I'm having some PM problems sending and have NO idea how to fix it. I checked my "sent" and see a few that went out this morning and then.... nothing. A couple of people have asked some questions and I responded only to learn that .... they did not get my response. So I'll use this also. I think that I've worked out what is needed on the Orphans thread but REALLY wanted to share with cavebiker, frank12, Hillbilly and Cobraboy an email from my brother in law in Thailand. He is a biker but we also share some same type experiences........ half a world away.
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Thanks for the great links. I would love to cycle around the DR. I fear, though, if I lived there, I would have traversed every road on the island within 6 months and began suffering first symptoms of the dread disease known as Island fever. I got a kick out of the guy in your link that said, "Soon we ride into the village La Isabela, the first city of the new world," and Montezuma, rolling in his grave is asking, "And I guess I shat in the woods?" If you want to read an interesting history that poo poos such ethnocentric attitudes, read, A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. My liberal friends tend to enjoy it while my right wing friends tend to froth at the mouth and refuse to finish it. I admit that the guy had an axe to grind, but I enjoyed it. Anybody that would argue that the history you and I were taught in school was not filled with nationalistic propaganda, doesn't really have a grip on things. So Zinn's book, on the other side, simply adds balance to the complete picture. One needs to read both to derive the truth.
I guess if I lived there, a dirt bike would be in order. Where I live, there is a lot of great off road stuff, but way north of me. So I forgo it, since I wouldn't want to have to trailer a bike to go riding. We are very lucky here in that Thailand , for a developing nation, has some great roads and a lot of them.
I was very fortunate to have met Huay and married her. Great family. However, if there would be ne regret, it would be the responsibilities that go with it. I am pretty sure that were I not married, I would be an unapologetically hopeless and homeless motorcycle bum. I had planned, after Peace Corps, to return to the US , buy another BMW (GS1200) and take a two year trip from the US to the tip of Argentina and back. My plans were to time it so I would always be in late spring to early fall (you can do that with a north/south trans-equator trip). Right now, I think about a trip up through Laos and China , then off to Europe along the old Silk Road . But it's just dreaming these days. I take week to ten day trips around Thailand and satisfy myself with that. One of the chief responsibilities of marriage, I think, is to make a reasonable effort to stay alive and my proclivities for adventure tend to ignore that one -- so I pull in my horns.
These days I ride a Kawasaki ER6n (650 cc). Not quite the liter+ BMW I rode in the States, but is very reliable, affordable and has enough oomph. It is made here, so does not have the 100% import duty that imported vehicles carry. Here, for vehicles, there is the 100% import duty, a 30% excise tax and a 7% VAT, with all vehicles carrying the latter two regardless of origin. Oh, and did I mention that everything is a monopoly here with undisguised thirst for giant profit. (I think that the unwritten rule here is that anything need for survival is cheap; everything else is expensive.) Thus all vehicles are more expensive here than in the US . A $12,000 BMW in the US costs about $36,000 here. I just can't stomach that. The Kawasaki cost about eight grand, then I added another eight grand in accessories I imported from the States. I could not survive without the GPS -- it's become part of my brain.
Well I had more to write, but Huay is waiting for me. It's Saturday morning and we are going to town. Cary might have mentioned that I am preparing to build a house. It is quite daunting, especially since, (1) I have a lot of very specific detail I want; (2) I have no interest in compromise or changes from my plan; (3) Thais like to do things "the way we have always done it" (4) given the forgoing and the fact that I am a perfectionist, I will micro-manage everything; and (5) there is a language barrier. I have no illusions about all the trouble this is going to cause. Now, if I judge you correctly (that we share pretty much all of the forgoing attributes in building), you know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
Okay, gotta go. Thanks for writing. I'll write more later.
