Bicycling in Amsterdam - Windmill Tour

The De Riekermolen windmill with its "fantail" in clear view (see below)

As I keep saying, while in Amsterdam, biking is what I like to do best.  Well, and a little beer drinking at the Gollem Bar after the rides. Consequently, yesterday I did the Park Tour and today with an eye toward finding a goal for a second day's ride I decided to visit a few windmills. Even though I had pretty much already done this in 2009, windmills are pretty awesome and continue to fascinate me. I was under the mistaken impression that there were only a few of those famous Dutch windmills left. However, while I was planning a route I discovered a Google Earth KML file that conveniently place-marked many of them — from it I learned there are hundreds scattered around the country. I edited it and then converted it to a format my GPS can read and downloaded it to my trusty Garmin 60Cx. I constructed a circular route that would take me to see some that were within riding distance of my hotel. By the way, bike rental outfits are everywhere and the shop keepers are eager to please. I paid 21 euro for a two day deal.
(Note added May 6, 2012: In retrospect,  as I look more closely at a map of the surrounding area I observe that my hotel is very close to the North Sea, only about 20 miles, that I really should have done a ride over there -- all the more reason to go back.)

The weather at 9 am was cold and windy with heavily overcast skies. After a few minutes in that wind I began to think I'd better head back to my hotel room for warmer clothes. I was again wearing a polypro hat and cotton gloves along with my old wind-proof jacket and long johns under my shorts but I had this nice wool shirt in my bag that I wanted. I talked myself into going on and after a half hour or so I was feeling fine. All you need is a bit of activity to stay warm and biking easily provides that. And I will admit to enjoying the feel of the crisp spring air after all those months in tropical Thailand.

De Otter

De 1200 Roe windmill and a typical Amsterdam bike path

My bike and I visiting Sloterpark

De 1100 Roe windmill

Built in 1757, the De 1100 Roe (as well as the others I've shown) is an example of a smock mill, a type called a grondzeiler ("ground sailer") by the Dutch, since the sails almost reach the ground. Notice also the "fantail", the small windmill set at a right angle to the sails, at the back. (You can see it more clearly in the top photo of De Riekermolen.) This device helps rotate the turret or cap of the mill so as to keep the sails facing into the wind. The long white poles are attached to the cap and help to turn it and possibly to brace the structure against the wind. This mill is set in a lovely spot and was actually turning when I was there. Quite impressive.

De Dikkert

Molen van Sloten

I rode about the same distance on this tour as yesterday's, about 28 miles. It was a fine ride. I stopped for lunch at the eponymously named Klein Kalfje, a lovely little restaurant near De Riekermolen on the Amstel River, and had some crispy deep fried chicken over salad greens with wasabi dressing. About 14 euro. The place was crowded and even though the temperature was still cool by any standard many of the outdoor tables were occupied by hardy Dutch folk. The weather doesn't keep them from going out hiking or biking whenever the opportunity presents itself.
As for me, I ate indoors ^_^

Here's the route I took.


View Amsterdam 2012 - Windmill Tour in a larger map

Tomorrow I'll  leave Amsterdam to hop over the Atlantic to Buffalo. I'll enjoy visiting family for the next few weeks but I'll miss Amsterdam. This is a city I could certainly enjoy living in for a month or two. Maybe someday I will ....

Bicycling in Amsterdam - Park Tour

I love biking in Amsterdam. The city is totally set up for bikes and bikers. There are separate paths, actually an entire alternate road network with its own dedicated traffic controls, running alongside virtually every street and road in the entire city. And here in the Netherlands, where drivers are never surly or in a rush and always obey the rules, you feel that drivers of motor vehicles sincerely respect you as someone having the same rights to use the roads as they do. They give you plenty of space and will even politely wait if you happen to be in an intersection when you shouldn't be.

Saturday dawned cold and cloudy. It made me less than excited to jump on a bicycle right away so I did my computer chores, edited my blog, visited Facebook and did some exploring on Google Earth to put together some sort of tour of the city that I would then follow with my GPS. I had brought along the handlebar mount from my CBR because last time I was here I carried the GPS in my pocket -- not handy at all. My tendency was to pull it out and while driving one-handed to check for directions. The handlebar mount would make following my route easier and safer.

I decided to do another park tour, sort of like I did when I was here last. Amsterdam is a city just full of wonderful public parks. There are parks and green spaces scattered about in every part of the city. And after the sun finally came out on such a gray morning, people followed suit.

Vondelpark (N52.35925 E4.87226)

Climbing tree - Vondelpark

Two girls - Vondelpark

Spring is here!

Big hair meeting - Vondelpark

Boat racing at the Bos (N52.32580 E4.83550)

Here's the tour on Google Maps. Clicking on the link below the map will open a larger version in Google Maps.



View Amsterdam 2012 - Park Tour in a larger map

I covered about 30 miles on this tour and almost the same distance on Sunday when I decided to take a windmill tour. That's next  ....

Thailand to Amsterdam

I left Thailand yesterday and after a long but very comfortable flight, I've landed in chilly, overcast Amsterdam. It's spring here and things are greening up nicely but after 7 months in the tropics my blood's gotten thin and I'm cold. My hands and feet are cold despite the fact that I'm indoors and wearing both a wool shirt and a polar fleece jacket as I write.  

Yes I said very comfortable. Somehow by the strangest quirk of fate, I got to sit in Dynasty Class on my China Airlines flight from Bangkok. Dynasty Class must be CAL's name for its business class seating because it was wide open spaces up there. You could move around, stretch out.

Here's a comparison I put together (thanks to SeatGuru!) from diagrams of both compartments in the 747-400 I flew. When I first checked my boarding pass I moaned -- how did I end up in a window seat? I was going to be terribly cramped and would need to crawl over two people to get out to stretch my legs or pee. I didn't pick a window seat when I bought the tickets, that's for sure. I would never willingly choose a window seat. But my boarding pass said clearly on it, Seat 10A. But  what a pleasant surprise awaited me there, upstairs in the Upper Deck penthouse. Not only were the seats super sized but 10A was an exit row seat that gave me probably 8 feet of legroom. Plus, it was a recliner. Almost as good as my old Lazyboy at home! How I got that seat is a mystery to me. So be it. I was glad to have it.

Upper deck left, Economy section right
China Airlines Boeing 747-400

I got off the plane feeling fresh and relaxed. My bag was one of the first ones out of the chute so I grabbed it and headed for the ticket counter to buy a ticket to Amsterdam Centraal. I plunked down a 5 euro note and got 70 cents change.  That's  $5 and a half bucks for a short ride into town on a packed commuter train. Another 2.70 euro got me to my hotel. I had picked this one online because at it was relatively cheap and near the Leidseplein and Vondelpark, two beautiful places I recalled from the last time I was here. Then again, it's plain that I should have paid more attention to the comments in those reviews I read. The Europa-92 was not perfect.  But it did have some good features.

Here are two views of the garden at the back of the Hotel Europa 92:

While the garden is pretty my room here is the smallest I've ever had. I'm jammed into a space not much larger than the tent I had at Maasai Mara except the ceiling is higher and it has a full private bath, something not many hotels here offer unless you're willing to spend over $100 a night. However, the room was spotless, the hosts friendly and accommodating. Amsterdam's a beautiful city and I love being here but everything is insanely expensive compared to Thailand.

The room wasn't ready when I first arrived so I ducked out for a quick lunch. I had a BLT because I love them and you just cannot get a good BLT in Thailand.The damn thing cost almost $10, which gave me sticker shock after being in Thailand so long. On the way back from lunch I stopped at one of Amsterdam's many bike shops to set up a rental. I'll be spend my time biking around both full days I'm here. Biking in this town is wonderful -- the streets and parks are crowded with bikers, polite, rule following bikers, polar opposites to the crazies you run into elsewhere.

Oh, and I noticed this sign in the window of a nearby Thai restaurant. Almost $15 bucks for a bowl of tom yum? I don't think so....

I think I'll pass on this soup "special"

Some Odds and Ends

This will probably be the last I'll write until I'm back in the states. We've taken a few rides on the CBR now that my time here is nearing an end. We drove the beautiful, twisty Samoeng loop again but threw in a visit to Khun Khan National Park, a small park about 10 miles west of Samoeng. These photos, taken by Nut, are from that trip. (N18.85287 E98.62118)

Spider - Khun Khan NP Teak leaf roof - Khun Khan NP

Here is a short video clip from one of those rides. Nut shot it while riding pillion. The day was pleasant but you can plainly see smoke obscuring the view. The farmers around northern Thailand burn their fields every spring either to kill weeds and insects or just because it's an old habit. It's a major pain in the butt. Many complain about this, myself included, but as visitors we're obliged to make an effort to understand that the rural Thai people have been doing this for years and they have the right to burn if they wish even if it makes no sense to us. I have pleasant memories of the smell of burning leaves in the fall when I was a kid in Buffalo. I loved it and I miss it even knowing how bad it is for the air. Maybe the Thais love that smell too.

The outside temp's been peaking at about 100 degrees in the afternoon lately but our apartment stays fairly comfortable -- we've been staying in watching movies and TV series in the heat of the afternoons. We've watched two full seasons of Walking Dead, two of Dexter (Seasons 5 and 6), Game of Thrones, and quite a few movies. You can buy bootlegged DVDs everywhere (in point of fact, it's hard to find legal CDs or DVDs in Thailand or Cambodia) but I've been getting them off the Internet because the quality's good and almost anything you want can be easily obtained. (Dexter fans: What do you think about the ending of Season Six where Deb witnesses Dexter's Dark Passenger in full control? Season seven should be very interesting.)

Bamboo scaffolding

And I've been reading. A lot. I wrote about using my Netbook for an e-reader in a recent post. My "library" has grown since I got on board the e-book train and now contains 47 titles; the first one I bought was "Rafa" (Raphael Nadal's biography), the most recent "Growing up Amish". I'm reading everything electronically now and I sold the few print books I had back to the bookstore. I noticed somewhere online the other day that e-book people read 25% more books than those that read only paper books. I'm not surprised. My son Tuli is working on hacking a Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch reader so it will work with not only B&N ebooks but also Amazon's Kindle and PDF.  That will eliminate my last reason for resisting the ebook trend, that of being locked in to a proprietary book format. I'll be following his lead and when I return next fall I'll have a new ebook reader along.

Caution - Elephant Crossing

And I'll be retiring my Acer Netbook laptop. It's been a good travel companion that I bought because it's small and lightweight. But I've grown tired of its cramped keyboard and 1024x600 pixel screen. It uses a tiny Intel Atom CPU with a meager 1 MB of RAM, pretty puny. And I'm not doing as much "backpacking" as I anticipated when I bought it back in 2009 now that I've adopted Thailand as a second home. I did a few days research and bought a refurbished Dell XPS 15z laptop with a powerful Intel Core I7 64-bit processor, 8 MB of RAM, 2 MB of video RAM, USB 3.0, a backlit keyboard and a 1920x1080 (full HD) 15 inch display. This will be my main computer and now that I no longer have a desk in Alaska it will replace the old Dell desktop computer I've used for the past 4 or 5 years.

Tethering

We have wi-fi here at our apartments but it can be used by only one of us at a time. Nut isn't a computer junkie but since the birth of her granddaughter she's been spending quite a bit of time on Skype and Facebook. Wi-fi access is common here. Almost all hotels and coffee shops offer it and it's free. Although ours isn't free it is quite good, is inexpensive and fairly fast. I was paying about $90/month back in Alaska for a DSL line that provided only 1 Mbps download speed. Highway robbery. Our apartment wi-fi provides speeds of 4 Mbps down (0.5 Mbps up) and costs $9/month. When I left Alaska last September one of my greatest pleasures was telling ACS Alaska to cancel my DSL account, permanently. The bastards were charging me $26/month simply to hold my DSL line while I was away.

Seeing as 3G Internet access via cell phone is also quite cheap here (isn't everything?) I looked into tethering as a way to use my Samsung Galaxy Android smartphone for those times when we both wanted to be on. Tethering is using your phone's Internet connection to access the Internet signal which you then provide to your computer via USB cable. It's pretty cool. That means no matter where I am, as long as there is a measurable telephone signal I can access the Internet on my laptop. The speeds are quite reasonable too; 2 Mbps down and 0.250 Mbps up. Here 3G Internet costs about $10/month for unlimited access, i.e., with no data cap. I was able to do Internet on my smartphone before tethering but typing anything other than short text messages on its virtual keyboard required more patience then I could muster.

The application I'm using for tethering my phone to my laptop is called PDANet. It's free to try and $15 to buy, which you'll want to do after a few weeks because it will eventually refuse to connect to secure sites unless you pay. It requires a lightweight client on your computer and one on your Android phone. The app is available in Android Market and doesn't require your phone to be rooted. (Rooting is the process of taking control of your phone's operating system and will void your warranty among other things.)

Back in the states and depending on your provider you may be prevented from tethering, or have to pay extra if you do. I just called AT&T to reactivate my U.S. phone and learned that if I want use tethering it will cost me an additional $50/month. Ain't that just peachy? Plus, I've been reading about how most if not all stateside providers recently invoked data caps that limit you to a certain number of bits per month depending on how much you want to pay. That shows you just what you can get if you pay lobbyists enough to make the FCC bend over backwards to protect cell phone providers instead of helping consumers get a fair shake. Hah!

A Fascination with Maps

And this last item is crazy and in the end pointless, but I felt compelled to do it regardless.

Facebook deserves part of the blame.

I tried to edit the silly Bing-hosted Facebook map provided within the new Timeline feature (ugh!) in order to update my current residence, and became so frustrated I decided to do my own thing and create a custom Google Map. Then I thought, why not make it a map of all the places I've lived? It was a nice project for a map junkie like me. Why Facebook's programmers continue to "update" its interface, chose Bing's maps over Google's, and otherwise continually screw everything up mystifies me. No doubt they're looking for perfection. In the meantime we're at their mercy and the Facebook UI remains a far cry from perfection.

The rest of this compulsion I can't explain other than to say that I'm a confessed nostalgia junkie and this is grist for my mill. I love maps and enjoy exploring with Google Earth. So here are 34 places I've called home during the past 68 years. Click on the link below the Google Map map for a larger version or download this KML file if you prefer to view them in Google Earth.

View Places I've Lived in a larger map

We're both trying to stay cheerful knowing that this time our separation will be shorter -- about 4-1/2 instead of 6 months -- but I can get down about it at times. I'll work on getting a "long stay" visa for next season so I can come and go from Thailand as many times as I please. Now that I have a nice bike and my teeth are fixed and we've moved from Bangkok, there will be more time for travel and I can return to my studies of the Thai language. At least that's the plan.

On the road to Chiang Mai - February 2012

I'll be in Amsterdam in a few days enjoying some Brigand IPA and quite possibly some legal aromatic herb from the Mellow Yellow or some other friendly "coffee shop". (see Biking Around Amsterdam 2009 for more). I'll hit the states on the 16th after an absence of just about 7 months. It'll be tough leaving my sweetie here but as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Later...

Tennis

I've been playing a bit of  tennis lately, which is nice, and which is good for me. I've hooked up with a group that meets at the nearby 700 Year Stadium three times a week. I'm playing lousy at the moment but I know from past experience that things will get better as the season wears on and I get my strokes working again. The Chiang Mai group is a mixed bag of farangs, some English folks, an Aussie or two, a few Japanese and Thais and I'm enjoying getting to know them. Dtoi, a Thai man, is one of my favorites -- he's a total joy to play with. He's a good player who laughs constantly even after blowing a shot. I'm trying to be more like him on the courts because I've learned that putting a smile on my face can really make a difference.

Chiang Mai's 700 Year Stadium complex (Google Earth image).
It's about 2 miles north of our place  (N18.841351, E 98.963204)

Here's a link to a Google Map that shows where the stadium is in relation to our apartment.

Aki

Dtoi, a man with a great attitude

Gene hits a return

Norm sits one out, Peter is in background left, Steve on right

Oui (left) and Paul

Orange juice "highball" and watermelon

The stadium was built for the 1995 ASEAN Games and named for Chiang Mai's 700th anniversary. (And I used to think of the Union Oyster House in Boston as old -- it dates from about 1820.) The tennis courts we use were renovated a few years ago. It's a fairly nice facility and seldom crowded. You can hire a "knocker" for a few dollars an hour and coaching costs about $6 per hour, a far cry from what you'd pay in the states. A knocker, by the way, is a guy who knocks balls you hit to him back to you, almost like a ball machine but better. I've hired young Nick a few times to hit with me. He's a friendly Thai guy who possesses almost perfect ground strokes. And he gets everything back that I throw at him. Easily.

Summer's coming on fast and after these workouts in the ever increasing heat I'm always powerfully thirsty despite drinking almost 2 liters of water at the courts. I've taken to drinking a mix of orange juice and bitter-lemon soda water over ice. And Nut often has some cut up watermelon ready to go along with it. We play in the morning to beat the heat. And finish much too early for beer.  My little creation is a perfect alternative.

---

I woke up this morning feeling nervous about what's ahead:  In about a week I'll be leaving Nut. And then there's the traveling, the deadlines, the long hours in airplanes, my return to Alaska. I'm really not much of a traveler. I like staying at home, or at least in a place that feels like home. And for now, this is it. I've a few things to do before packing my bags but they won't take long. I'll need to live out of a suitcase for a while, unless I luck into a living situation in Homer that will allow me to unpack some of my stuff and hang my hat for a spell. The way things have turned out at this point, I could say I'm more or less living in Thailand and visiting the United States, rather than the other way around.

My relationship with Nut has provided me a great deal of satisfaction. She's made my time here both interesting and enjoyable and has been an almost perfect companion. I've joked with friends about the likelihood that the language barrier I sometimes fret about has perhaps made our relationship easier. We never get involved with second guessing one another nor do we have those analytical discussions about what we're doing together. We have no conflicting goals or agenda. It's fairly straightforward, a simple but unspoken contract; if I take care of her she will take care of me. We've become good friends during the past two years and I grow fonder of her every week.

Much has been written about the nature of Thai-farang relationships but what I said above does a fair job of summarizing ours. Naturally, there's more to it than that. Nut hopes to have a small home of her own someday, one with a vegetable garden and a few chickens running in the yard. Although she has never pressed me on that subject, it's something I do think about from time to time. Even if I had someplace in the U.S. other than Alaska where I wanted to live, a guy getting by on retirement income alone cannot easily start over in the states. But he might just pull it off over here. Living in rural Thailand definitely wouldn't work for me but maybe there's an in between place that could meet both our needs?

Anyway, at first our separation will be harder for Nut than for me. I'll be visiting family and friends while she will be alone in a city that's still new and largely unknown to her. Later this month she'll travel to Betong to spend a month or so with her daughter and 2-month old granddaughter. Then too she'll visit her family in Bangkok now and again -- before long it'll be September and I'll be back in Thailand.

Head in the Cloud

I've discovered a whole new way to enjoy reading. eBooks have been around for years but since the introduction of the Kindle Reader by Amazon.com in 2007 they've really taken off. I've resisted buying a Kindle because I didn't want to be forced to buy books from a single outlet, be it Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Sony, that produces those books in a proprietary format readable only on their device. But I've changed my position on that recently because as a traveler and a voracious reader I simply cannot bring with me all the books I will read in a span of 6 or 8 months. I don't have room for them and I don't want to pay to ship them all over the world. I read most books only once and then I must decide what to do with them. I usually give them to a friend but sometimes I throw them away or sell them at a second hand shop. I definitely don't want to carry them on my motorcycle or stuff them into my already heavy roller bag and take them flying with me.

eBooks solve that problem perfectly. They weigh nothing and take up no space. I can read several books simultaneously, choosing one for bedtime reading, another for afternoons, still another for a quick, topical read. Conventional bookmarks aren't required because the page you're on is always remembered. And you do not need to buy a separate stand-alone reader. At Amazon at least, you can download your books to a normal computer (or several computers) and read them in your browser. The Kindle Cloud Reader is a Flash based application that requires nothing other than a recent version of Chrome or Firefox. I'm carrying a raft of books with me now -- a couple of them in book form would be weighty tomes (A tale of Two Cities, Infinite Jest) that would push the weight of my roller bag over the 23 kg limit. And, surprise, surprise, some of the books in my Cloud Library were very cheap to purchase, some even free.

A portion of my Kindle Library

One of the nicer features of these apps is that you don't have to be online to read. You can download and "pin" any book (or many books) and read offline. In the photo above you see some of the titles I've purchased. They are in "The Cloud" in Amazon's parlance -- they do not actually exist on my computer but are on Amazon's servers somewhere in cyberspace. In the top center of this screen shot you can see a tab labeled "Downloaded". Clicking on this tab displays the books I've pinned, i.e., downloaded.  These are ready to read anytime I want them, whether I happen to be near a wi-fi access point or not. A full electronic copy exists on my computer. Very cool.

Are the eBooks expensive? Yes and no. They usually cost less then their printed counterparts but Amazon and others have got to be making a ton of money on them because, let's face it, the production costs must be small compared with manufacturing a printed book, packaging it, distributing it, stocking it, etc. That said, most of the books I've bought cost about $10 -- about what you pay these days to download an mp3 album by an established group.

And here's something I discovered only recently. Many Kindle books are available cheap, from 99 cents to 1.99. These are termed Kindle Singles. Some of these are books that might never have seen the light of day if conventional metrics applied. They are good books in their own right but for various reasons, maybe they're too short or appeal to only a limited audience, would never have been printed. Ebooks have opened the door for many authors, some very well known, to get these works published despite a lack of industry interest. The entire top row of titles in my Cloud (which happens to be displayed in order of purchase) are Kindle Singles and represent about $15-20 worth of purchases. There are the short, topical reads I mentioned above -- most can be finished in an hour or two. One is by Pulitzer Prize winner William T. Vollman. Into the Zone describes his experiences when he visited Japan following the 2011 Tsunami Disaster.

Aside: How does one find these free or cheap books? Pull up Amazon's listing of Kindle Singles, for example. When it first appears it will be arranged by Popularity. There's a drop down list near the top of the page where you can choose to see the list sorted by price. The cheapest items will now appear first.

Many of the other titles in the top row of my Cloud Library were discovered in a new blog I've begun to follow. It embraces the fact that eBooks are here to stay and that science buffs as well as science writers and educators need a source of critically reviewed short subjects available in eBook format. Check out Download the Universe. This blog just started in January so it is very new but I'll be following it closely for  recommendations. This blog is oriented towards science topics so it may not appeal to everyone but their notion that books that aren't worth printing using the conventional publishing paradigm are nevertheless worth reading is certainly important and one that will create gigantic repercussions throughout the publishing world.

Oh, and a few of those titles in the screenshot came to me absolutely free. When is the last time you saw this in an online catalog?

I don't know if I'll ever get around to reading A Tale of Two Cities but it's on my list of Books I Must Read, it cost nothing to buy, weighs nothing and takes up no room in my suitcase. Why not carry it along in my Cloud Library?

The Cloud Reader app is a limited version of what's available in full blown readers, Android tablets and the iPad. The possibilities for publishing truly stunning works of art and literature and science are practically limitless given where the technology is heading with those very capable platforms. Am I ready to buy a Kindle Reader? I'm close but I think I'll wait a while yet to see what's ahead in the Android Tablet world. The browser based reader in my tiny Netbook is easy to hold in bed, almost like a book, and serves my purpose for now. Eventually I'm sure I'll fully embrace the new paradigm.

What about you? It's easy to try. If you already have an Amazon.com account, go to Amazon.com and search for Tale of Two Cities. Click on the title to display the full page spread and then click on Kindle Edition. Buy it (for 0.00 dollars) and elect to begin reading on your Cloud Reader.

Also, and importantly, you needn't buy an actual Kindle reader to read Kindle books. There are Kindle apps available for both Android and iPhone. Using an app instead of a dedicated Kindle Reader allows you to read books in formats other than Amazon's proprietary one. Many of my books are in epub format and can often be found for free on the Internet. 

Vespas, or what?

1959 Vespa - Note the small wheels allowing
a step-thru chassis, spare tire, cowling

Why would I write anything at all about Vespas? They're not even true motorcycles but motor-scooters — you know, they have those tiny wheels, a small motor — everything about them is small and low to the ground. I remember them from my childhood years when they were practically the only two wheeled vehicle on American roads that wasn't named Harley or Indian. By the way, the name Vespa derives from the Italian word for wasp and is a reference to the buzzing sound those tiny high-revving motors made as they raced along the highways of Italy.

During my motorcycle trip to Nan last month I spent a few evenings chatting with biking buddies Al, DC, Sean, and Andy over beers at our hotel. These guys have been riding for years. They're true aficionados. When we get together we constantly talk about motorcycles; Bimmers, Kawasakis, Hondas, tires and exhaust pipes, street bikes vs off-road, etc. One evening the conversation somehow turned to Vespas. To my surprise, Sean said he'd gladly pay $4,000 USD for an older Vespa, properly restored. Al immediately chimed in with his affirmation.

I said, Whoa, are you kidding? You'd both be willing to pay four grand for a Vespa, an old Vespa?

"Yes", they said, practically in unison, "in a heartbeat  — cash money."

So I thought I'd do a little research about Vespas. If I do some reading, I reasoned, maybe I'll end up liking them too.

As it happens, the Vespa was a revolutionary 2-wheeler for its time. The small wheels allowed a step-thru chassis that made getting on and off easy even if the driver was wearing a skirt, unlike other motorcycles of the day. The 2-stroke engine was enclosed and hidden inside a streamlined rear end and they had a cowling up front to protect the driver from rain and mud. The modern Yamaha Finos and Honda Scoopys and Clicks borrow heavily from that original design and you see hordes of them in Thailand, often driven by attractive gals in skirts and high heels. These bikes far outnumber Vespas on the roads nowadays. Vespas are made in Italy by Piaggio and always have been. The company started out making interiors for train coaches but in the late 1940s developed the stylish motor scooter that made the  Vespa marque famous. I read somewhere that over 15 million Vespas have been manufactured since they first appeared. That's more than 4 times the number of Harleys that have sold in their one hundred year history. Who knew?

(More reading: Here's a blog article about the Vespa Museum near Pisa, Italy: Velvet Escape)

Chiang Mai girl riding a Honda Click

Because the modern bikes have automatic transmissions these machines have no clutch lever. Of course, having no clutch to operate with the left hand, only a brake, makes it easy for people to hold a drink, or even a cell phone, with that hand. This is all too common a practice in Thailand. Hell, you're never gonna need that other brake anyway, right?

Taking a call while driving one-handed in heavy traffic

Vespas are fairly common in Thailand. Most of those I see here are older ones with 2-stroke engines. The two-strokes are the ones that have lubricating oil mixed with the fuel which results in the production of a lot of smelly smoke, which in turn causes me to curse them. Lonely Planet calls the Vespa the iconic motor scooter, the machine that defines what a scooter is. I call them crop-dusters. Whether on the open road or waiting for a light to change, there's almost nothing worse then being caught behind a crop-duster. Two-stroke engines have been pretty much phased out in the U.S. except for chain saws and other applications requiring a high power to weight ratio, which is one of the few redeeming virtues of 2-stroke motors. (They're light because they use no valves or camshafts. Plus they deliver one power stroke for every 2 crankshaft revolutions, while a 4-stroke engine delivers only one power stroke for four revs.) Every once in a while you'll still see an old outboard motor or vintage motorcycle trailing a characteristic plume of blue smoke but they're mostly gone now. They're very inefficient compared to four-stroke engines and the stinky exhaust gas they produce is both smoky and polluting. Good riddance.

2 old Vespas in our parking lot Business end of  a 2-stroke Vespa motor

Another neighborhood Vespa Mirrors and lights

But things have changed. The company almost went bankrupt a while ago after losing ground and sales dollars to Japanese bike makers for many years. But beginning in 2003 new management and the employment of Japanese assembly line techniques have reinvigorated the marque and have once again made Vespas a cult item, in demand for the metropolitan commuter and Sunday drive in the country crowd. For example, the young fellow I chatted with at Wangwon Farm the other day had a new LX150 of which he was quite proud.

Nut and I looked at an assortment of new Vespas at the big Honda dealership in Chiang Mai the other day. They are pretty cool I must admit. Why the Honda dealer is selling them is a question I cannot answer. (More profit margin? If you can't lick 'em, join 'em? The owner loves Vespas as do my buddies Sean and Al?)

Vespa GTV 300

The new Vespas boast state of the art fuel injected, 4-stroke engines ranging in size from 50cc to 280cc. Gone are the smelly plume of blue smoke and the ring-a-ding-ding sound of those venerable 2-stroke motors. Enter Halogen headlights, electric starters, disc brakes and efficient automatic transmissions. But I had an attack of sticker shock when I looked at the price tag on the top of the line GTV 300. This little baby will set you back 300,000 baht, close to $10,000 USD. I read an article in Wired magazine while I was putting this together that talks about an experimental model, the X9, which has a 460cc motor.

Note: Feb 2013 - I learned the X9 was released in 2005 but was not particularly successful and is not listed on the Vespa site (link below). It never caught on in the states, nor here as far as I can tell.

(The Vespa site for the USA is  here.)

So, now that I've looked the situation over have I changed my mind about Vespas? In a word, No.

I do like them better than I did but still think my buddies are crazy. Pay four grand for a restored crop duster? No way. Pay 10 grand for the new, sportier 4-stroke, automatic transmission equipped GTV 300? I don't think so. The Japanese brands competing in the step-thru category cost far less than any Vespa. A brand new 125cc Honda Click or Yamaha Fino can be had for under $2,000 USD and there are service centers literally everywhere in the kingdom.

Just for the hell of it and as another point of comparison even though not completely fair, a new BMW F800GS, practically a superbike here in Thailand, will set you back around 800,000 baht, ($26,000 USD!) In the U.S. the F800GS can be had for a paltry $13K USD. My CBR250 is, of course, manufactured in Thailand while the Vespa and the Bimmer are imports and therefore carry a stiff import duty that jacks their MSRPs to almost double the cost elsewhere.

The 2012 BMW F 800 GS - you can have one for only $26,000

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The other day I bought the tickets that will take me to the east coast of the U.S. and out of Thailand for the summer months. My original plan was to spend a month or so in France and the Netherlands but I decided for various reasons not to do that and will instead come more or less directly back to the states. I'll fly west out of Bangkok to Amsterdam for a 3-day stop at one of the favorite cities of my 2009 visit to Europe and then on to Buffalo and North Carolina. After that I'll spend a few weeks in Eugene while my son Tuli recovers from knee surgery for a torn ACL and then sometime in late May or early June return to Alaska for the main part of the summer.

What does the summer hold now that I no longer have a place to hang my hat in Homer? Good question. I'll tell you about it when I figure it out.

Strawberry Ride

Nut's on her way to Bangkok tonight to be with her daughter, Dui Dui, who's about to give birth to her first grandchild and I've been hanging out with Willy and Janice, Homer friends who are here on the tail end of a two-month trip around SE Asia. Lots of great chit-chat, gossip and travel information were passed back and forth across the table at one of my favorite restaurants near Thapae Gate in the old city. You might recall I talked about Janice in some of my early blogging because she has been a friendly and knowledgeable influence on my traveling and my destinations: she's been practically everywhere in the world, and sometimes more than once.

Anyway, yesterday was a beautiful day (aren't they all?) and seeing as we're pretty much settled into our new place over breakfast I suggested a ride into  the country to buy some strawberries. Nut, always up for explorations involving food, immediately started gathering up her motorcycling gear. Strawberries are both a tradition around here and an important crop for which the area is famous. We repeated a ride we had done with Big Al a few months ago before the strawberry season, a loop through the little town of Samoeng, which is about 30 km west of Chiangmai. The roads are, well, I imagine you'll soon tire of hearing me say it, perfect for motorcycling. Absolutely perfect. Smooth and very twisty, with light traffic and just enough ups and downs to make it interesting. Goddamn, it's pretty country!


View Samoeng Loop in a larger map

As we approached Samoeng, Nut began to notice signs on trees and fence posts advertising a certain strawberry farm a few kilos ahead. There were roadside stands selling berries along the highway but for some reason Nut had become fixated on getting to this particular farm, so we persevered, or I guess I should say, I persevered, until we reached the Wongwan Farm just a bit south of Samoeng. Nut's intuition is seldom faulty and I reckon I should just learn to trust it more because the little farm turned out to be quite an interesting place -- a farm, resort, and restaurant located in a fertile and pretty valley nestled in the same hills that make motorcycling so damn much fun. People come here to buy strawberries and to pick them. Some even stay in the funky little bungalows to get away from the city and immerse themselves in the rural atmosphere.

At Wongwan Farm - smoke from burning fields is plainly visible

The CBR at Wongwan Farm (N18.83837, E98.72796)

Nut attempts to carry a heavy berry-burden -- about 40 lbs of berries on a bamboo stick

Nut picking strawberries

In the photos you can see the pall of smoke that curses the northern provinces every spring. At this time of year rural Thais, farmers and townspeople alike, burn everything they see. At least that's the way it seems to me. I can understand burning weeds and chaff in fallow rice paddies, but they also burn roadsides, deeply forested hillsides, railroad corridors, in short anything or any area that has combustible material present. It's crazy and seems to serve no definable purpose, there are even laws prohibiting it, but every spring countless fields and forests are burned to the point that visibility drops to few meters in some areas -- busy urban airports actually close. Nobody, no farang anyway, can understand this frenzy to burn but it's widespread and totally out of control. Many folks look forward to the beginning of the rainy season when the water will wash the air and subjugate the smoke and heat from this annual burning.

I struck up a conversation with this nice young fellow, the owner of a new 150cc Vespa scooter, as I waited for Nut to finish picking berries. Like most Thais, he was very friendly and cooperative especially as I had asked him if I could take a picture of his bike. I've become curious about Vespas because two of my Homer buddies (Sean and Al) told me one night over drinks that they would gladly pay $4,000 for an older restored Vespa scooter. I  don't understand that and intend to do a short entry about Vespas at a future date.

Talk to you later, and stay tuned....