And so, an anime blogger who travels

It would be too soon to dismiss myself and pretend that 2021 never happened. And while I have clearly been away from even the smallest anime scenes, I have not dialed down productivity for other things that I have been doing in the slightest.

The story began in very late January when after years of given hints to my parents, they had decided that it was indeed time for a once-in-a-lifetime negotiation.
For what you might have asked…
A bigger scooter. One that would bring me all over the country of Thailand, free of complaints.

We settled with a comfortable upgrade from my ol’ pal Honda Click 125i to the current life companion Honda Forza 350 on a condition that I just have to pay back the money (installments) to my stepdad once I graduate.

And since the bike came into my possession, boy oh boy I rode it like there was no tomorrow. Also, living in Bangkok makes this all seem practical since not only that the metropolitan is the capital, but also the literal center point of the country where at least 80% of all habitable places in Thailand are reachable within 24 hours of riding.
Simple thoughts followed by not-so-simple actions: that would have been the one easy sentence to describe what had happened to my life since February 2021 to the time of writing out this post.

Motorcycles and run-ins

Every bike is built different and so their usage will differ. In the case of my Forza, the stated run-in range is ~1,000 kilometers and she would need to find her way to Honda service center to clear the run-in state. Sounds cool but in practice it just meant oil, oil filter, air filter change and replacements of any broken parts (because having anything break off during run-in is by all means unacceptable).

I really did not hesitate one bit and took the bike to her first journey in Pattaya city. A chill 2-3 hour ride with choices between big, wide roads full of 18-wheelers or the not-so-straightforward rural lanes where the likelihood of animals crossing is exponentially higher. There were many more factors into deciding when to ride on what road, but overall I could say that I had ridden on the mix.

When the real journey began

It is heavily implied that if you own a competent enough motorcycle in Thailand, you have to take it up to Phu Thap Buek, a very famous riding destination for one day trips.

And so we did! Huge props to my classmates Pop who had pulled up on his old Yamaha TTX 110. At first I’d joked about having had him with us on the trip but man, he was not. It had resulted in my overall travel speed limited to just 80km/h due to how little his bike was.

After that first test of competency, I’d made sure to tell Poppy that he’d better be out with a bigger bike or I’d just be sleeping while cruising at 80. When you go around that speed on a 300cc bike it feels literally like a moving sofa – very hard to not fall asleep in that situation.

And he really did. I took little to no responsibility for Pop having came out with his new Yamaha N-Max 155. I kind of wished he would play it bigger and cash out the bigger brother X-Max 300 but the little sister will do just fine. At least it can do 100-110 without sweat.

We’d dome three to four trips together since then but we have a massive graduation road trip planned for December. It will cover the northern provinces of Thailand along with Nan from Esan. And of course, having start and finish at Bangkok.

Before then I’d only been doing trips to Northmost (Mae Sai) and Southmost (Betong) points of the country with Meow Meow. We’d also covered most of Kanchanaburi and Koh Chang. It became my personal wish to discover the rest of Esan territory with my two wheels instead of going around by a car. Additionally, I’d love to see every single border points between Thailand and its neighboring countries because from my raw experiences, those places are where life can get very interesting. It is really hard to explain in just a few sentences so let me think about how to word it and come back with another post in the future.

For those coming here looking for anime rants, I’ll most definitely return to watching seasonal shows next year when I stop traveling and start working full time. I already got a job offer from my internship place and obviously I’ll accept it, just like that. It is almost 2022 and getting a job can really be a dream since many jobs eventually become obsolete and new types of jobs emerge from the change of needs.

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