SE ASIA - DAY02 - HATYAI free and easy
So tired that I feel asleep at 9pm last night, and I woke up at 3am in the morning. Note that Thailand time is 1 hour behind Singapore time. That was when I find time to write the blog for Day1.
Then I walked out of the Hotel to look for breakfast and found this "coffee-shop" just right beside the hotel. They are serving all the local Singapore/Malaysia Chinese food. In case you are not familiar with Hatyai, it's the largest town southern of Thailand that is 1 hour away from the Malaysian border. There are a lot of Malaysian families coming here for short getaway vacations and shopping just like how Singaporeans flock to Johor Bahru over the weekends.
This town also have a lot of Thai Chinese and they can speak Chinese fluently.
So I ordered the braised pork trotters rice, my all time favorite Thai food.
and my usual morning Kopi-O-Kosong. Yes, the Thai Chinese understood that when I ordered it ! THB100(SGD4.10) for both the food and drink.
When I see myself in the mirror later in the morning, I noticed that my face was a bit tanned from the many hours of riding yesterday. Apparently, Windows Tinting Helmet project is not working as expected.
I have been having this problem about lower part of my face getting tanned. Upper part of the face is usually covered by the built-in Sunshade but the visor is transparent. So I have this idea of sticking the Windows Tint on the visor, where it is suppose to block out 99% of the UV ray as advertised right ?
I bought a meter of the 20% Windows Tint from Lazada and stick it onto the anti-fogging layer of my Helmet Visor. The expectation is that it will not only prevent the Sun glare, it will prevent my lower part of my face from being tanned by the Sun. I know it's not legal in Singapore to have a tinted visor that blocks >30% of the light. The one I used was blocking 80% of the light, but probably no one in the rest of these Asian countries I am visiting bother about that. The Window Tint is reflective and it kinda look "Robocop".
Ok, so much for the innovative part of the trip preparation. I tore off the Window Tint and continue to rely on my Sunshade provided by my Shoei helmet. I shall cover the lower part of my face with the magic bandana instead. That has been proven to work, but it is a little uncomfortable blocking airflow to the nose.
Now, time to fix my engine oil leak issue as I have used up half of the 1 litre bottle engine oil topping up the leak along the way here. If not, I wont dare to get out of this town.
Google map says that the Triumph Hatyai service centre/Show room is about 10 mins away from my hotel. When I program the navigation route and preparing to set off at 8.30am, it tells me that it is too early to visit the place as I will reach there at 8.40am and it only opens at 9am. How smart, but I insisted and proceed ahead. The shortest route suggested by Google Map slowly lead me to smaller and smaller lanes and finally dirt road and then deep mud pools !! Certainly not looking to get my shoes muddy and wet early in the morning. I turned around and choose the bigger roads and finally made it there at 9.05am.
Human Sense 01 - Google Map 00
The moment I parked the bike in front of the store, the manager immediately comes out and ask on what service do I need. He was very helpful but doesn't understand much English. So I showed him by scooping out some leaking engine oil from the drain plug and finally he understood and spoke English "Ahhh, change washer !!". However, they need the entire package of engine oil change to get that done, which comes at the cost of THB3410(SGD140). I dont seem to have a choice and agreed to that.
The show room and service center have an attached cafe where you can wait and sip on nice coffee while waiting for your bike to be serviced. Unfortunately, coffee is chargeable but cheaper than Xtarbucks, THB45 (SGD1.80) for an Ice Americano. Free WIFI for you to catch up on the facebook videos.
Two and a half hours later, they finally got it done and assured me that they have checked that the leaking issue has been fixed.
My initial plan was to push all the way from Hatyai to Hua Hin tomorrow, which is 750km or 9.5hrs away. After the exhausting experience encountered on the first day, I realize that age is indeed catching up :(. I need to make sure that I do not take unnecessary risk of accident as a result of fatigue. So I break this 750km into two days, first to Chumpon and then to Hua Hin.
Day 03 - Hatyai to Chumpon
Then I walked out of the Hotel to look for breakfast and found this "coffee-shop" just right beside the hotel. They are serving all the local Singapore/Malaysia Chinese food. In case you are not familiar with Hatyai, it's the largest town southern of Thailand that is 1 hour away from the Malaysian border. There are a lot of Malaysian families coming here for short getaway vacations and shopping just like how Singaporeans flock to Johor Bahru over the weekends.
This town also have a lot of Thai Chinese and they can speak Chinese fluently.
So I ordered the braised pork trotters rice, my all time favorite Thai food.
and my usual morning Kopi-O-Kosong. Yes, the Thai Chinese understood that when I ordered it ! THB100(SGD4.10) for both the food and drink.
When I see myself in the mirror later in the morning, I noticed that my face was a bit tanned from the many hours of riding yesterday. Apparently, Windows Tinting Helmet project is not working as expected.
I have been having this problem about lower part of my face getting tanned. Upper part of the face is usually covered by the built-in Sunshade but the visor is transparent. So I have this idea of sticking the Windows Tint on the visor, where it is suppose to block out 99% of the UV ray as advertised right ?
I bought a meter of the 20% Windows Tint from Lazada and stick it onto the anti-fogging layer of my Helmet Visor. The expectation is that it will not only prevent the Sun glare, it will prevent my lower part of my face from being tanned by the Sun. I know it's not legal in Singapore to have a tinted visor that blocks >30% of the light. The one I used was blocking 80% of the light, but probably no one in the rest of these Asian countries I am visiting bother about that. The Window Tint is reflective and it kinda look "Robocop".
Ok, so much for the innovative part of the trip preparation. I tore off the Window Tint and continue to rely on my Sunshade provided by my Shoei helmet. I shall cover the lower part of my face with the magic bandana instead. That has been proven to work, but it is a little uncomfortable blocking airflow to the nose.
Now, time to fix my engine oil leak issue as I have used up half of the 1 litre bottle engine oil topping up the leak along the way here. If not, I wont dare to get out of this town.
Google map says that the Triumph Hatyai service centre/Show room is about 10 mins away from my hotel. When I program the navigation route and preparing to set off at 8.30am, it tells me that it is too early to visit the place as I will reach there at 8.40am and it only opens at 9am. How smart, but I insisted and proceed ahead. The shortest route suggested by Google Map slowly lead me to smaller and smaller lanes and finally dirt road and then deep mud pools !! Certainly not looking to get my shoes muddy and wet early in the morning. I turned around and choose the bigger roads and finally made it there at 9.05am.
Human Sense 01 - Google Map 00
The moment I parked the bike in front of the store, the manager immediately comes out and ask on what service do I need. He was very helpful but doesn't understand much English. So I showed him by scooping out some leaking engine oil from the drain plug and finally he understood and spoke English "Ahhh, change washer !!". However, they need the entire package of engine oil change to get that done, which comes at the cost of THB3410(SGD140). I dont seem to have a choice and agreed to that.
The show room and service center have an attached cafe where you can wait and sip on nice coffee while waiting for your bike to be serviced. Unfortunately, coffee is chargeable but cheaper than Xtarbucks, THB45 (SGD1.80) for an Ice Americano. Free WIFI for you to catch up on the facebook videos.
Two and a half hours later, they finally got it done and assured me that they have checked that the leaking issue has been fixed.
My initial plan was to push all the way from Hatyai to Hua Hin tomorrow, which is 750km or 9.5hrs away. After the exhausting experience encountered on the first day, I realize that age is indeed catching up :(. I need to make sure that I do not take unnecessary risk of accident as a result of fatigue. So I break this 750km into two days, first to Chumpon and then to Hua Hin.
Day 03 - Hatyai to Chumpon
Comments
Post a Comment