Solving Problems and Looking Strikingly Handsome While Doing It.

For me, and this is Spencer writing (the handsomest part of the Breckan/Spencer duo), one of the most exciting parts of travel is finding solutions to previously unsolvable or even inconceivable problems. Doing this in third world countries where everyone is so freaking handy, makes this even more fun (i.e. ask me about my grilled cheese sandwich in backwater-end-of-the-earth Indonesia).

Besides our plethora of visa problems, besides my astoundingly poor cycling physique, besides everyone being convinced this trip will send us to certain death (but not the good 32 virgins in heaven death), Breckan and I faced two pretty huge problems the day or two before we started this multi-country jaunt. I will put these two problems in sequential order so it will be easier for you to read them.

PROBLEM NUMBER ONE (and this seemed like it might be a real doozy): Thai Customs officials. We ordered our bikes from TR Bikes in Singapore; the single greatest bike shop in the world,. Not thinking about customs, we had them shipped up to us in Bangkok and then went out and ate pizza. Several days later we stopped by the post office and I inquired about our bikes. "Oh," the postmaster said, "your bikes are probably stuck in customs. That is very, very bad luck and that is going to be very, very expensive!' That is actually a direct quote, except he said it in Thai and shook his head a lot. Since I automatically don't believe people when they tell me bad news, I went to look for myself on the internet ( much more reliable source). Sure enough, Breckan and I were looking at about $800 in customs duties for our bikes. Very, very bad luck and very, very expensive. However, this was Thailand and... well you know.

I called the customs office and told the man who answered the phone our predicament. The predicament being we didn't want to pay $800 and the law demanded we pay $800. In the states I have run into this predicament quite often and never has anyone said, "We probably can work something out."

"We probably can work something out," the Thai customs official said.

So down we went to the customs office with two crisp 1000 baht ($55) dollars in my pocket. The office was about a billion years old and tucked up against some railroad depot. We took the elevator up to the third floor, walked past our bike boxes in a giant open air warehouse and into our new friends office. I once again explained our situation but threw in the "fact" that we had come to Thailand to help little Thai children and that we were but two poor Americans suffering from the mismanagement of the US economy.

"I see. Oh, I see. Yes, yes this is a huge problem. You are lucky you came here first. We are much nicer than the office we were about to send your bikes to. Here we like to help nice people like you two," our new friend said.

"Well Great! I'll be taking our bikes now!" as I got up to leave.

"No. No. you will have to pay some kind of tax." As he scratched his chin and decided how much the two boxes were worth.

"Remember we are just poor school teachers who love orphans and puppies"

"Yes. I can remember. These two boxes will be 2000 baht."

I pulled out my 2000 baht and he politely refused it. Apparently this wasn't your run of the mill greasing the chains that set us free. This time I'd get a receipt. For the next 20 minutes three guys tried to calculate backward so that the 40% custom duty would add up to 2000 baht. Much math and calculators and arguing was involved before our price settled. 1972 baht.

We were brought into an office full of pictures of bathing suit clad Korean pop stars and were given a seat. The one official began filling out forms in the nicest handwriting we had ever seen. I asked, "why do you have such nice handwriting?"

"I was a monk for 12 years"

And back he went to filling out our forms. I'm still not sure how that was answer to my question, but I didn't want to seem like an idiot. "He was a monk for 12 years," I told breckan and then acted like she was an idiot for not knowing how that related to him having nice handwriting. That made me feel better.

About 45 minutes later and 212 forms later- seriously, Thai customs might own the rights to my first born and 3 toes on my left foot- we gave the nice man our 2000 baht. He pulled our change out of his wallet. We all wai'd, some tremendously fat guy helped carry our bikes down the stairs, and out of the building we went. We packed the bikes into a tuk-tuk, since a taxi could never fit them and drove to the nearest bike shop. Breck went home with her bike and I dropped my bike off at pro-bikes to be assembled. The next day we would discover BIG PROBLEM NUMBER TWO. Since this has run on far to long, that will have to wait until our next blog. I'll give you a hint though. It has to do with Breckan's extended prison stay a couple years ago.