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| Dave and Helen's Travel Photos |
| Page 7 |
October
2005 |
We spent a week in Bangkok, mainly so we could buy lots of things. We had intended to fly straight on to Cambodia and buy a nice little 250 dirt bike, like the one we had in Sri Lanka. Somewhere along the way, though, we changed our minds and bought a TDM850 from Siam Superbike (a great shop). It took us just over a week to get the bike bought and get helmets and lugguge sorted out. While we were busy, we still found plenty of time to fall in love with Bangkok. The people are very friendly and welcoming, the beer is good and cheap and a massage (fully clothed!) costs £2.50 an hour. Sadly, we didn't get time to visit the girly bars in the Pat Pong district but we'll do that when we return (with Dave's mum!).
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Khao San Road where
"hardcore" travellers stay. It's all noise, beer and market
stalls and it goes on all night. We stayed at the Viengtai Hotel a couple
of streets away, thank you very much. We were suprised how tame and
dull travellers are these days - all the real weirdos were over 40. |
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Helen poses wearing
'God, he's spending more money' expression. Dave tests new lens for
camera. We got a lens cheaper elsewhere. |
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But buying a new lens
wasn't enough for Dave, oh no. Now he's bought... a TDM850. We had planned
to buy a nice little 250 dirt bike and have a quaint 'motorcycling of
yesteryear' experience like we did in India a few years ago. Thailand
is too grown up for that. They have proper roads and proper motorbikes
and now so do we. It also meant that we did not have to go all the way
to Cambodia to get hold of a bike and our adventure could start sooner. |
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We really should have
brought our bike luggage from home but we didn't. Helen's rucksack is
bungeed onto the rack but we still needed throw-over panniers. We bought
two 'Jack Wolfskin' holdall-type bags for £3.50 each (we suspect
they may not be real Jack Wolfskin) and got a cobbler to stitch them
together for a further £3.50. This turned them into the panniers
you can see in the picture. They started falling apart as soon we we
filled them up and put them on the bike but getting them fixed at each
place we stop at has become part of the routine and is a great way to
meet people. Well, cobblers, anyway. |
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Helmets could have
been a big problem. A proper bike needs proper protective equipment
and we only had the cheap open-face helmets we'd used in Sri Lanka.
Buying a proper helmet to fit Dave, in Thailand (land of the small heads),
could have been impossible but we heard on the internet of a shop called
'Pro Paddock.' They, apparently, bought a large batch of XL and XXL
Shoei helmets, by mistake, some time ago, and have been selling them
off cheap ever since. A plain-coloured Shoei helmet costs £200
in the UK. One with a fancy paint job costs £400. We got Dave's
(shown on the left) for £100. Predictably, Dave loves the paint
job and Helen hates it. |
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New lens is good but
hard to keep level on a boat ride. |
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Still on a boat ride. |
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Still on a boat ride. |
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Wife. |
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Still on a boat ride. |
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We found a park near
to where we stayed and tested the 300mm lens by photographing people
without them knowing. Great fun. Dave will either get arrested or beaten
up while doing this eventually. |
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dave_and_helen_kelly@hotmail.com
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