Waking early, we packed out bags at the Kokotel in On Nut. It always takes us a little while to get back into packing efficiently so it took us a little time. We checked out and went down to pack the bikes. My bike (the pcx) was much harder to strap the bags down as it had no strapping points, but we managed. With a quick goodbye to Bangkok, we headed out into the traffic.

And what traffic it was! It wasn’t really aggressive, but there was so much of it! Rossi would, no doubt, have sneered in Italian, but would most certainly not have been happy here. It took us two-and-a-quarter hours to travel 80km. We stopped, parched, for an iced coffee and water and continued on.

Traffic on holiday isn’t like other traffic. Particularly when you’re driving yourself. There is none of that gotta-get-on, gotta make the kilometres, gotta get there in time…at least for us. We had all day to get to Khorat (and we’d take it) The stress came not from being slow, but from being in traffic we weren’t yet used to. Dalma started out anxious (hell, I started out anxious), but as the day went on, we both calmed down. I even saw some of Speedy Dalma that I used to see on Earandil. I’d be pootling along at 80kph, and with a flash and a wave, she’d overtake me and the truck I’d been dutifully following, and I’d need to twist the throttle to catch up. More than once I ended up half a dozen vehicles behind her. Her anxieties aside, she really is the most capable rider once she’s on the bike.

Screenshot
Speedy Dalma

By 2.30, both we and the bikes needed sustenance. Accordingly, we stopped for petrol and shortly afterwards, stopped at a service area at Lumtakong an hour outside Khorat. We chose an outside restaurant with bamboo structures by virtue of the large trees shading the bikes. The menu was in Thai, but by dent of Google Translate and pointing, we secured an excellent lunch of catfish (Dalma) and chicken (myself). Sated, we hit the road for the last stretch.

A roadside lunch

The traffic we’d endured since Bangkok, large trucks and assholes in shiny cars slaloming down the road, seemed to drop away. We were still on one of the important Thai routes (Route 2), but the trucks and assholes seemed fewer. Eventually our navigators showed two minutes away, and before we knew it we were in Khorat. We made our way to our hotel (The Romyen Garden if you’re interested), which met my two requirements for motorcycling accommodation: it was luxurious and it was cheap. We quickly shed our motorcycling gear and hastened to the pool, ordering alcohol from the kindly and accommodating staff, nodding our heads approvingly at the restaurant, the massage centre, the gym, and the sauna. (Dalma, sauna-loving Eastern European that she is, observed drily that Thailand itself was a sauna, so she wouldn’t be needing this last.)

And so, we made it to Khorat. I remember very little of it from my visit in (seemingly recent) 1993. It seems very different from Bangkok, but that’s what travel is about. I’m looking forward to a nice couple of days here. As Dalma pointed out, sometimes you need to stop on your travels to let your soul catch up.

The Romyen Garden