We spent a few days in Bangkok recuperating from our disrupted journey. Of course, we can’t entirely scapegoat Scoot; they did try hard, and we have a four-hour jet lag from which to recover. Four hours is about the minimum that batters me. I wake up at 5am Australian time in the middle of the night and struggle to get back to sleep. So it takes a while.

We’d washed up in a suburban part of Eastern Bangkok named On Nut. It’s a decent little place. There are lots of expats mixed with the locals. A few bars marketed squarely at the older guys we saw, some of them with older Thai women, others with younger, some on their own. Whatever floats your boat, I thought sagely, and took another sip of beer. I quite liked the place in a way. We went for a wander one night, took the train to Asok and walked until we found a busy little Thai restaurant where we dined lavishly. We didn’t realise how close Asok station is to Soi Cowboy, apparently the most notorious of Bangkok’s red light districts, but which did explain the unusually large number of beautiful and scantily clad Thai women in the area.

Dalma wandering around Asok.

One thing we need to get back into is not doing the foreigner (farang) things. It always takes us a few days to stop getting our coffee from Starbucks or Coffee Club. Going to local restaurants rather than the big mall ones. Yesterday, for example, we lunched at a little local place with great reviews, good food, air conditioning, and cold beer, and it cost us a lot less for a great experience. The first day we got coffee from Coffee Club, an Australian chain. Instead of this, yesterday, knowing a) Dalma’s addiction, and b) how grumpy she gets without coffee, I went to get coffee from the train station. Again, good coffee, a hundred metres from the chain shop, at a third of the price. Did it have soy latte with the froth just right? No, but it had double shots and the most remarkable selection of Thai pastries filled with pulled pork or red bean paste.

I admit, the one meal I cannot get used to in Asia is the breakfasts. The rest of the day I’ll quite happily eat whatever is put in front of me, but at 6am, give me a coffee and a danish. But maybe that’s also just me being set in my ways? Perhaps I should try one of the bean danishes today. We travel to get out of our comfort zones, so maybe I need to do this with my breakfasts too. A few days later in Khorat, I would try the Thai breakfast alternatives. If it is true, as Bill Bryson says, that breakfast is the most savage event of the day, I believe that I should probably avoid the savage within and stick to bland western breakfasts. Though I admit, I got used to green curry for breakfast.

We picked up the bikes yesterday. Dalma had to do some work stuff of the “no choice, gotta be done, pucker up sister” variety, so we were both a bit frazzled by the time we set off. Both a bit apprehensive too. On the first day, we’d watched the traffic thinking “well, this isn’t too bad” and congratulating ourselves at our choice of destination. Bangkok? Piece of cake. Unfortunately, the reason for the easy traffic was that it was a public holiday and the next day confirmed our fears of trucks bellowing plumes of blue smoke, taxis with pushy drivers, and motorcycles of all vintages. I did see a shiny new Royal Enfield 350 at one point. We picked up the bikes, a PCX160 and a Click160, from the lovely Joy at Zip Bikes. Her company had only existed for a for a few months and she was seemingly as excited and positive as we were. We’d supposed to have had two PCXs, but one of their bikes had been stolen recently. We set off (with as usual, a bit of an argument about which way we were going) and launched ourselves into Bangkok’s traffic. And you know, once were were in it, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Oh, it was full on and you had to be in the moment at all times, but it wasn’t as aggressive as Delhi, nor as full on as Canggu. No-one honked. No-one drove on the sidewalk. It just worked.

In fact, packing that night, I realised I’d left a vital bit of kit at home. I’d bought Dalma an action cam this year, so we travel with two. She’d dutifully brought everything I told her to, whereas I had left the little screw that attached the camera to the helmet. I tried to work out a solution, but it wasn’t really workable. I wasn’t sure where to find a replacement in Bangkok…until I looked up GoPro accessories. There was a shop 10km away, and I had a bike. I kitted up and launched into Bangkok at 6pm. It was remarkable. And fun. There were enormous night markets opening, train tracks that were lined with houses and cafes, motorcycle shops, Thai motorcycles, so much to look at. I got there in 45 minutes. As you know, I’m not a fast rider, and I was still learning how traffic worked here, so I rode slow. It was shuttered. Bugger.

Shuttered GoPro ship.

I went and knocked anyway, and a sweet little old Thai lady peered out at a motorcyclist in full gear, bravely opened up, found me the screw and sold it to me for 50 baht. It took an hour to get home because there were some knarly bits of traffic and it was getting worse. The night markets were in full swing now, and I wanted to pull over and have a look, but Dalma would have worried, so I kept going. I eventually got home, and realised I should have taken my camera.

So, Dalma still sleeps. It’s 6am and it’ll be time to go for coffee soon to tame the beast. We set off today for Khorat 270km away. After that, who knows? The Lao border, but how to get there? There’s the rub!