Retirement (again)

Arrived in CM feeling upbeat after two years in the South. Glad to be back. Dining with Paddy and his wife (feels odd saying that) was a treat. The Indian was superb but it wiped me out for two days (food poisoning). An ominous sign of things to come?

Spent the weekends riding through the sticks. Business as usual.

However, owning a CBR500 entails running costs. New tyres set me back $200. I'd let the old ones go a bit far.

Renewed the passport wondering where the last decade went? In 2009 in Trang I had to post everything to HongKong. Now you have to present yourself to an office in Bangkok or Chiang Mai.

Bought a comfy office chair. A rare bit of indulgence there.

Fits nicely in my room offering decent views of rice fields. Loving the sticks of CM. About 20km south of the moat. Beautiful.

More trips in to the wilds of MaeWang. Mesmerised by this hydro-electric dam deep in the jungle.

Always a good crack with the Bagayo folk in the middle of nowhere.

But, this is where the wheels came off. I managed two months in the new gig before binnage. The act of binning inadvertantly kick-started Early-Retirement-MkII.

That was, quite possibly, the most stressful two months of my working life. I won't go into details suffice to say I'm pleased to be out. Some jobs can be hazardous to your mental well-being!

In a crazy week I'd sold the CBR500, binned the job and bought myself a little Granny-bike.

Thanapon was happy with his new bike and I was happy with pedal-power.

So what's the plan? Well, with over $500/month coming in from dividend-producing-investments and enough liquid cash to last 9 months ....... I'm off to Cambo. Hoping to get a 12 month retirement visa, a little room in Battambang and a bicycle. Will focus on learning to read/write the lingo while exploring the environs.

Retirement at 39 failed. Spectacularly. Let's see if I can pull it off 6 years later approaching 46.

Man, it's so relaxing cycling around the sticks of HangDong. Got another month of it before Bangers/Phnom Penh.

Anyone who knows me knows I love numbers and data. So I knocked up this little table detailing all my >125cc bikes over the last decade in Thailand.

	Honda Phantom TA200	Honda CBR 250	Honda CBR 500
First Registered	June 2005	July 2011	Mar 2017
Province bought	Nakhon Si Tammarat	Petchaburi	Songkla
Province sold	Bangkok	Chiang Mai	Chiang Mai
Date bought/sold	Oct 2009/Jan 2013	Jan 2013/Nov 2016	Mar 2018/Sept 2019
Age when bought	4yr 4mth	1yr 6mth	NEW
Time owned	3yr 3mth	3yr 11mth	1yr 6mth
Price paid	57,000B	70,000B	215,000B
Price sold	30,000B	45,000B	105,000B
Seller	American	New Zealand	N/A
Buyer	Australian	Thai	Thai
Km when bought	3,200	4,000	0
Km when sold	47,300	78,300	38,000
Km ridden	44,100	74,300	38,000
Total time	8yr 8mth
Total km	156,400
Round the equator	3.83 times