It’s funny how some experiences stay with you forever. And if your brain works like mine, then you can call up those experiences in detail, complete with the all the tactility to reinforce them. It’s like your brain has been branded with them. When you can close your eyes and smell the air, feel the road, and nerve-buzz with the thrill you had at the time, you know it’s got its hooks in you. Those are permanent and beautiful scars.
Regular readers will know I went to Thailand earlier this year as a guest of Compass Expeditions. If you’re interested, you can read of my journey HERE, HERE and HERE. The trip, almost 4000km of incredible motorcycle riding, has stayed with me. Bits and pieces of it come to me at strange times, unbidden. And, because it’s how my mind works, I remember one thing, which then leads me to remember another, then another, and so forth.
The trip had a profound effect on me. That much is clear. I feel the fact it was done on a motorcycle is the biggest contributing factor in this. Car drivers will never get it. Tourists on buses certainly won’t. They just can’t. They are simply observers. They are isolated from it all inside their comfy, air-conditioned cells. On a bike, you’re completely immersed in everything. Every smell, every bump, every atmospheric change bathes you with constant sensory input. It really is the only way to travel.
But certain memories seem to be more hard-wired in me than others. I would ask you indulge me sharing them with you, in no particular order…
The fully unhinged blast out of Mae Sot I had with our Thai lead-rider, George. That road was just off its chops. It seemed endless, and it went up and down and through mountains, and it was three lanes wide and it had light traffic on it, and George and I carved it like it was a racetrack and we were banging for a podium. Everything became laser-focused. Every small input, if I fucked it, would end in catastrophe. I was bathed in ever-drying sweat, the heat was relentless, my breathing shallow, my eyes flicking forward, speedo, mirrors, forward, in endless rapid rotation. George just in front of me – and I mean just in front of me – and I trusted him to be there and not to do anything weird. There was no backing off. There was no hesitation. There was nothing but commitment. It was so utterly pure and right.
The rain that hammered down in Mae Saraeng. I was on a big, covered restaurant verandah with my brother, Pete Vorst, the tour leader. We had just finished another amazing dinner. It was still hot, and while the other 18-odd tour-participants sat inside and got to know each other, Pete and I went outside to look at the rain. We already knew each other quite well. We smoked, we laughed, we watched the tropical rain beating down. The gutters were awash, the streets glistened under the streetlights, and this changed the whole smell of the place. Thailand smells very different to Australia. There’s an otherworldliness to it that claws at your brain. You know you’re a long way from Kansas, Dorothy. Seeing the broken glass the locals had cemented into the top of their walls, now sparkling like gems in the rain, just drove that home. That shit is against the law in Australia. Someone could get hurt as they’re climbing over your wall to rob and steal from you.
Stopped on the side of some nameless road, utterly alone, and surrounded by a landscape so utterly alien to me. I’m being passed by the odd old scooter carrying three people and a load of ropes, barrels, and poles that would fill a small truck, and feeling like I’m the one out of place. I’m the strange staring farang on his stupid big bike, waving and smiling like an idiot at everyone in sight. I’m the one that does not belong.
The hard bits. The transport sections. Yes, most of the roads we did were literally hundreds of kilometres of consecutive corners. But there were bits when we had to slab along seemingly endless straight carriageways. It’s always 38 degrees in Thailand. It stops being 38 degrees from around midnight until about six am, and sits around 28. But it’s back to 38 by seven am. You get used to it. Or you die. Simple.
The sun hammered me. The wind purged me. It dried my ever-sweating body as I rode. I bucked at the goad. And the goad was the speed-limit, which we were forced to do. I’m thinking not so much because of the police, which were invisible for the length of the journey, but because my fellow tour-goers would have baulked at doing 160 through built-up areas. Many of them were very conservative riders. Doing 80 km/h was them at their limit. I spent this time looking at stuff – and there was so much stuff to look at. I had no idea what any of it was, since every sign I saw was in Thai – and that is Klingon as far as I could tell.
Riding along the legendary Mekong River as the sun was going down. Endless sweepers, hemmed in by mountains, and peppered with villages – all with dozens of scooters being ridden with utter and magnificent disregard for what we call “safety” gear. And always wondering what these folks would make of me blasting through their world on a bike none of them would ever ride, though if they did, I had no doubt they’d do a better job than me.
Chasing Pete Vorst. I did a lot of this. Never caught him. Not even when he was two-up. He’s just too good a rider. There were times when I kept him well in sight and we carved corners righteously and with aplomb. And there were times when he just disappeared. Whether I wasn’t “feeling it” at that time, or whether I was tired, or whether my inner-idiot had whispered “You’ve pushed your luck enough for today, fool”, I have no idea, And I don’t much care. I stopped having to prove shit on a bike decades ago. But I do so love to watch someone quicker and better than me go about their riding business for as long as I can keep up with them.
In Chiang Khan, on the bank of the Mekong, I went wandering in the town. Lots of little stalls were set up, but there were not many people around and it was late. I found a place that sold marijuana, and a polite and very skilled young fellow rolled me up a bunch of joints for not a lot of money. Then I found a small bar – really just a covered awning between two buildings, and was served ice-cold beer, the bottle housed in some holder with a cartoon character on it. I drank beers there with an American called Jeremy. He was the only other person on that tour who seemed to understand that motorcycles are more fun if you ride them fast, so we’d chased each other as well. I’ll probably never see Jeremy again, but I sure would like to.
My “commutes” to and from the Chang racetrack during MotoGP. While the rest of the tour group chose to be bussed to and from the MotoGP, I chose to ride. Fuck buses. I hate them. So, I rode. No helmet. No jacket. And speed limit be fucked. It was 110-km round trip from my hotel to the track and back. And it was beyond splendid. It was life-affirming. This is the savage, primal stuff I live for. Yes, I rolled the dice. My sumbitch soul’s a gambler. And I remember what it’s like to ride without a helmet. I did for many years when it was legal in Australia. Shut the fuck up, if you’ve never done it. You don’t know. And you don’t know what you’re missing out on. I know, and I will know until the end of my days, what it’s like to do 170 along a beautiful road, in the middle of the night, in Thailand, then pull up, drink an ice-cold beer I have ordered in sign-language from a cheery local, blink the grit from my eyes, then get back on my bike and blaze off into the night once more. I know exactly what that is. You don’t. And you probably never will. But I really hope you do find out. It will change you.
Of course, I could go on. There are countless such memories. I fizz with them. I’m compelled to share them. But I guess it’s like looking at other peoples’ holiday photos for you. You smile politely and make the right noises, then you go away not giving much of a fuck at all, and even with a mild dose of resentment.
I’m OK with that. I mildly resent other peoples’ holidays too. I guess the point of this piece is simple. Our lives, short as they are, are only enriched with experiences. You have to do things to live properly, to understand what life is, and what it should be. What it can and must be, I guess, in order for it to be any kind of life at all. Otherwise, you’re not living. You’re just existing. Like a fungus.
POSTSCRIPT – Thailand is an astonishing place to ride a motorcycle. It is a sensory overload in every way. I had never been on an organised motorcycle tour before, and there were times during that trip when I swore I would never go on one again. But in retrospect, I probably would. There’s much to recommend such a thing. Not having to worry about meals, accommodation (truly next level stuff with Compass), or reading maps, frees you up to immerse yourself in an experience you will never forget.
