Bob Harrison Goes to Thailand January 2020.

      MONDAY Jan 13

     Vacated daughter Jennifer's flat with bag in hand, off to Bangkok’s 2nd airport, luckily against the flow of traffic as our cab sails along. We figured an hour, took 15 minutes, so more time to waste at the airport, where we finally cleared security, having had all our luggage thoroughly inspected, and managed to find a table at, of all things Asian, a Burger King where breakfast was consumed. Our Air Asia flight left on time, every seat was occupied, 65 minute flight to CHIANG MAI, got into a cab to take us to our hotel. The whole ride duration the driver tried to talk Pam into a higher fare than the one she insisted it should be, guess which one we paid. We have decided on a communal kitty, as Bob and Farrel are both the money guys, I gave Pam 1000 Baht, Bob gave her 2000, she will buy everything except hotel rooms and when she runs out of money, we feed the kitty again.

     A five minute walk to the bike shop and we were all booked to go, two Honda CB500X bikes selected, helmets chosen and put away for us. A 6 km walk around the city, had a smoothie at the far end of it and a beer upon return, back to the hotel for a soak in the pool, then returned to town for Happy Hour. Suddenly empty streets as the Royal Princess (King’s Sister) was staying at the poshest hotel, from where she and twenty police cars all vacated ten minutes later. Farrel got a real Black Russian (after 2 failures at Bangkok sky bars, he was resigned to beer only), and later a walk to the Night Market, where everything imaginable is available and must be bargained for, found a restaurant, shared 4 or 5 dishes and if you ever get the chance, order the Morning Glory, it is truly delicious for being a vegetable, weed or whatever the heck it is, and a few more beers. It’s the heat and humidity, really we’re not alcoholics, I know I’m not one, I don’t go to meetings. Staggered back to the hotel, sat on the porch and had a few more beers, and so to bed.

     TUESDAY Jan 14

     Showered and packed, had an 8am breakfast, off to the bike shop, left our luggage and passports, and packed the panniers. Off we went through farming countryside, fields of papaya, mango, bananas, corn growing on steep hillsides which must be harvested by hand and rice paddies, half flooded, and half drying out, so it’s not a seasonal growing, it’s just cyclical. Passed one scooter and rider who failed to negotiate a turn, bits of plastic everywhere, and one passed out rider, helmet still on and no blood, being attended to by the locals. Passed lots of “elephant rescue” sites, as well as “elephant rides” sites, so sort of a mixed message, but apparently Europeans and North Americans love jumping in the river and helping to bathe the elephants and even the pachyderms seem to get a kick out of it. Also passed “raft rides”, “off-road ATV trail rides”, and “photo with tiger”, the last one being highly discouraged by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). After passing through a few sustainable logging forests with trees all neatly spaced in rows we went to “The White Palace”, a huge white and silver complex, all built by some famous artist, who wanted to showcase Thai Art and attract tourists.

     Success. We managed to ride straight to our hotel in CHIANG RAI, did laundry (hooray for Tilley socks, can’t believe they don’t make them any more), showered, and went into town. Visited yet another temple with a rather large Buddha, walked through downtown, went into an “Australian Bar”, they had 2 flags and no Ozzies, walked through the market, found the best restaurant in town (according to Lonely Planet, formica tables, zero décor, and great food), went to a “Reggae Bar”, where we listened to Bob Marley while the bartender and waiter kept smoking the ganja, finished our beers and so to bed. If you ride in Thailand you will be passed on the left, right, on curves, corners, with oncoming traffic, scary, saw it twice today and if not for good brakes on the truck, an idiot in a Ford Ranger would have been in small pieces. The roads are asphalt, shiny in the heat, with sand strewn across making them slippery, but how much is anyone’s guess, so cornering is always a mystery, and on a bike even more guesswork. But let Bob find a twisty mountain road, freshly paved, and speed goes from 64kph to 106kph pretty damned quickly, and the chase is on for Farrel to keep up.

     WEDNESDAY JAN 15

     Drove to the “Golden Triangle”, so named because Burma (Myanmar) Laos and Thailand all meet along the Mekong River. The name also signifies the main crop that it was known for, so of course we had to visit “The House of Opium” (no free samples). They did an excellent job of covering the growing, manufacture, history, addictiveness, crime, and repercussions of Opium, Heroin, Morphine, and even Cocaine and Fentaynl. They had dioramas, photos, film, the whole bit, the history of the Opium Wars was very interesting, showing how the British, and other Europeans, basically took over most of Asia by getting it stoned, hooked, and keeping them that way. Opium only became illegal in Thailand in 1959, and even then if you were a registered Opium addict, you got it for free until you died.

     We followed the river, up and down hills where we sped through hairpins, but sensibly slowed to 50kph through towns unlike the locals until we got to CHANG KHONG, where we had a ritzy hotel, with hot water in the sinks which is very rare here, even Jennifer only has hot water from the electric shower. With their natural water temperature being so warm, hot water is deemed a luxury, although their showers do have demand heaters on them, and room safes that neither Bob nor Farrel could open.

     We walked a mile down the road into town, found a “Real Mexican”, a “Real Australian”, and real expensive restaurants, wandered down to the river, a guy with an old rusty BBQ, an icebox and some old patio tables and chairs had set himself up as a restaurant. He had fish on the BBQ which looked like they had been there a day or two, but we did have a few beers (Chang, Leo or Singha are the national brands), wandered back into town, and Farrel found a place with only 2 walls (and 2 steel shutters, which were up), crappy old tables and chairs, but with photos of food on the wall, and we had what turned out to be the best meal of the trip, for a grand total, with 2 beers each, of £7 for everything, and we had 4 courses, one of which was of course, Morning Glory.

     THURSDAY JAN 16

    Off to PHAYAO, a resort town on a large lake, where people go for holidays. Through a few sets of mountains on an interesting route. Bob will find scenic routes, and find points of interest, will ignore highways that are boring 4 or 6 lanes, but will always look for “Interesting”. Route 1024 was all that and more. A fairly new blacktop surface, freshly painted lines, we climbed 3 mountains, plunged into 3 valleys, with twists, hairpins, and some very steeply banked corners. The jungle was crowding us in, with an 18 ft wide road sometimes only showing 2 ft of blacktop on either side of the centreline. Branches and vines hanging everywhere, grass and creepers all over the asphalt. Bob actually lost sight of the road coming up a steep curve that was really tight, he stopped and Farrel coming up behind him had to bail out, damn near dropped both bikes, but stayed upright. In the 30 or so km we were on that road, we saw NO OTHER TRAFFIC, only a road crew at the very end, who were there to beat back mother nature (must be a life-long job for those guys).

     We drove straight (3 lefts, 2 rights) to our night's lodging, a guest house that used to be the typical traditional Thai house, of stained wood, shutters that can be opened to cool you down, and on stilts for more air circulation. Also to avoid flooding during the Monsoons. This one had a ground floor, the lobby. We got our rooms, Pam and Bob hit the pool, and Farrel hit the pillow. At 5pm, freshly showered we strolled a block down to the shore, found a small dumpy restaurant for another great meal and cold beer, went to yet another 7-11 convenience store, bought some Chang beer, and drank in a small salon breezeway next to the open shutters, and so to bed.

     FRIDAY JAN 17

     Off to PHRAE, found a few “interesting” routes, but not near as dramatic or fun as 1024, but much better than a 4 lane road. If there are 450 million people in Thailand, there must be 150 million scooters, as they are everywhere. On the highways they seem to be 100 ft apart, travelling down the shoulders, but in the city they are 1 ft or less apart, filtering into any available space, even the sidewalks. Unlike the Italians, everyone is very polite and as vehicles shift lanes everyone endeavours to allow everyone else to go where they desire. You constantly see singles, 2 up, 3 up, 4 up, the occasional 5 up, and I got to see 7 on one scooter, but two of them were babies in their mothers arms, so I don’t know if that counts as 7 or 5. If they are carrying a toddler, that kid usually stands in front of the driver, hanging onto the handlebars, and we did see some with a baby carrier latched to the front of the headlight. Many bikes have sidecars, after a fashion. They are really work carts, for hauling goods, or food carts, with BBQ, woks, griddles, coolers, urns, teapots, giant rice cookers, even saw one with spits, roasting about ten chickens. The ones selling drinks have racks of bottles for flavoured drinks, also showing what they have in the icebox, others are selling clothing, trinkets, shoes, and it is common for them to have umbrellas on them, even driving along with the umbrellas up, a giant “coca-cola” advert coming up the street. There are dogs everywhere, usually just mutts that in the country like to lie on the road until we come roaring up, then painfully lurch to the side, returning to their resting place after we have passed. Only had 2 dogs bark at us, so very well behaved indeed, cats are around, but less so, and I have not yet seen a Siamese cat, I mean, we are in Siam, where the hell do they keep them?

     Tonight’s guest house was excellent, big pool, comfy bed, hot water in the sink, and adjoining rooms. We sauntered into town, had dinner off a street cart that had adjoining tables and chairs, food was OK, price was ridiculously cheap and we had 3 courses. Ordered 4, but there was a bit of a language barrier, and we didn’t leave hungry, so all is well. Bought beer and drank it off Farrel’s patio, as he had the better chairs, and a colder fridge.

     SATURDAY JAN 18

     Our ride back to CHIANG MAI was to be fairly boring, but Bob found an “interesting” road that twisted and turned quite nicely, but then got weird. A few hundred yards of dirt, then really rough cement, then some really nice, fresh black tarmac, then back to regular road, then dirt again. After about 5km of dirt it got rough, then at the bottom of a hill, a huge puddle of indeterminate depth, with a great deal of erosion and deep gouged ruts and going back up onto the hills. Bob climbed it to the top, and it wasn’t getting any prettier, so discretion being the better part of valour, especially on rented machines, we decided to retrace our route back to the main highway. Farrel managed to get his bike turned around, as he was almost on the crest of the hill, but we all had to haul Bob’s bike around, no problems.

     Back on the main road again, no problems except for a major roadworks interchange being built, which caused everyone to form a conga line of vehicles, doing U-turns onto another highway, off it, back on the old one again, and then a little bit of construction road, finally onto the old highway, a route that Pam’s GPS said did not exist, could not exist, and therefore was not possible, just like the flight of the bumblebee.

     As we approached Chiang Mai, the route was very odd indeed. They were also working on that highway, and yet never closed it, so we were all suddenly shunted onto side roads, back onto a highway still under construction as we rode down it, no lines painted, and the inside lanes suddenly full of a dump truck load of busted concrete, which surely caused many a speeding vehicle to dive back into the conga line, instead of trying to pass us all. With no lines on the practically finished pieces of freeway, we went from one lane to five, even though it was only going to be a 2 lane road (with shoulders), and there were several trucks trying to pass everything in sight, which made for an “interesting” road, but we made it safely back to the bike shop, had our machines inspected, fuel tanks checked to ensure they were indeed full, helmets traded for our luggage and passports, we repacked, signed off, and a 5 minute walk back to our hotel of last week.

     Checked in, showered, back into town for a drink or 3, and had a few issues with Thai alcohol laws. For some reason, beer was not available until after 3pm, so Pam and Farrel drank cocktails. Bob was put out until they informed him that if they poured the beer into a coffee mug, the law would be satisfied. It took about 3 trips back to the back room for Bob’s mug to finally drain the bottle they kept in the back room, and by that time it was after 3, so we all had a proper beer in a proper pint glass, while we watched the bar girls across the street doing their make-up and eating before their hostelry opened. Into the market for souvenir shopping (15 minutes total), then dinner back in the night market, went to the 7-11 for more beer, which we consumed on Farrel’s front porch, still no mosquito bites.

     SUNDAY Jan 19

     When we checked out the next morning one of the hotel's employees kindly drove us to the airport, and an hour and 5 minutes after we took off we were back in Bangkok for a swim at Jennifer’s, a tour of an art gallery and Catholic Cathedral (missed the pope by a month), more walking, more dinner, back home to Cognac and beer. Time for a well earned rest.  

j                            

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NORTHERN SECTION AGM.

SECRETARY'S REPORT.

This would have been the 58th Annual General Meeting of the Northern Section of The BMW Club but due to Covid this hasn’t taken place.

The membership at 30th September 2020 stood at 276 full members and 74 associates. 39 new members and 5 associates joined in the year from 1st Oct.2019 to 30th Sep.2020. The 276 includes 11 pending/renewal + 4 Associates + 2 not renewing in the last 2 months leaving 263 receiving journals. 1 New member has joined since 1st Oct.’20 to date.

Our meetings at Rixton Nov to March were well attended with a Jacobs Join in December and Hotpot and a raffle in January. Once again our thanks to Jim & Ann Hough for organising the food and to Robert & Pam Harrison for organising the raffle prizes.

Due to the refurbishment at Rixton Village Hall due to start August’20 till the Spring, we would have remained at Knowle Green till Nov.2021. but due to Covid ruling we have not been able to have any meetings at Knowle Green and hope by Spring things have turned a corner. Please watch the forum or Facebook for updates on the situation.

The National AGM in April at The Dunchurch Park Hotel & Conference Centre had to be cancelled, again due to Covid 19.

Sadly all events have been either cancelled or just lately been low key which obviously we apologise for but the Club has to follow the rules laid down by the Government and local authorities.

Thanks to Paul Stewart who is still looking after the Facebook page for the Section and is willing to continue for another year. There are currently 123 people signed up and following the threads.

I’d like to thank all the members of the committee for their input during the last 12 months and to all those members who had organised ride outs and events and had them cancelled. Hopefully they’ll take place next year. Thanks to those who helped in the kitchen, some on a very regular basis, and to those who have generally helped in the promotion of the Northern Section of The BMW Club.

The Minutes of last year’s AGM, Treasurer’s Report and Social Secretary’s Report for this year can be found on the Northern Section website.

Lynn Sumner

Northern Section Secretary

8th October 2020

TREASURER'S REPORT.

Members of the Northern Section :

Subscriptions this year raised £1375.60 down by £72.49

Advertising raised £490.00 down by £190.00 over last year's total inflated by monies owed

Our January Raffle raised £116.48 down by £28. This also included 5 foreign coins

The costs for hall hire were £130.00 down by £538 due to the pandemic

Food and refreshment at events totalled £526.22 down by £142.37 also due to current crisis

Administration costs of posting and printing were £124.31 down by £75.69

Printing costs were £484.00 for diaries and stickers down by £13.00

We raised £61.52 in the Air Ambulance Collection Box amount affected by no meetings being held

Balance is up slightly this year by £206.74 income over expenditure due to less meetings less expenses

Total balance is up this year by £175.96

The Section is in a healthy financial position with nothing radical happening

Alan Davies, Northern Treasurer 7th October, 2020.

SOCIAL SECRETARY'S REPORT.

 All the scheduled monthly meetings at Knowle Green were cancelled due to COVID-19.

Mike Gibson's mid-week runs did not commence in March due to COVID-19.

Barry Warner's Settle gatherings consistently provide an opportunity for a monthly ride on the bike throughout the year. Usually six or seven of us turn up for lunch. No cafes open due to COVID-19 during the summer but some open in August. Members took to bringing their own picnic lunch to eat in the car park.

The meeting at Rivington continues to attracts Club members throughout the year.

Jan Mather's Wray lunch meet took place in March but not for the rest of the year due to COVID-19.

Vince Mcgrath's July two night camping event in North Wales was well supported with 13 participants.

Barry Warner's July mid-week camping in Llandovery, Wales was postponed and moved to September. Well supported with 21 attending from various Sections.

Bob Crawley's hotel event at The String of Horses was fully booked with 18 participants but cancelled because of COVID-19. It has been transferred to October 2021.

If anyone has an idea for a ride-out, meeting venue or an overnight event in 2021 please put it forward for consideration. Due to the continuing pandemic, any events planned for 2021 can't be guaranteed to go ahead.

Northern Section NC rep’s report for October 2020.

The National Committee is the body that manages the Club on behalf of the membership. In principle, by having a representative from each section, it is difficult for a small clique to gain an inappropriate influence at national level. Our Articles require each section to elect a representative to ensure this, yet it seems that the position of NC rep is unpopular, with some sections finding it difficult to find a volunteer to attend three meetings a year.

This year has been a mix of routine administration, with old policies being brought up to date, and the unpleasant business of three predjudicial conduct cases. The result of these has been reported in The Journal so need not be repeated but it was a difficult time for all concerned as no-one who puts time and effort into the Club likes the thought of dismissing members. Our deliberations have been hampered by the restrictions imposed as a consequence of coronavirus so, after an experimental meeting in May to prove that it was suitable, our June meeting was by Zoom rather than at our usual venue. Our October meeting, as a consequence of recent restrictions, will also be via Zoom. We have a date booked for February 2021 but I am not optimistic that we will be able to hold a proper face-to-face meeting. Zoom is a financially attractive replacement for everyone being in the same room but it is at the cost of the nuances of self-expression that we are used to. We are, essentially, a social organisation and the isolation implied by staring at a screen and camera rather than being with people with a shared interest is something that I would hope we will soon be free from.

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