PATTAYA

Jeeze….it’s going to be impossible to write about Pattaya in one episode, as the place is crawling with Bike Budda’s….sorry, Builders. We only had three days there, and visited four pretty major workshops. So, two or three episodes it will be. Here goes.

Now we were settled in our comfy hotel, with the shiney Chevvy parked outside, it was time to explore. Unfortunately, it was Pattaya’s turn for the Songkra Water Festival. Turned out it moves about Thailand and it was there for a week, so we got soaked again, and the truck was squirted and flour-bombed. We saw our first proper “Ladyboy” there. You can spot them a mile off, as they walk with a distinctive bottom-waggle! Can’t say I was tempted, but I can’t speak for Myles and Atan.

We set off to look at our first workshop. I kindly volunteered Myles as driver, and plonked Atan in the front to give directions. These consisted of manic hand signals accompanied by hysterical (and hilarious) shouted instructions. “GO GO GO GO GO GO”!  meant “follow the road ahead”, “RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT” meant “Please turn right at the junction you have just passed at 40mph”. “STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP” meant “The traffic lights are on red”.
Myles did remarkably well, and kept his cool. Every now and again, he would turn to Atan and calmly say “Atan, if I turn right now, I will surely kill the three motorcyclists trying to overtake us, and that wouldn’t be good”. I was sat in the back clinging on for dear life and pissing myself laughing.

This was city driving, and no easy task. Luckily, in Thailand, they drive on the left, but they have odd rules. Like it’s compulsory for bike riders to wear protective headgear, but it can be anything. I saw one geezer wearing an orange bucket. And the pillion doesn’t have to wear one. There is also no apparent limit to the amount of people you can carry on a bike either!
The traffic lights at major junctions are pretty cool. Next to the lights is a huge display board. It counts down how many seconds you have left before the lights go red. As soon as they go red, it then counts the seconds before they go green again. It’s a bit like being in front of the “Christmas Tree” at a Dragstrip. Once it gets to 5 seconds, they all start revving up. At “Green” they dump the clutch and are off, regardless of whether anyone has jumped the “Red” on the other side. We really ought to have them over here. We could DragRace our way to work.

THE WORKSHOP OF “Tip, VIP”

After many LEFT LEFT LEFT’s, RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT’s, and STOP STOP STOP’s we finally arrived, amazingly in one piece and, “Shaken but not Stirred”, at our destination, the workshop of Tip VIP, another one man band. We were somewhere on the outskirts of town, on a rambling estate of homemade houses. There was a bit of road at one point, but mostly dirt tracks. Maybe Atan had made a mistake with this place (we’d taken about 20 wrong turns) as we were outside someone’s house. Chickens and dogs wandered about. Across the road, a dog was trying to rip a cat to bits and hysterical women were trying to pull it off. The place we disembarked at seemed to have more chickens than most. Turns out that Tip’s other interest is breeding fighting cocks. They’d definitely been in some fights!

Now, the problem with this tour of Thailand’s Chop Builders were as follows.

However, we were all fluent in sign language, and we were all “Bikers”. There was a weird natural bond, and we all got on fine, and were made more than welcome everywhere we went.

Anyway, we had indeed found the workshop of Tip,VIP. Dunno if that was his surname, or if he was very important? I presume he was both. We were guided around the side of the house, and emerged under something we were to get used to….a lean-to with open sides, a tin roof and a dirt floor. Atan introduced us to a very shy and unassuming Tip. He introduced us as “Bike Budda’s from England…big Magazine-Men”. The place was amazing. Completely STUFFED with chops, both complete, or being built. There wasn’t a square inch of spare space, and stuff was even stashed in the rafters. Once again, there seemed to be rather a lot of Honda CB750’s present.

Like Aud Bau Wau’s place, we couldn’t see a tube bender, and this guy only had a 1950’s stick-welder, yet he was producing some pretty impressive work. He really was shy, but after an hour, seemed to open up. He showed us his favourite tool, a Shock Absorber Compressor, made out of an old car crankshaft, and an old bike brake disc. It was amazingly efficient, and he gave us several demonstrations of how it worked.
We finally spotted his tube bender. It was a bit more basic than Aud’s water-filled cast iron urn. In fact, it was a load of bits bolted to a tree. He gave us a “Tube bending” demonstration. The bends were superb!
 
Tip also does a bit of “production” work. He makes internal twistgrips. By hand. One at a time. His only machine-tools are an angle grinder and pistol drill. The helix is rough-ground out and hand-filed. But they are works of art.
Tip doesn’t have a price list. In fact, he doesn’t charge. He said that if a customer has some money, they can give him some. If they don’t, then probably one day, he might get them to return the favour. What an excellent way to live.
 I won’t describe Tip’s operation in too much detail, words can’t describe the place. Stepping over cockerels crowing at the top of their voices, chicks all over, a sound-system blasting away in the rafters, dogs barking and Chops everywhere! All the time we were there, his relatives and neighbours would come in to take a peek at the two Europeans. Let the pictures do the talking.

Tip decided to take us across town to see one of his completed creations. To our horror, he leapt into the driving seat of the Chevvy. It was an automatic, and it was obvious he’d never driven one before. Even more obvious when he put it in “park” whilst on the move.
By the time we got to the next bike, it was starting to get dark. “Getting Dark” in Asia is a little different to “Getting Dark” in Europe, with our prolonged dusk etc. One minute its light, and then it’s not! This bike was pretty amazing, and everything on it was bare metal. No paint or chrome to be seen. There should be some pics at the bottom, but it had “Got Dark”. It was a sad moment when I said goodbye to Tip. We embraced, even though we’d not said a comprehendible word to each other. The bond of fellow “Bike Budda’s”.

That evening, we had an “All you can eat for £1.60” buffet at the hotel, with music by a Thai Kareoki duet. The food was great, but I wished I’d brought my ear defenders with me. Atan ate more than me, Myles and Tip put together! I decided to retire with a large Thai whisky, me being a bit of an old git, and the party animals, Myles, Atan and Tip, went to see Thailand’s equivalent of  Status Quo, “Carabeo”. Atan was mates with the guitarist, Lek, who happened to own a Harley Chop. I’m amazed at how many people this little guy knows. He ended up on stage with the band, and managed to magic up some backstage passes. We were going to go and see Lek’s bike the next day.

NEXT PART. We visit the HotRod shop, Lek Carabao’s brother’s shop, take some pics of his Harley, get soaked again, and go for a paddle in the sea.