Disaster strikes... again
Trip Start
Unknown
1
46
51
Trip End
Ongoing
Ban Na Yao, Surat Thani, Thailand
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
After breakfast there was more unpleasantness from Marcin’s anus behind closed doors which went on long enough to have claimed an entire toilet roll. He does nothing without a certain style. So how he survived is anyone’s guess but he came out looking rather worse for wear and we headed back to our bikes. We loaded up and shipped out. The road out of Hua Hin was familiar again, the same road I followed in the last time I was here. My girlfriend took me there with her best friend. I’m still not really sure why, it was just a lot of people selling keyrings and expensive coffee. They thought I’d like it but after the jungles full of the real thing it seemed a bit of a disappointment to me. This time it seemed better, it was a nice place to stop on the road.
So Marcin started driving more like Marcin, his speed edged up and he started overtaking everything. He made a lot of mistakes today. He wobbled, he missed things and although it would be easy to say it’s not like him to make such mistakes it would be a lie but it’s not like him to make so many. He’s not well, whatever he has is taking hold.
We made it out onto the made road which also looked familiar and we plodded on. It was a hot day but when we were moving it seemed ok, not too bad. Even with the bike gear it wasn’t terrible but when we stopped it was fairly horrendous. Even worse if we took off our gear, when we put our helmets back on they were awash with a foul-smelling cold moisture that you just don’t want to put your head in. Sadly the heat stopped my fuel system from working properly and she refused to siphon. We stopped for petrol and I filled the main tank. Then I saw it. The Super-Heavy-Duty DID bullet proof chain was knackered. Not just loose but really knackered. The bearing between the two plates of the primary link was missing. That means it has shattered and fallen out. I’ve never heard of that before but it was just hanging loose. That explains the odd pulsing from the power train. The sides were taking the strain but had bent, I couldn’t carry on in good conscience knowing she was that damaged. We rolled to the side and argued as we always do. In the end I decided it needed to be fixed, Marcin was carrying a chain splitter so we got the primary link away, hoping it could be reconstructed. Unfortunately he was slightly heavy-handed and the link was effectively destroyed. Not only that, the splitter tool was snapped too and that was toughened steel so i have no idea how the hell he managed that. So now we were slightly worse off as my chain was now a long straight thing instead of a long looped thing and was only going to be capable of riding 20cms at a time. Suddenly the border looked a very long way away.
I tried using stainless steel bolts as pins but they bent. I found one in my tools that just barely did the job and it just managed to press out a pin and get another link off. We did the same trick and split another. With the wheel rolled all the way in we could just reconnect the chain.... in theory.
We had a bent pin and sealed it with two very knackered X-rings and tapped the pin back in until it was just touching the other link plate. With much growling and shouting, mostly at one another we got the clamp tool to push the bastard think back into the link plate until it worked. There was no getting it out, there would never be any way of getting it out but that suited me perfectly. We adjusted it up with Marcin sitting on the bike to get the tension right and we were away. A group of soldiers came up to us but it was all friendly and an exchange of warm, genuine smiles and happy nods. We got stopped by the police as well, they asked where we were from. I told them London, he tapped the bike and I nodded. He grinned and said, “well done” and that was it, we were on our way again.
So we managed 35 miles and then it gave up, I lost all power. We wheeled her into a petrol station and this time the chain had come off the sprocket. I had assumed the repair had failed but it was fine, I couldn’t even find it. The link we fixed must have been bent and the chain still too loose. I tightened it and we rode another 100 miles with me gingerly accelerating, slowing carefully and feeding gentle power into corners. Nothing, no hassle at all. We found a hotel after dark, no mean feat on these roads, there is nothing about. We had to bump up onto a curb which made me wince but no damage, the chain held. She will probably manage another 5000 miles like this but I’m resolved now to replacing the chain as soon as I can. The hotel is decent and everything here is very cheap. We had food from the local market, rice and two Thai dishes each with water and a bowl of vegetables and it came to £2 for both of us. The room was £10 but it was hard to find a motel out here so we knew it would be expensive. So tonight we settled 100 miles outside of Phucket. We’re still chatting about what to do next. There are only three BMW dealers in Thailand but probably dozens of places I can find a chain if I look hard enough. I have no internet here so I’m a bit stuck. Tomorrow we might go into Phucket. We weren’t planning to but there’s a BMW dealer there. I told Marcin I can get to the border and I’m confident she will make it back to Bangkok in the condition she’s in but we’ll see. I’m done, i’m home. I’m just tagging along now with time to kill so we’ll see what he decides and I’ll go along with it. If he wants to hang around one more day then that suits me fine.
