So how’s it going, one might ask – the shoulder, the trip(s), the rehab, the separation, the benching, the touring. Great! As with early retirement, “how did I ever have time for work”. Loving it actually.  The freedom to chase any rabbit that scampers across the ADHD landscape of the idol mind.  The ability to focus deeper than casual-ality allows.  Being one that could only read, when all the other distractions and chores were stowed, it’s great to follow a thread without reaching an early snag. Not that those threads come from any great fabric, more like following early childhood wonderment. Why not look that up!  Could it be that difficult to master Thai tones? Could I actually learn Objective C+? Now, if I was bandwidth-less, it might be another story, but right now it’s just great. Great!

What’s probably the most fun is not being on any schedule, save sustenance. This isn’t any monkish pursuit, just an opportunity presented by a manufactures defect, a spouses retreat, involuntary immobility and isolated comfort with broadband.  I have been making the rounds with my Thai friends, not a clue what most the conversation’s about. Wonder if there’s an app for detecting “trite prose” or for translating it into impressive trivia?  No Joy!

I’m smiling, just now, thinking about a friend who commented that he was waiting for a translation of an email. Perhaps he’ll be asking for one of this. So I should get on with “How’s it going”, besides the supercilious, great.

The shoulder was (emphasis was) 95% on Saturday when I consented to join as cycling marshal to a running race with the Trang Cycling Club (TCC). It was a 7 km race not far from the couch, and a good chance to test out the recovery.  All’s well, home by 9 AM more rest, and then an evening visit to the Thai version of a Baby Shower (on the anniversary of the first month – much more practical as you get to see the child and men are invited).  At the shower the TCC members offered to drive us to yet another short “fun run” out in the country a waterfall we’ve often cycled to.  Okay, 9 km to the pick-up point, a 6 km run up a paved road and then back home.

Unfortunately I felt sooooo good that I decided to say yes to riding back home, maybe 35 km. Not to worry it was still early in the day, I was on the mountain bike, no pain, it had been 15 days since the accident. The ride was fun, I did just fine, strong in fact, but the guys decided since this was their normal Sunday ride it should stretch out some.  I knew we were taking a different way home but it never occurred to me it would be almost 90 km by the time I hit the shower.  Felt good the whole way, only when I got out of the shower did I slip back to 70% healed. So I’m back in rehab for another week or at least until memory or swelling fades, whichever comes first.

Stanna is enjoying her Wednesday Ladies Hiking group outing, for at least another 3 Wednesdays.  Been to India, currently in Bhutan and soon to be in Nepal. The best thing I heard was, “I’m sure you would not be happy on this trip”, but “we probably need to come back to Bhutan by ourselves”.  India and even Bhutan hotels all have wifi so we’ve “talked”/texted each day. I wasn’t sure any photo log of the adventure was ensuing, because none to the messages or emails had a single shot.  It was when I switched the MB Air over to Stanna’s user side that I saw her iPhone Photo Stream was in high gear and had uploaded almost 600 photos thru the Cloud and back to the MBAir I’m typing on.  Little did this tech savvy guy know, she had it totally under control and was worried the 1,000 iCloud limit would lose the earliest photos. (It doesn’t, if you have a computer with iPhoto pulling each photo off the cloud.  Done automatically in the Mac world.)

With my spouse away the Thai mice want to play, more. My friend SunSern has seen to it that I’m not excluded from anything interesting going on, not to mention lunches where he wanted to let me experience those Thai treats most farangs/westerners wouldn’t conscience.  You know, foods hyped on those reality shows.  I’ve now tried just about every part of the pig, except that one featured on the Planet Money show about calamari (don’t ask).  As my dad used to say, “I’ve had it twice, my first and last time!”.

Most interesting this week was the search for a foundry that would melt a metal specimen  that TigerSong got from his son’t metallurgy program. Said to be super special, he wanted

to see if they could forge it into a knife – while we wait I might add.  An old master was found at the second foundry and they fired up a forge and blower, and within minutes the egg-sized cube was welded to a piece of rebar and glowing that iridescent orange.
Assigned to photograph the process I jumped when the glowing cube came quickly out of the blast furnace and dropped onto a steel stump. Bang, bang, bang and it was over.  Stopped.  It wasn’t until 15 minutes later I learn why they had search for a more suitable scrap of metal in the “bone pile” and began forging another knife.  The first premium select pilfered cube had cracked on the second swing of the sledge.  Not good, it wouldn’t flow and therefore was unsuitable for sledging into a blade.  Interesting process, this rural shed-style foundry specializes in making Rubber Tree knives.  Crude knives with a centimeter hooked blade for scarring the tree such that the liquid runs into it’s cup everyday for 30 years.

As for the other exercises: the Thai tones are near impossible for an aging tone deaf guy, the book on Shame by Brenè Brown outstanding, and I’m now a struggling dyslexic coder.

Plus I have another week till blog-a-sition 101 homework again.

Most tourists don’t have to consider visa renewal as a part of their travels. And for foreigners visiting the US they can easily see most of the US in their 90-day visa allowance.  In many countries US citizens are allowed 30 days automatic visa with no prior approval (other than TSA, the airlines and all those other secret agencies).

Thailand is one of those countries that automatically give the US tourist a 30-day visa on entry.  Since we like to be considered a traveller rather than a tourist by lingering longer in a country, we have to consider longer visas or visa renewals. Throughout our sailing adventures we faced this same requirement, so it’s common and easy to deal with in Thailand.  In our case this year we purchased, thru the Thai consulate in the States, two 60-day renewable visas so that we only had to leave the country one time during our 100+ day stay.

Most of the younger tourists do a “visa run” every 30 days, and almost every city has a travel agent that can book your “visa run” to the nearest border.  A van ride with 13 other “farangs” costs between  $20 and $30 to zip you to the border and back in a long but fast day.  I say “fast” because these vans travel at light-speed, and their license evidently allows them to drive with impunity.

You check out of Thailand, walk across the no-mans-land a hundred yards to Malaysia where you check-in at one window and check-out at the next window (if you don’t want to wander around their boarder kiosks).  Then back the same distance and check-in to Thailand for your automatic 30 days or in our case the second 60-day pre-approved allowance.  (It used to be only 15 days at a border crossing, but in November 2013 they changed it to 30 days, same as arriving by air.)  Stanna wouldn’t have needed the extra 60 days had we known, because she only needed 10 days before her next adventure.

She also didn’t count on my injuring my right shoulder and squelching her chance for a hair trim.  Our Belgian friend Louisa gladly filled in after doing her husband Rik’s hair.  I’d visited the local Thai barber earlier in the week which is an amazing experience for 70 baht ($2).  No waiting, takes 5 minutes (when you want it all off) and he even shaves you with a straight razor blade. He did miss one thing, because Louisa gave me an eyebrow trim which I’d never had before. Wonder how often I’ll have to add that to my list at home when I run the #1 blade over my head. Something tells me I probably need to choose the #3 instead.

Other than visas and personal grooming, the week has been subdued by shoulder recovery.  The expectation that it would heal in 4 or 5 days has been dashed and searching the Web narrows the prospect down to a tear or contusion in the right

rotator cuff region.  Thanks to a couple of internet consults with friends in the know, and a visit to a local highly regarded Thai physician, I should avoid the call for surgery and concentrate on stabilization, medication and rest – with a little mild personal PT as pain allows. Photo credit to NYTimes and ADAM, Inc. Every day it’s incrementally better and the sling is still in use.

Last on Stanna’s list of Trang highlights, besides one final trip to our favorite Panang Curry restaurant (sparing you the photo), was visiting the Buddha we watched being cast two years ago just adjacent to a Temple addition here in Trang.  One of our past blogs featured that process and the fact that we wrote our names on metal foil that was added to the boiling metal before it was poured into the inverted molds. The temple now
has walls which are in the process of being painted with various Buddhist stories and symbology. Some of the painting is gilded with gold as you can see in the photo above. All the filigreed plaster trim and tiny glass mosaic for the temple is produced on site inside the cavernous temple.  Thailand has over 37,000 temples and most are added on to and finished as contributions allow. Perhaps next year, if we visit Trang, they might have the interior and exterior completed.  I’m including a couple of photos from the casting process we watched in 2012. They melted the bronze, and for the top-knot gold, right on site and then in an elaborate ceremony in the evening, ritually poured the molten metal contributions into heated casts.  The sculpture was cast in three parts plus the top-knot. We learned that in this day-and-age the castings were transported back to Bangkok where they were brazed together and finished, before shipment back to Trang.

Some folks are trying to escape from technology while on holiday or vacation, whereas we embrace it.  For example, it’s great to be hooked up with Dragonfly and watch her transit the “Big Ditch”. Or learn exactly where Mike Taylor and John Lawson are laying over on their winter adventure down the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. We even view the webcam at 8th and Main in Durango regularly to see how little snow has fallen in town, or the temp in our condo and the solar gain on our PV system.  Not to mention keeping up with the Durango Herald cover to cover if we choose.  We’re current with all three of our magazine subscriptions – The New Yorker, The Economist and The Atlantic. Plus the TED talks, This American Life, Planet Money, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Car Talk and Weaving podcasts. Hardly a day goes by without an email or text message and at least once a week we are viewing friends and family on FaceTime (Apple iOS’s Skype).  Reviewing all this reminds me of that perennial question we were asked while we were cruising: “What do you do all day?”

Following Dragonfly thru the canal this week was pretty unusual in our daily routine, in fact it wasn’t even in our day. We learned of the transit time via email and then iMessage, we set an alarm and then watched diligently until we saw DF enter the locks. (The Panama Canal Authority has several 24/7 Cam’s.) We managed a number of screen captures on our iPads to send to DF while they were enroute as all their hands were busy.

Even with the graininess, Dragonfly is very distinctive coming into the Miraflores locks (about 2:30 AM for us).  For those who’ve never seen a small boat transit the canal, rising up the smaller craft follow a big ship and going down they preceed a ship.  This can be very intimidating when the crew chances to glance back over the stern and see what’s looming directly overhead.  We also watched DF’s progress on their Spot Locator which was turned on to the Tracking feature so we knew where they were every 10 minutes of the cross-country passage.

Speaking of Spot Tracking we’re also following our whitewater rafting buddies in the Grand Canyon as they progress down the Colorado River.  Daily Spot “check-in” shows their location, and if they layover and day-hike we see the track for that particular hike. I suspect these unusually warm temperatures in the southwest are making this winter rafting trip much more enjoyable.

Another event we caught on a webcam was the annual Durango Snowdown Parade.  The 7th and Main webcam showed every float that passed by, albeit the parade was only street light lit, except when the balloon basket heaters fired up casting light for a hundred feet in all directions.

I also mentioned monitoring the condo with several apps.  The Nest app shows us thermostat setting, current temp and energy history, plus we can change the settings and schedule anytime we choose.

Yes, we do miss our condo and our Tempurpedic bed, but mostly we miss hearing from you and what you’re up to.  Drop us an email or send us a photo so we can keep up with you, too.

Been doing a lot of “touring” with the English cyclists and very little time for blogging.

Maybe  “Having a wonderful time wish you were here” would suffice. Visiting many of the spots we’ve already blogged about so photos are a little sparse. What is special about riding with this group has been the ability to talk and share the things we’ve learned about Thailand and the area we live in.  As you might imagine I don’t have much conversation when cycling with all my Thai buddies. Their English is enough to keep me out of trouble “Turn Right” and they know all of the 12 words of vocabulary I can understand, like the question “[you want] Khoa man kai?”.  With the English I can actually suggest “Would you like Chicken on Rice?” and they seem to understand my Yank accent just fine.

Thanks again to Chris, the tour leader, who allowed Stanna and me to accompany the group on most of the cycling legs of their tour around Trang. I’d sure like to show some Durango cyclists and friends this same area they enjoyed.  Let’s think about a couple weeks next year to get you all out here in the warm weather next winter.

The last day TigerSong led the group in a slow tour on the “back roads” right around Trang.  Mileage was short but the sights were great as he knew of sights we’d never seen within 5 km of our apartment.  One place was a shed we pass twice a day every day that forges agricultural knives.  We thought they were making charcoal but when TigerSong had us stop and dismount we could see and hear the “cling cling” of the

sledgehammers pounding and shaping out the bright orange steel into hooked knives.

It’s been a pleasure the last couple days riding as a guest with an English Cycing Tour group. Actually, I’m more of a shadow rider with the Thai Cycling Club hosts who’ve been lucky to escort this tour group for the last several years here on their home turf.  Not having been on a cycling tour since the Eurtrip days of the 70’s in Germany, it’s been fun riding with a small touring group again.

Chris Ellison, who has been running a cycle tour thru and around Trang for the last eight years, among the many other cycle tours he leads out of England, has been gracious to let me ride along. His group this year numbers 13, and they started in Bangkok with a 16-hour overnight train ride to Phatthalung (65 km and one mountain range east of Trang). We met their train, and with the help of the Phatthalung Cycling Club escorted them over the hills and into Trang for their first day’s adventure.

Since the train was late, a couple of the Trang Club members took me to the house of a friend in the Phatthalung Club, which was actually a bakery for Thai pastries.  It was only after consuming three different Thai sweet treats did I realize there was a pork vegetable rice soup served followed by a pineapple and kale soup.  Top that off with chestnuts and sweet sticky coconut balls and I was happy the train was still delayed another hour.  Mr Yao and I took a 25km ride out to the lake front and toured a popular waterside temple long before opening time, which helped to dissipate the fullness.

After off-loading the 12 bikes (Chris leaves a bike here, like me) and securing a breakfast for the group, we headed for the hills, stopping to view still another cave Wat (temple) I hadn’t seen before.

This one’s just off the main highway and must get bus-loads of tourists because every inch of the cave was “paved” with paving stones and featured lots of very narrow lighted passages to various chambers and shrines.

Our group easily got spread out in all the caverns.  The climb over the hill was hot (93°) and tiresome for the travelers, who’d managed very little sleep on the train, but a short rest at the hilltop shrine and a long downhill made the climb only a past memory.

The next day Stanna and I accompanied the group to the west coast, about a 45-km ride, where they embarked on a two-day trip to Libong Island, where they’ll visit the famous Emerald Cave we swam into several years back.  I’ll cycle with them tomorrow back to Trang and then next week Stanna and I will get to ride with them out onto Sukorn Island, which I described in a post from several years’ back as a cyclists’ paradise.

Smaller group, longer ride. This Sunday’s riders were pared down to just six, due to several conflicts. The Trang Cycle Club acts as riding “marshals” to all the local foot-races and fun runs so many members helped with that pre-dawn start. I’m guessing that the announced biking destination to Yong Star Cape on the coast convinced several more riders that the distance and destination was too far off, perhaps. Or maybe it was the route and 95° temps scheduled for the day.  I logged 140 km door-to-door and counted only 5 food stops in the 9 hour ride. The first stop was a favorite of the Club (I’d been there twice in years past) famous for it’s noodles. What I’d never noticed was this narrow diner just off the main highway was also famous for it’s flooding. Flood level markers on the walls go all the way back to 2518 or maybe 2418 on the Buddhist calendar

(either 39 or 139 years ago). No matter how long, this place gets flushed by the rising river quite often. The noodles were delicious – A Roi – as well.
The primarily agricultural product in this region was overwhelmingly rubber “water”. Rolling hills of rubber tree plantations, each with a collection shed for transferring the liquid from pails to 5 gallon jugs to 50 gallon barrels and eventually into 500 gallon tanks in pickup beds. Not many of these highway-accessible groves processed their own rubber into mats, they take advantage of easy transport to larger co-ops I’m guessing.  As we neared the coast we crossed over several rivers which sheltered the local fishing fleets.  Once we reached the coast, even with a thick “marine layer” of haze over the water you could see tens of island karsts lurking 2, 5 and 10 km off the coast. In the past we’ve visited at least two of those islands for overnight rides with the club.

Khoa Pat (fried rice with seafood) at the shoreside restaurant took about an hour and then it was back to Trang on a circuitous route which included ice cream of course.

At 72 miles the group leader Mr. Ban wanted to show me another karst top Wat and the other riders opted out.  Fortunately this road was paved but still it was a first-gear out-of-the-saddle climb for a half-mile at least.  The views were great, as long as you weren’t trying to photograph Trang to the west and there was a very interesting religious boat float docked in a shed half way up the hill which I didn’t notice until the downhill leg. I’ll have to ask when they break out these treasures and probably place the Wat’s prize sculpture inside the square cupola. This photo of “tins” storing cookies, crackers and sugary snacks is a common site in many of the rural community family stores.  If memory serves me this is/was an archaic method of storing and transporting over oceans and in humid countries. Obviously this technique still has it’s place.

This ride went quicker than most Sundays, so I veered down the Trang
commercial strip and picked up a couple snacks for my Monday day off. We’ve tried to avoid popcorn in Durango lately, but I’m thinking I can afford the carbs here in Thailand.

“Our other car is a …” scooter and we took advantage of it to do some exploring of tourist spots we’d been before on our previous visits. The impetus was to take Rik and Louisa, Belgian friends we’d met here at Ban Wassana in Trang several years back, to some places they’d not seen.  They’ve made at least 7 or 8 trips to Thailand and like us, now always include a lengthy stay in Trang.  Since we both lease scooters while in Trang we’re free to travel wherever and whenever we choose.  These automatic transmission versions are a joy to ride and they get 55 km to the liter, or 157 MPG (more than we thought after doing the math).  With 32.5 Baht to the Dollar that’s $1.00 for 33 miles, making even a Prius profligate.

Thom Le Khao Kob, a water-only accessible cave system was our destination this week. Definitely a “tourist” attraction with the requisite hawkers, photographers and predators hanging out trying to interest you

in all manner of pitches. For 300 Baht ($10) you can rent a low profile skiff with four bench seats and probably room for 8 Thai’s.  Also included in the bargain are two paddlers, one in the bow paddling like the Cuban marine officials coming to visit your boat, a couple of strokes on each side of the bow, the other paddler in the rear providing the power and steering. They work hard to get us down the canal circling the limestone karst, but once we slip under the water entrance to the cave they spend more time “walking” the skiff hand-over-hand on the cave ceiling or back. We hired a boat all to ourselves, save the fore and aft minions.

Very quickly we’re told to lie back so that our bodies don’t protrude above the gunnels. And “watch hands” or “no hands”, rings out often in the Thai English that is about 20% of

their foreign vocabulary.  Photography is more than problematic laying supine and nothing can rise above your flat profile. Peeking up garners a scolding in the tight places so snapshots are a minimum enroute. One ponders, as you see the nascent or fractured stalactites in close proximity to your proboscis, if they can operate the excursion during or after heavy rains.

We’d done this tour before so it was fun to see our friends’ reaction as we got into tight spots and then broke into lighted caverns.  Once inside it’s possible to walk a 20-minute circuit thru colored lit chambers featuring limestone drip sculptures from different eras of the past. Thai culture often deems these caves or geological architecture as scared and decorates it appropriately.  Many chambers were festooned with buddhist trappings on prominent perches.  Just down the road, that is if you don’t miss the turn like we did (thanks once again to google maps and the iPad), is another ancient cave well above

ground level, in fact it has 7 levels all accessible via crude whitewashed concrete stairs.  This Wat is famous for a past visit by the King Rama the 7th, and has concrete statuary at the various levels which would have to have been built in place, carrying sacks of cement way up into the nooks, niches and window overlooks of the cave network.

We finished the day’s outing visiting the windmill competition site I’d seem on Sunday. I had to ask about the collection I’d seen in the rice fields east of Trang near the Lost Elephant cave. This specific site is situated in the Venturi between two moderate karsts and must produce amplified wind currents to power these Rube-Golberg contraptions.  Click & wait to see & hear windmillsound

They are as colorful as they are capricious, causing the viewer to stand askew of the propellers.  It wasn’t until I’d called my Thai friend SunSern, that we learned the perpendicular tubes at the outer points of the propellers are hollowed-out bamboo tuned to impress the judges. The dangling cups complete the cacophony prized by the competitors.  I thought they were solely to keep the birds away from the ripening rice in the fields.  SunSern said, “Maybe that[‘s] how it started”.

Another week of Fahsong pre-dawn rides is still in the routine even though it curtails evening activities except for Saturday and Sunday nights. They don’t ride on Monday and I choose to ride with the “touring” division of the Trang Cycling Club on Sundays, which doesn’t leave until 8 AM.  Good thing because that is an all-day ride and leaving at 5 AM would make it 12 hours of touring and that’s a lot of food to take in.

Speaking of food, the clutter above left is the detritus after one of our Dim Sum breakfasts where at a minimum eight riders crowd a circular table and stuff down Thai treats.  My new nick-name is Kii Tham, which rhymes with Tom. I’ve learned that I can get any quantity of hard boiled eggs each morning and fill up on those before starting on many of the palm-oil-fried delicacies. Not that it’s all unhealthy, they go thru two or three plates of lettuce leaves and sliced cucumbers before the Thai donuts come out of the Wok. Fahsong (pre-dawn in Thai I’m told) bicycle group is a collection of Trang men who take

this early morning ride 5 days a week and they’ve obviously been doing it for many years. I’d label them as Durango’s B or B+ riders who take the hills on the Trang ring road seriously, providing an endless challenge for the Thai testosterone tigers. They don’t rotate the draft line like we might in the States, they just wait until the lead “bonks” and then zip past with not a care for him catching the tail of the peloton. I’ve thought about taking photos but in the pitch dark it would be stupid and at 20+ MPH it would be foolish. The sprint is only about 17 km (11 miles) but enough to leave everyone pumped and hungry for Dim Sum. It takes me 10km to get to the start and the ride home is another 28, so I’m getting in about 55 km (33 miles) by 7:30.

The Trang Cycling Club is a very diverse group, in that some members never seem to ride with others. However they all know each other and the network helped me get my Cannondale mountain bike repaired.
There are probably 5 or 6 bike shops in town, only one of which specializes in high-end bikes exclusively and another that carries a full range.  The other four deal mostly in kids and cruising style bikes that would compete with the Thai big-box stores called Tesco or BigC.  Many of the Club members are mechanics who handle only scooters and motorcycles, but one member does their high-end bicycle tuning and repair.  Even though it is basically “shade tree” looking, Mr. Piak is great at tuning and troubleshooting problems like I brought: a skipping chain when hitting the pedals with full torque.  We tested, switched-out, replaced, tightened and tuned everything in the drive train before settling on the solution that the middle chain ring is flexing and pulling the chain off the sprockets.  We probably spent 6 hours altogether running down spares to borrow, new parts to try, and tear-downs of clusters, cranks and chains.  They even figured out what year vintage the chain wheel was as we searched for a replacement.  No luck in Trang however, I’ll just not be able to stand on the pedals in middle front and middle back from now on.  BTW this bike is over 15 years old and has seen lots of miles, it’s the same one on which I did a 500-mile section of the Great Divide. It’s retirement is coming soon.