Thailand: A road trip to nowhere fast: Chonburi, hot, dry and dusty

Four Thai Mechanics and a supervising Grandma. Pretty sure the grey ghost made for a welcoming change for the day to day scooter repairs. I cant complain they really did bend over backwards to help me.

Chonburi, I arrived. For those who are avid readers of the blog you’ll know I used this place as an excuse to escape Chiang Mai and  sate my urge to explore a little. What can I say, Chonburi, it’s definitely not a tourist destination, more an industrial city about 100km South East of Bangkok and 70km away from Pattaya. Basically, if you had to go there you’d probably call it the gateway to Pattaya. It’s a city you pass through on the way to another destination. That’s not to say the people aren’t lovely and I’m sure there are some nice things to do, but I was here to undertake an enduro riding course.

Found this little Nail after two flat tyres. guess the moral of the story is always check the inside of the tyre to see if there’s a “thorn in the side lurking” at least it wasn’t a super expensive mistake

Bemused yet? I can hear you saying, now why was a 50 something year old man, here to tackle a hard core enduro course. well, the answer for that is kind of twofold. Firstly, it boiled down to my desire to learn off road riding with the view to increase my skills to enable me to better ride the wild tracks of the world and secondly and more specifically was to not kill myself when I am running around in the jungles of Chiang Mai in the process of developing these skills.  

Enduro course training - it was hot, bloody hot and we boiled like crabs in a pot under the backing sun.

 Chonburi was to be home for 4 days whilst I learned how to throw the grey ghost around like a rag doll, undertake power slides, pop wheelies over logs, turn the bike on a dime, navigate through different terrain and do all things dirt bike orientated. The weather was stinking hot, did I say stinking hot? I meant dressed in your protective gear you were cooking like a crab and boiling your brain hot

After two days of enduro training with these guys, i still sucked and I was still hopeless out classed. But the experience was worth it and it was a good opportunity to see other bikes and riders in action

The first day started off pretty shitty, I got a puncture on the way to the enduro training facility, then I went and got it fixed only to get a second puncture later in the day. A valuable lesson was learned that day. After a puncture always check for the puncture cause yourself and not blindly trust the mechanic you found on the side of the road. Turns out he patched the tube, but somehow missed the small nail in the tyre. Put it back together and yep several hours later it blew again. At least it wasn’t an expensive mistake.

Coffee shops in Chonburi, go out of there way to be quirky and a little odd. This place did great burgers as well. - Ampol burger cafe

If you live in Thailand for any length of time you really have to develop a hobby, be it off road riding or knitting, unless you’re a bar fly and want to drink daily and moan about idiosyncrasies of Thailand verses the great western country you came from. Believe me when I say that it’s all too common amongst expats and I avoid it like the plague.  Fortunately, my newfound friend shared similar believes and we were both into exploring and bike riding so swapped many stories and laughed out our own inadequacies. More so mine than his.

Who doesn’t love a good steak after a hard day’s riding. Finding a good steak in Thailand is like a quest for the holy grail. But when you do find one you cherish it.

After two days of training, I still sucked at enduro riding, still very much struggled to keep up with the younger ones and pick up the skill sets to form anything remotely like a mastery of off-road riding. But I did have fun, I learned a trick or two. Yes, popular to contemporary believe you can teach and old dog new tricks and made some friends, so I’d tick that up as a win. If I am honest with myself, I probably need to do the same course multiple times again to actually improve significantly but for now I’ll take the experience and apply the theory it in the jungles of Chiang Mai when I head back home. Who knows I may just live to fight another day.

It wouldn’t be Thailand if there wasn’t a desert with mango lurking around, we burned up some calories on the course, so a treat was warranted.