World Tour - Europe, Asia, North and South America - Entries for: Thailand

We expected to quickly get swallowed by the traffic in Bangkok. To our surprise we managed to arrive at our hotel without as much as a traffic jam.
A few days before we arrived in Bangkok Denis had written Jakrapong, a Thai Pilot. He had asked him if he could help us organize some oil filters for the Hondas. He ordered them right away even though we had never met before. So we decided we would meet as soon as we arrived in Bangkok. We learned that he also planned to go on a two year motorcycle journey around the world. After a fun and great dinner he also showed us some sights of the city and three of the most crowded streets at night. We were a bit exhausted from the day so we did not stay long but we enjoyed it immensely.

Since the next day was the late Kings birthday most stores were closed and so we decided to enjoy a day in our hotel room. We knew the next days we would have to service our bikes so we enjoyed this day very much.
Tommy Wagner, Fabis dealer in Munich luckily knew someone at BMW Motorcycle Thailand and after a short exchange of emails he got contacts of a local BMW dealer named BKK Motorcycle. Everything was already prepared to get his suspension exchanged. We also had motorradreifendirekt.de send our new tires to them. Thanks to another uncomplicated delivery and the quick service at BKK we quickly got the tires changed and Fabis bike finally got the service it needed. Basti and Denis met up with Jakrapong later that day to pick up their oil filters. As a surprise Jakrapong had decided to sponsor them two oil filters each!

We had a lot planned and our time was slowly running out in Bangkok. In between we had to get our drivers license translated and validated by the German embassy for our second permit for Thailand. On Wednesday we had arranged a meet with the Liqui Moly team at RS Superbike to change the Hondas oil and filters. Annie, a member of the Liqui Moly marketing team greeted us very excited and with the incredible friendly help of the RS Superbike team we quickly got everything done. The owner of the garage, called "Papa", invited us for a short tour on Friday which we obviously could not refuse ;). Later we found out that the tour would possibly extend to a two day journey. We set the date and time for Friday and were already quite excited to ride with them.
Fabi and Basti made plans to meet an old friend of Fabis later that night. 10 years ago Fabi and Lalida (Pear) were both exchange students at the same school in Merrill, Wisconsin. It was a fun night and if someone would have told Fabi that he would meet Pear 10 years later in Thailand on a his trip around the globe he surely would have called them crazy :).

On Thursday we had another Highlight of Bangkok ahead of us. Through the aforementioned contacts at BMW Motorcycle Thailand we were offered a tour through BMWs manufacturing factory in Thailand. Markus (Head of BMW Motorcycle Thailand) picked us up at noon and drove us to the BMW factory. Unique here is that the factory produces both BMW motorcycles as well as BMW cars. Roger (Director Motorcycle Assembly) organized a Tour through the factory for us and we were staggered at how quickly it went from "spare parts" to a finished product. It was incredible to see how much changed between each stop on the production line. After our factory tour we were invited to join Markus and Roger at a great seafood restaurant near Pattaya. It was very interesting to hear the experiences and stories of the perspective of someone living and working in Thailand. It was another great day for us with tons of interesting stories. A big thank you to Markus and Roger and we are incredibly glad to have met you.

Once we got back to the hotel we immediately went back to bed. The next day we had set a date with the RS Superbike team. Soon we would know that every minute of sleep was necessary.

Some friends were going to visit us the next 4 weeks and so we suddenly had a lot of plans for the next month. Our first date was on Koh Phangan with Bianca and Susi. Together we planned to experience the legendary Full Moon Party as well as Biancas 30th Birthday. During this week Daniel would also join up with us. He would spend the next 3 weeks traveling with us again. On Christmas we enjoyed a good Fondue on the balcony of our hotel. With 3 kilograms of meet, a self made Maggie soup, a couple of sharpened chopsticks we were more than ready to enjoy our improvised Christmas dinner.

Since we had to make a Visa run to get another 30 days in Thailand, Daniel decided to take this opportunity and rent a motorcycle to join us on the road. Luckily we were quite a bit faster at getting our driver licenses the second time, because this time we had the certified translation of our German drivers license and we didn't have to watch the movie again! But we still had to do the tests again and we got all new Thai drivers licenses!

Therefore we were soon on the way to Krabi where we would meet with Bastis girlfriend Olga and her friend Paola. We picked them up from the airport strapped everything down on our bikes and made our way back to the north to take the ferry across towards Koh Samui. Later that day we met the rest of the gang: Werner, Ulli and Teresa would also be joining us for the next couple of days. One day later we all celebrated New Years together! Later that night it started raining, but we did not know what lay ahead at that time. Over the next couple of days the rain only stopped for a couple of hours a day and each day it seemed to rain more and more. Daniel already had to leave on January 3rd, followed by Basti Olga, Paola, Werner and Ulli. They planned to go to the Island Koh Jum and wanted as much time as possible over there. As it turned out a day later this was a very good decision on their part. Because when Fabi, Teresa and Denis tried to leave the island heavy flooding had started to make the way of the island quite the challenge. Especially one spot gave Fabi and Denis a lot of worries. The water was waist deep and they had to push the bikes through because they did not want to risk getting water into the air box. The other option would have been going back to the hotel but since the weather forecast warned about even more rain the next days Fabi and Denis pushed on. As it soon turned out the water was even deeper than they expected and soon the panniers were used as sort of floating devices to at least keep the filler cap above the water. Both bikes were flooded and so after removing the spark plugs and draining the engine of all remaining water we soon managed to board the ferry back to the mainland.

Sadly once they arrived they realized that it would not be any better on this side either. They soldiered on for the next 60 Kilometers which in turn took them more than 4 hours. The street was constantly flooded by water. From time to time the water level was just centimeters away from their air intakes! The current was occasionally so strong that they had to ride next to a car or a lorry so that they would not be pushed off the road. One time Denis underestimated the current and was pushed against a small lamp post at the exit of a gas station. He had stalled the engine and in a matter of seconds he had a good amount of water in the cylinders through his exhaust. Over the Sena communication system he alerted Fabi who soon came running by to help him push his bike back into the gas station. After draining the engine once more they arrived at a nice hotel quite exhausted but very glad to have made it. A big commendation at this point to Teresa who surely must have suffered a lot on the back seat during that horrendous trip.

The next day they changed the oil of their bikes since a bit of water got into the oil. After that they split up once more. Fabi would be riding towards the north of Thailand and into the Chiang Mai region and Teresa and Denis were going towards Phuket. After Teresa flew back a couple of days later, Denis decided to spend the rest of his remaining solo days on Pak Meng Beach, 100 km south of Krabi and away from all the tourists.

Whilst Denis and Basti stayed in the south Fabi decided to make his way back up north. Almost every Thai motorcyclist we had talked to told us enthusiastically about Thailand's north. Especially the Chiang Mai region was supposed to be amazing for riding. Even though it was more than 1000 kilometers back the way we came from Fabi figured it would be worth checking out. But what he found left him stunned nonetheless.

The weather in the south had been very disappointing and Fabi was sick and tired of riding in the rain. He was afraid this could also ruin the good roads in the north. Luckily it soon turned out that the north had much better weather in store for him. It was not only sunny and dry, it also stopped being so very humid. The temperature was in the mid 20 degree Celsius and the roads were in perfect condition. The landscape changed from thick jungles into a more open forest with pine trees and broad-leaf trees. Occasionally you could still spot Palm or Banana trees. It was a surrounding that reminded Fabi very much of France or Spain. And the roads were spectacular for motorcycles. You never found yourself riding straight for more than a couple of hundred meters until you had to turn into a wide or narrow bend again. This continuously went on for 4 days! Fabi could not belief his eyes and it felt great to finally enjoy riding again!

Near Chiang Mai city Fabi decided to take a look at one of the several elephant reserves. It was fun watching this giant creatures walking in their large enclosures and getting close to them. His favorite part was watching the elephants take a bath and splashing themselves and anybody around them with water through their trunks.

We had left all our camping gear in the south since we did not plan on camping in this high humidity but in the north of Thailand it would have easily been possible to do so. Fabi actually met a motorcycle rider that was spending a lot of time in his tent. Olaf had lots of stories to tell and questions to ask about our journey, but Fabi enjoyed the company very much and it turned out to be a fun night.

After almost two weeks alone Fabi rode back south to meet up with Basti and Denis at the hotel where we left the rest of our equipment. Fabi had riden an entire day in the rain and decided to clean his bike on our day off. After spending nearly two month in Thailand we said goodbye to the country and we were looking forward to discover Malaysia.