area is where we are gonna stay for the first day cuz we never seen it before, found a cheap room on the internet and ther's a skytrain stop very close to us, perfect when you arrive jet laged and with a huge bikebox.

Got off at Thong Lo, and put the bikes together at the entrance of the train to have some peace while creating our own mess of bags and tools

By the way, how great is it to have someone doing all the job while you take pictures!!

The Sukumvit area is not too bad actually i have to say, beside those nasty rapresentatives of the western world (you should see with your own eyes and understend what i mean if u dont...), we really enjoyed it, is kind o a shock compared to what we are use to in bangkok, shiny high buildings, malls restaurents and top end hotels goes along the main drag andquiet street life is harder to find.

It dind take too long before we found our favorite vegetarian resturant and had a delicious meal, in the aria ther's a lot of food courts with veggie food we foun 3 the first day out!

   

Preparation

Her's some pictures about what is happening before the ride such as our bikes under preparation and all the stuff we r gonna carry around for the next months...

 Stine's stuff laying on the bed,

and mine packed, this trip we will be travelling light with two back panniers and a handlebar bag, despite this, ill still carry my front bags to collect as much crap as i can from around...i always end up with a huge load anyway...

And this is my bike, ready to go i hope!