The warehouse would open at 8.30 am and was only 3 km away as the crow flies, giving us ample time to pack and have a leisurely breakfast. There was a beautiful grey cat with sky blue eyes living at the resort, and she joined us in the hope for scraps. Only one of us was disappointed in the end 😉

Both our resort and the warehouse were at the eastern edge of town, where rice paddies and wooden huts mix with motorways and industrial development on a lot by lot basis. Luckily the GPS was un-phased and we had the coordinates for the place. I sometimes wonder how people found anything in places like this before good maps and GPS …

At the packing place, people were already busy at work. I was determined to stick around and make sure the box ends up as small as possible, after the disaster in Auckland. Since it was only for sea freight then, the enormous box only lost us about $100, but this time the story was different. I knew how small the bike could be packed from the crate I built for when we shipped the bike to New Zealand. The difference between these two crates would be $1500 NZ in air freight fares, so I was not about to leave that to chance.

Sure enough, the first suggestion from the master crate maker was comically huge – coming out at a volume weight of 550 kg. So with some pointing and an old picture of the bike in the crate I made, he agreed to these measurements – resulting in a crate with 375 kg volume weight.

We had to wait a little while for the guys to finish an urgent order of some 15 pallets – all build from scratch – to finish. That gave us just enough time to finish the paperwork. But soon enough, the base pallet was assembled and I joined the guys in getting the bike in place. Getting the front wheel out was a bit of a mission without a jack, but it worked. Some re-positioning and the bike was being secured on the pallet.

Next step was getting all the other bits and bobs on and shrink wrap it all up like Spiderman’s wildest dream. While taking some pictures, we realised just in time that we had left the surface in one pannier. I rushed down and saved it from the clutches of the wrapper just in time.

The crate was nice and solid in the end and came in at about 1/4 of what we payed in New Zealand. Then again, also came with an annoyance in the end. Once everything was done, master crater Bob realized that he forgot to take the pallet itself into account and the box ended up 10 cm higher. I once again scold myself for being respectful and nice and suffering the fool in the end. So here we are, with a crate slightly bigger than the one I build myself – costing us another 200 euro in freight more than it needed to.

The whole affair took us less than 2.5 hrs. By 11 am, we were in a taxi on our way to central Bangkok. We even got to use the cursed elevated highways for the meager fee of 75 baht – since this time we were in a vehicle with the “appropriate” number of wheels.

Our hotel ended up as quite the disappointment. We chose a recommendation from the lonely planet, and it was not cheap (by our standards). Even though the room was big, it was damp, moldy and smelly and overall a lot tourist trappy in its feel.

For lunch, we went to a recommended vegetarian Thai restaurant, but were a bit disappointed again. The area here, near Khao San Road, is called a “backpacker ghetto” by some and we are learning why. Here more than anywhere else, we get the feeling that a lot of the economy is based on whities fresh from the plane with no idea of what things should cost. It is not uncommon that you can get a pad thai of similar quality for 40 bath in one place and 140 baht next door.

That night we also went through the ordeal of buying flights for Dubai. Initially we wanted to leave on Saturday, but there were no good deals available any more. Only Emirates flies directly and their prices are about 50% more than any other one stop would cost. We ended up with a good compromise with an overnight flight Sunday to Monday via Muscat that was about 10% more than the cheapest flights but would save us one night in a hotel. But just when we wanted to buy it, it was not available anymore! From previous experiences I knew that researching flights can lead to increased prices or even offers being gone entirely because every site locks the flight for 15 minutes or so to complete your booking. Looking at more than one site at once can lead to gridlock. Lucky for us, just waiting an hour to release all the reservation did the trick and we were able to book. Dubai, here we come!