I didn’t  manage to wake up early enough to see the Grand Palace (shame, but I’m sure I’ll see it other time when I return to explore Bangkok without the worry for the bike, more time and more money). I tried to use my water filter to produce 2.5 liters of safe water from the tap water to have for the day as I didn’t have any money left to be able to buy it. After 45 minutes of pumping and still having 1l to go I decided there must have been something wrong with the filter or they lie in the manual when they say it can produce 1l a minute. The only action worth trying was to actually clear the filter core. I haven’t done it sooner because the filtering was this slow since the first time I used the filter after buying it new and I was filtering only “clean” tap water so far. I was surprised to find the filter covered with a slippery film of dirt which I removed and tried the filter again. “Wow!” was my first reaction after only a couple of pumping strokes. The filter was now squirting water into my bottle so fast I couldn’t believe it and the pumping itself was suddenly so easy with almost no resistance. I wander who used my filter before I bought it new from the shop… ? In any case I’m very happy with it now! Before I always had to mentally prepare for the boring and tiring job of pumping for long minutes.

After spending an hour with preparation of my water I tried to be as quick as possible with the packing and getting out. I even forgot to pay my last 200 Baht for the second night in the guesthouse while all the employees waved me goodbye, apparently forgetting about it too. Well, it is their job to think about such things and I suddenly had some money to buy food for today which was pretty good, as I was not looking forward to having a “hungry day”.

When I arrived to Siam Superbikes an hour later I was informed that the tyre was there and that it would take about 2 hours to change it. “Wow, I would be quicker changing it on the side of the road than this.” I thought to myself but I just put on a surprised face and tentatively said “OK”. And “really”, not even 5 hours later ;-( I was leaving the shop with a new rear tyre on my wheel. I left only to return a few minutes later with non-functioning rear brake. I knew there was going to be something wrong with it after seeing one of the guys that call themselves mechanics twisting and turning the brake pipe when he was trying to fit the rear wheel on again and the brake was in its way. It took my one look at the problem to see and explain to them that neither moving it out of its position nor removing the brake assembly completely from the rods and first trying to fit the wheel was going to work.

The above was just one of several “incidents” that didn’t instill any trust in their work into me. Another one before the “brake problem” was the fact that they had to take the wheel to some other shop to have the tyre actually replaced. When they returned with the job done the new tube couldn’t hold the air. They had had to pinch it while putting it on. What a professional job! "Great guys!" So they put the wheel on the top of their bike again and off the guy went back to the tyre replacement shop once more. 30 minutes later he was back with the job done and my old tube inside instead of the new one.

A simple oil replacement had to be supervised by me as well, because otherwise they would drain it while the bike was tilted to the side on a stand with no rear wheel. I had to ask them to wait before the wheel is back on and we can stand the bike upright to drain the oil completely. Another job I had to supervise before taking over completely as the “mechanic” was doing the complete opposite was with adjusting the drive chain to have a proper slack. They would give it to me with a chain so tight that I would have to break it first to use the full travel of the rear shock absorber.

The second last problem there was with a credit card payment. The day before I mentioned that I needed to pay by credit card as I had no cash available. It was apparently possible through the use of the terminal of the shop next door. Well, today the terminal was not working properly and couldn’t process the payment. After that we were waiting for somebody to arrive to process the credit card manually. I had to ask about what was happening since nobody would tell me and just let me hang in there with no information. When the guy arrived I had to jump on his bike and he took me to another “nearby” shop. It wasn’t as close as I had the impression from using the word “nearby” but at least the credit card terminal worked and after charging me additional 3% processing fee I had my 4700 Baht in cash to pay for the tyre and the oil change.

After that I only had to return to the shop twice. First to make my rear brake work at all and second to make it work better as it is supposed to… Otherwise everything on the bike is fine so far… ;-)

So it was almost 3PM when I started to “fight” my way out of Bangkok through its heavy traffic.

Oh, that reminds me about another incident. On my way to the shop this morning I was having quite a clean and straight run from my guesthouse to the bike shop with the road running straight at the shop (according to my GPS) and traffic not being so heavy. That was until on one of the intersections there was a policeman who signaled me to turn back. There was still traffic flowing in my direction only he would let only the vehicles coming there form the left side through. He wouldn’t let me cross the two lanes across the intersection (although it is normally possible as the arrows on the tarmac were showing) to continue straight. So I turned and was now looking for the right way in the maze of Bangkok small streets. This made my journey to the shop twice longer that it would be without the stupid policeman standing there on the intersection.

Anyway, after I got out of central Bangkok I was running from the rain that was trying to catch up with me. I was riding just at its front where the winds were strong and changing direction suddenly. It wasn’t fun to ride in such conditions but I couldn’t stop as the rain would catch up. I ended up off my planned route far enough to stop playing the “catch me if you can” game with the rain and turn back straight into it. I had something to eat, changed my helmet visor for a clear one, inserted my waterproof lining into my riding jacket and went.

The rain stopped just as the last milliliter of water that would fit into my boots got there. (And believe me, it takes a while before any water gets in running down my legs only half protected from the rain without the waterproof lining inserted. It was starting to get dark so my objective was to get to Nakhon Nayok and find a place to stay. I was hoping for another police station… ;-)
In Nakhon Nayok I tried to ask about my accommodation options a guard sitting in front of by that time closed “Tourist Authority of Thailand”. He didn’t understand a word I was saying and only gave me some tourist fliers written in Thai.. “Great, that is gonna help me a lot, thanks!” was my reaction and I left with a tiny smile on my face.

As I was roaming the streets of Nakhon Nayok and looking for somebody to ask there was a Buddhist monk coming towards me in one of the side streets. I tried to ask him and hurray, he even could speak English. He suggested a resort for 400 Baht a night which I refused, after which a two women in a car stopped by, interested to help and so after a couple of minutes of them talking to each other and the monk, the monk offered me to stay in their temple. This was another new experience for me so I gladly accepted. The monk got into the car and I followed them to the temple. There I received a bag full of fruit I never had before from the two women and after saying bye to them and one unsuccessful try to fit my bike to the door of the storage room that the monk opened for me I found myself sitting on a large elevated platform in the temple with a bowl of fried noodles and couple of books about Buddhism. I of course talked to a few of the monks as they were passing through between their rooms and the toilet and shower facilities of the temple.

I had a bath, ate the bag full of fruits from the two teachers (the two women were teachers in the nearby school) and read some of the official Thai guide for living, which is based on the Buddhist religion. It was very interesting for me as most of what I read was how I feel people should behave to each other and conduct themselves. It might also explain how come the Thais are such nice people…

I slept on the reed mat that the monk spread for me and for the whole night I had a cat trying to get under the blanket I used to cover myself from the mosquitoes. She succeeded several times when I was sleeping.

(250km)