Just like when we were cruising, folks ask what we do all day just anchored in one cove/town, one place, and in this case one room. ADL’s was the answer we gave so frequently when we were on the boat. Activities of Daily Living: those same goals they require in nursing homes for the institutionalized so they don’t develop lividity.

Time goes so quickly you have to remember to do “one chore a day for the boat,” and for us in Thailand, besides our ablutions and feeding (which is no less than sumptuous even when we eat at our room), that amounts to cleaning our digs, washing clothes (major room cleaning and linens provided weekly), catching up on local home news, national and international happenings (digitally, of course with websites [Durango Herald, Huff Post, CNN, Aljazeera, FiveThirtyEight], subscriptions [Economist, New Yorker and Atlantic], and podcasts [New York Times, Science Friday, Wait Wait… and Planet Money].

Then, tg’s studying Thai (vocabulary flash cards, audio alphabet and phrases, plus translations of menus and signs photographed with later interpretation using Google Translate) Stanna working occasionally with Chalong on her ESL professional papers and presentations, to challenges us. Oh, and keeping up with friends with Chats, Messages (text) and FaceTime, not to mention a blog.

And additionally on the home front, we get to read books (Kindle app for Stanna on the iPhone and iPad – Audible on the iPhone for tg), watch videos of recent movies, provided by the local residents (most of the 2015 new releases) on USB flash drives, and now we can use our Netflix subscription (albeit with limited content availability) to stream movies and TV serials like Narco, Jessica Jones and Making a Murderer. Entertaining podcasts such as Serial, Undisclosed, Hidden Brain, This American Life, and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me fill in when you feel like veggin’ out, or the latest word is “chillin’”.

We have a number of venues to relax, read and chat in. Lounging by the ponds, out at our back yard table and chairs, the front porch, our Belgian friends’ porch and we can use the social eating and gathering sala if we choose. Much like Paradox we’ve got a “big yard” and plenty of room to hang out.

This belabored dialog is simply to encourage those of you retired folks in cold, inclement and closed-in climes to consider all the advantages of coming to Thailand where the weather is warm, the people are friendly and the conveniences are plenty.

Is it worth reminding you that this arrangement costs us $150 a month for our apartment (Stanna reminds me another $ 9-10 for electricity), $45 a month for a scooter with $1.40 for gas each week. Our most expensive and best dinner-sized meal costs us $6.25 for two, if Stanna doesn’t have a beer, and normally lunch costs about $1.20 each.

Our regular blogs should explain what we do when we leave our residence, which we have to do almost every day to forage for Thai food, whether we eat out (at least once a day), or bring it home as a take-home delight from the carts, markets and carry-out restaurants all over Trang. Or when visiting with our Thai friends and cycle touring.

We would never say this is better than cruising on Paradox, but it’s a very similar and far less expensive alternative. And there is no guilt for not shoveling your neighbor’s walk.

Three times now, I’ve been part of the Pot-top presentation to the Haui Yot Hospital about 25 miles north of Trang.  The Trang Cycling Club collects pop-tops over time, off their own beverage consumption, from roadside trash, and who knows where. Maybe once a year (I’ve been three different years) they cycle as a group to present the aluminum to the doctor director of the hospital in typical Thai fashion: a speech from both parties and hundreds of photo shots.  On this occasion 25-plus cyclists pedaled the 45-km ride with their saddle bags and handlebars loaded with pop-tops. (The club and their various factions and splinter groups is said to be more than 350 and growing rapidly.)  So we don’t know just how many locals collect pop-tops, but it’s a dedicated group, in any case, to aggregate more than 30 pounds of those little clips.

As the blog title says, these pop-tops go to helping amputees.  This quality of aluminum is evidently best for forming prosthetic limbs and the Haui Yot Hospital works directly with converting this resource into helping the disabled.  Our presentation day was timed to coincide with a “eat and be healthy fair” in the hospital parking lot.  So we were pressed forward to the ever-present popup bandstand, with its rock concert speaker setup, and greeted at full volume, to the curious crowd sampling 6 kinds of blended fruit and vegetable smoothies, health remedies and fitness promotions.  (The four blends I sampled must have been responsible for the faster pace I experience on the homeward ride.)

Of course Thai ceremonies, fairs and festivals always include entertainment, hence the bandstands (which BTW you see daily traveling the highways, speakers bulging off the back of pickups).  We missed these dancers’ performance, but they were being interviewed as we arrived. It isn’t polite to comment on their “style”.  Surely a historic tradition of a bygone time.

For those of us wanting a little longer ride, culture or tour, half of us ventured farther north to a Karst limestone cave whose many chambers and caverns proffered its Buddhist statuary and tributes.

Just another weekend club ride. Next week we’re going further north to the island Koh LIbong for their festival.

[Here is a link to the Malaspina University Geology website with a graphic that explains how Karst’s are formed]

We’re back in Trang and it feels like our second home. Our room is changed (down three doors), the layout is the mirror image and they’ve added a table and chairs out back with the recliner we appropriated last year.  Our red plastic storage box was already in our room so we only had to unpack our meager household items (dishes and containers, utensils, hangers, exercise ball and yoga mat) to feel settled in. We brought almost the exact same clothes as last year (thanks to our lists and photos) so outside of provisioning we’re at home again.

We no sooner unpacked clothes and jumped in the shower after 48 hours of door-to-door travel (including 6 hours’ sleep in an airport hotel in Bangkok – we avoid going into downtown Bangkok at all cost) when TigerSong and Chalong pulled up with news about a 300-person ride with the governor of Trang the next morning. All I needed was my bike from SunSern and to change out pedals and saddle.  That involved contacting SunSern, a quick trip to town, faster equipment change and a 7-km ride back to our digs.

I made it.  Best way to postpone jet lag. I got one of the two places of honor riding on the right of the Govenor for four hours.  Slowest I’ve ever pedaled uphill (you couldn’t get a wheel ahead to embarrass him).  We rode to Ban Samran on the coast where there was a very large festival in progress. Ride home was much faster on my own, but at the end of 118 km I was toast.

More like Zonked.  Stanna stayed in Trang provisioning on our motor scooter.