We almost got fooled by the utterly unfounded confidence of our mechanic yesterday. Where to go? Would we believe in his words and go on towards Cambodia? Once again, a WhatsApp exchanged with Jonathan came with bad news that nonetheless saved our bacon. He checked the specifications on the regulator / rectifier that was put in yesterday and confirmed. Too weak. Rocinante produces about 400W of electricity, the r/r could only “neutralise” a maximum of 300W. That means even with all lights constantly going, it would be at maximum capacity at all time. Maybe ok at 15°C, but not at 36°C as we had yesterday.

All this considered, we decided to go back to the nearest Honda “BigWing” dealer in Pattaya and try our luck. All bikes over 300cc are part of the BigWing section, which are marketed as luxury items with only a handful of showrooms in the country. And so we parted from our lovely and extremely helpful hosts. If you ever find yourself in Chanthaburi, I recommend staying at Banchan 9 Homestay.

Right away, it proved to be the right decision. The rear ABS sensor was playing up with intermittent faults, which also meant that we had neither speed- nor odometer for the first couple of kilometers. But with the lights on high beam and every device plugged in to charge, it settled down after 10 minutes or so. Still the fear of permanent damage of the CDI or ABS computer crept into our minds.

Arriving at the Honda dealer turned out to be the first big bust of the day in the end. After giving us the barest minimum of courtesy by checking the original parts number in their system (I already knew it is not in it, the Transalp was never sold in Thailand) they pretty much ignored us from here on. Thus began a bit of a goose chase through Pattaya – the Kawasaki shop sent us to their workshop who sent us to an independent workshop further on. The last one looked extremely promising, with both an old Transalp as well as an Africa Twin right there.

It got even better when the owner produced a R/R he claimed was from a 900cc Kawasaki cruiser – I briefly checked and the one from that bike would indeed have been enough to get us going for good. Just to be 100% certain, we consulted our WhatsApp oracle while the part was being installed. Once again, once all was said and done we were left disappointed and devastated. The temporary fix from Chanthaburi had blown up already on the last 150km, so we had to use the new one, payed $180 for it and still had no permanent solution. Later that day it turned out that the owner was wrong or may have lied to me regarding the part he sold. Rather than the big 900cc bike he mentioned, the part was from a 650 Ninja … with a far less powerful alternator …

The few hours we have been in Pattaya made it clear that we did not want to stick around. The city is still known as a go-to destination for sex-tourists and the number of fat old white men we saw swaggering about with scantily clad young girls and women was plenty to trigger our gag and flight reflexes.

The saving grace was that we got one more contact for a parts and big bike shop, back in Bangkok out of it. However, it was written in Thai script so we had no idea where it was or how it was called. It was late already, very late, but we wanted to make use of the cooler evening time to get at least close to BKK again. We aimed for the hotel near the airport we stayed in a couple of days ago – east of the city and a good place to sort out where to go tomorrow.

We arrived after dark, but at least without any further issues regarding the electronics. Checking in took a moment due to a particularly obnoxious duo of German tourists taking forever with their petty requests uttered in even pettier English. But after that, when we were about to retreat to our room to fully deflate, came the glimmer of hope that would rob me of almost all my sleep that night. We asked the hotel staff to translate the address we got in Pattaya and it turned out that it was for the local branch of the Red Baron chain. They are great in NZ, so I really got my hopes up this time …