January 3, 2026 to January 4, 2026
Always Near, Though Far Away
Kanchanaburi
Always Near, Though Far Away
Kanchanaburi
I've always wondered what Kanchanaburi was like but I never dreamed I've been mispronouncing it for decades. The accent is here: KanchaNAburi. We stayed in a very nice hotel a block off the main street of downtown but it was a quiet, totally Thai sort of little neighborhood complete with a small very grungy, well-used market a block away. I loved the location and our room. I immediately went to the bustling little market (late afternoon) and bought oranges, bananas, peanuts and a bag of already cut pineapple slices. The upper floors of our building are actually apartments so in the mornings we bumped into nicely dressed Thais rushing out the door to go to work. I did all I could to help them on their way by holding the door open. I know, a big help!
Before we arrived at our hotel (in the back of a pickup truck) we had no idea what the part of the city where we had booked a room was like. Normally we don't book a room and enter a city, ride around a bit to get a feel for it and then find a place to stay. Since New Year's Eve was a Wednesday it was feeling like most people had taken the entire week off. One in twenty businesses were open during our entire three night stay. I really dislike looking at all the metal roll-up doors and metal grates that completely lock up the fronts of businesses. How dare all those people take some time off!
Our first morning we didn't even try to go find an open restaurant for breakfast. But that was partly because our minds were locked into figuring out how to fix that flat tire of mine. Each of us had been awake in the night trying to remember the YouTube video we had watched a long time ago on how to take the rear wheel off a belt driven, internal hub Bike Friday with disc brakes. When we woke up we sat in bed and watched that video again and then it was time to try to actually do it.
I really wanted to work on the bike in our room, without distraction, possible mosquitoes and certainly heat. Our bikes had spent the night under the building in the motorbike parking area. I thought it was worth a try to sweet talk the guy at reception that I needed to bring my bike to our room. I went and got the bike, carried it into the reception area and showed the guy that the tire was flat and that there was a belt drive so no oily mess and it was shiny clean. Fortunately I had taken it into the shower with me at our last guest house. I don't think he spoke English at all but he totally understood and nodded that I could. Guys are maybe more sympathetic about working on mechanical stuff in comfort. I really doubt the woman receptionist in the afternoon would have let me take the bike to our room. It was a really nice room. But the guy was not only going to let me, he even held the door open for me.
Getting the main axle nut loosened was our first problem. We had one tool and it was a flimsy thin thing that dug into our hands when we put any amount of pressure on it. Even with a rag wrapped around it, there was no leverage because it was too short. We got one nut off but the other wasn't budging. I needed more torque. I think it's simple physics; the longer the handle the more leverage. So, I went into MacGyver mode. I also call it Gorntech but nobody understands that. It was when Captain Kirk was stuck on some barren planet and he was faced with fighting a Gorn, of course an ugly and terrifying creature. Kirk had no weapons but he had to battle the Gorn. The amazing Captain Kirk figured out that certain rocks, if struck together, blow up! So convenient. He rigged up something or other to foil the Gorn. Gorntech.
I dug through our bag of bike stuff and came up with the only long handled tool, a disc brake rotor tool for straightening out a bent rotor. It had a hole drilled in it for some reason so I thought I could bolt it to the other tool. I didn't have a bolt so I removed one from my bike rack and found a couple of washers in our bag of tricks and was able to bolt the two tools together making the handle much longer. But it needed two points of attachment or it would just swivel at the bolt point when pressure was put on it. The only thing the disc brake tool had was three thin slots - pretty useless. But, MacGyver (or Captain Kirk) to the rescue I inserted a one Baht coin in one of the slots and it protruded into one of the spaces in the other tool just enough to hold. It was crazy but just like smashing two rocks together and they blew up, my new tool actually worked! Gorntech. Kirk and MacGyver would have patted me on the back.
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I won't bore you any further with how it went. It was very tricky because we had never done it before and the belt tension is a very important thing. The tension in the belt shouldn't change with taking the wheel off and putting it back on but it did. It is too loose now but that is better than too tight because too tight might cause damage to the internal gears in the hub. The bike works well but at some point soon I will probably need to address the tension in the belt. Tightening it is a mystery. I see the only obvious part that could adjust it and tension the belt but it doesn't exactly make a lot of sense to me either.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about why the tire went flat, our first flat tire! We've ridden on unbelievably bad roads at times and have ridden more than 8000 miles in SE Asia but this is our first flat. That's mostly because we use Schwalbe Marathon tires. The Marathon Plus tires are even better and we rode with them for years. This yellow bike (new to me) came with the Marathons (not Pluses) and because I didn't want to deal with learning how to take off the rear wheel while I was still at home where it would have been much easier, I just went with what was on the bike when I bought it. I have been worried that this might happen and the worst case scenario would be for a flat in the rear tire. A front flat would be no big deal to fix.
But, I wanted to tell you one other thing as well. This entire trip I have been thinking about thorns getting into the tires. I don't know why because we never see thorns over here. If we were to blaze our way through the jungle I'm sure we would encounter thorns on some plant. But we never see them on sticks lying on the road or shoulder. I avoid running over any stick of any kind. But for some reason, on this trip, all I could think about was thorns. We ride over glass every day but I wasn't thinking glass. I was thinking thorns. I have always been a little bit psychic but I never know when my psychicness is actually engaging. I was thinking thorns, so what. Now, after we pulled a thorn from the tire, I'm thinking not so much 'so what' but, wow, I think I kind of knew this flat tire was going to happen and a thorn was going to be the culprit. A premonition.
When we had fixed the tire we explored Kanchanaburi a little bit. One evening we walked down to the waterfront area where about a kilometer of food vendors were lined up and everyone who hadn't been working for a few days was strolling and giving those food vendors their best business all year. Well, the year has just started so that wasn't very apt. There were a lot of Thais walking around enjoying their time off and they were enjoying the food too, as Thais do. The kids were really enjoying themselves in the massive play area made for kids. There was a lot of rollerblading going on, a soccer game on the cement and some skateboarding on the ready-made ramps. We got some food and sat and watched as the sun set. As we watched we had smiles plastered on our faces. Everyone was so relaxed and happy. It was quite a scene. So many people and there was an overwhelming atmosphere of joy.
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I think I have mentioned this before when we have observed a whole bunch of Thais enjoying their time off from their jobs. But it is striking for me to see because I remember well Thais of 50 years ago. They were wonderful, happy people then too but now I'm feeling something distinctly different. There is more casualness, more freedom - they are super relaxed. The middle class has grown considerably in 50 years and now is huge. Obviously more people have better jobs, wages must be better and they feel comfortable buying nice cars and homes. Last year 25% of car sales in Thailand were electric cars. Thais are on the move. That's what we have been witnessing on our entire trip.
But here, with time off from work, the new middle class was on display showing off their new found freedom. It's even reflected in how happily the kids were playing with each other. We also noticed how tall a lot of the high school and college age kids were. I mean, they are super tall. That was rare 50 years ago. Better nutrition, better education, it all makes sense. There has been a remarkable transformation in Thailand and we just sat there enjoying what we were seeing.
The other thing is that Thais just leave us alone. They have great respect for others. For us, that's perfect because we are the type of people who want to be left alone. We gladly engage if someone wants to but it's up to them and their knowledge of English because we don't speak enough Thai to engage. I can say all the numbers perfectly and we can order lots of different foods but that isn't engaging.
We have seen this before at the beach; Thais gathering outside on blankets or mats to have a major picnic. I'm assuming that usually they are families but certainly they sometimes are a bunch of good friends. Lots of them have their own little barbecue set up next to their mats. It's lovely to watch, even the mother and teenage daughter who put down a mat and ate some food from the vendors. It didn't seem they said one word to each other the entire time. The girl took selfies for awhile and then was completely absorbed in her phone, leaving her mother to do whatever. Eventually the mother was absorbed in her phone too and there they were mother and daughter having some time together! You laugh, but actually I started to think it was great that in their separateness they were still together.
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The next day we rode our bikes all the way down along the River Kwai, (several kilometers) to the famous bridgei. That's where all the foreign tourists were. They were staying in hotels in that area too. The bridge, at certain times of the day when the trains are not scheduled, can be walked across. When we were there the bridge was filled with people. There were so many people and so much hype with vendors and such that we got completely turned off by it and we instead went to one of the cemeteries for the soldiers who died at the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese wanted to build the bridge and a rail line to Burma so they could supply their front lines against the British in Burma. The Japanese invading army used Allied POWs as slave laborers to build all of it. Some 12,000 Allied POWs died from malnutrition, disease, exhaustion, maltreatment and accidents. Another 90,000 local people died as well, forced to build the train line through dense jungle and over mountains.
There are a lot of cemeteries. We went to one. It was hard to take, looking at the headstones with the men's ages, the vast majority being early 20s. What an utter waste. The Thais have honored them by making and maintaining the most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen, a flowering plant growing between each gravestone.
We are glad we finally visited lovely Kanchanaburi. The River Kwai is a very beautiful serene river. One can't help to be sad when looking at it or the bridge and of course all the cemeteries. I guess humans progress slowly but this is one way to bring home the reality of the insanity of war. What I feel in Thailand is a lot of happiness, a lot of optimism, like the Thais have accomplished something big in the last 50 years and they want to hold onto it. Maybe that's why they tend to ignore what is going on in Burma today, their neighbor just over the mountains from Kanchanaburi. And that's why the entire news cast on TV every evening is about the spat they are having with another neighbor, Cambodia, over which country rightly owns some ancient temples. Most Thais just want that dispute to end before it spirals.
I think it's always good for people to go to places like Kanchanaburi where humans did awful things to fellow humans. It makes us think and when we think about such awful stuff we become better people. I don't know why it took us so long to finally get to Kanchanaburi but now I will never forget it.
lovebruce
Today's ride: 14 miles (23 km)
Total: 971 miles (1,563 km)
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