I’m sitting in a cafe when a bloke rolls past on a bicycle.
asserted
bloke → sit → bicycle
I know he’s a “bloke” because his rugby shorts are short, his singlet is loose and he looks like the kind of guy who knows his way around a pack of Winnie blues.
asserted
who → know → blues
After a quick conversation, I learn that he’s just cycled from Hua Hin to Prachuap Khiri Khan.
asserted
he → learn → Khan
It’s a 150-kilometre journey along the Gulf of Thailand, where you’ll find amazing seafood, stunning national parks, and roads of the country that are far less travelled.
asserted
that → ’ → country
And it’s easy, or so this bloke says.
asserted
bloke → ’ → ?
Get a bike, put it on a cargo train heading north, get off at Hua Hin, and cycle south until you make it back to PKK where you started.
asserted
you → get → PKK
Nah, mate, no maps, just keep the ocean on your left and the oncoming traffic on your right and you’ll be sweet.
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asserted
you → keep → inbox
At this point, the bloke sparks up his third cigarette of the coffee and my wife figures that if an overweight, middle-aged chain smoker can do this cycle, then surely we have a chance of doing the same.
asserted
we → spark → same
I have my doubts.
asserted
I → have → doubts
My body resembles a sponge and the only thing I have done to work up a sweat in the past few months is eat spicy food.
asserted
I → resemble → food
The furthest I have ridden on a bicycle is to the beach, and after I get there, I usually have to sit down for a bit to recover.
asserted
I → ride → bit
But if there is one person I absolutely love proving wrong, it’s myself.
asserted
it → be → ?
So, the next thing I know, we’ve borrowed bikes from our guest house and are heading north in the cargo compartment of a passenger train, stretched out on hard benches, sweating in a carriage where air-conditioning means sticking your head out the window.
asserted
conditioning → know → window
When we get off at Hua Hin, the feeling is incredible.
asserted
feeling → get → Hin
It’s like being a kid and travelling for the first time again, this indescribable mix of freedom and excitement as the whole world opens up in front of your feet.
asserted
world → ’ → feet
I look at my wife, she grins at me, and then a literal crocodile runs across the bike path, making us burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all.
Our first day on the bikes is not all sunshine and crocodiles.
asserted
day → look → bikes
It’s brutally hot, wrong turns are not uncommon, and there is nothing quite like watching a YouTube tutorial on how to change a punctured inner tube as a storm rolls towards you.
asserted
storm → ’ → you
Our legs ache, our hands hurt and our backsides feel as though they’ve been used to crash test wide-body aeroplanes.
asserted
they → ache → aeroplanes
And yet, when we wake up the next morning, we’ve never been more excited to get back on our bikes.
asserted
we → wake → bikes
It would be easy to chalk up our enthusiasm to the usual tropes.
asserted
It → chalk → tropes
That we were seeing parts of a country we’d never otherwise see, connecting with locals we’d never otherwise know, and eating an extra 4000 calories of Thai food in a day.
asserted
we → see → day
But the true beauty of this ride is the way it makes me feel like I’m that kid again, the one who first left home and never looked back.
asserted
who → make → home
All the fear, all that nervous excitement, everything I thought age and wisdom had stolen from me, bike touring stole right back.
asserted
touring → think → me
I love that feeling and will chase it until the day I die.
asserted
I → love → day
It has dragged me across Korea, pulled me around Taiwan, and pushed me into the depths of the Mekong Delta, all thanks to this one, serendipitous ride that showed me how two wheels can make that feeling a little bit easier to catch.
asserted
feeling → drag → me
The Aporia
