Not sure where to put this so I will put it here.
The wife and I often get calls from people we don't know who need help in recovering a broken, wrecked or otherwise incapacitated motorcycle in northern Thailand. For many people, because of Woraphat's extensive business advertising, she is their only contact when they are in the Chiang Rai area or the north. We can usually arrange for a local person with a pickup truck to arrive on scene, load the bike and return it to Chiang Rai or sometimes, to the far away home of the rider. With that in mind, we are going to try to start a motorcycle recovery project in Thailand, with perhaps one phone number for riders to call to get help anywhere in the country. If you or anyone else would like to have your phone number added as a recovery source for this area or any other area (you own an available truck or trailer with driver or have family, friend or mechanic who does), please give us a PM. We will post this to other motorcycle forums in Thailand and perhaps we can build a good network that will service all areas of Thailand with one phone number. If not, you can at least count on us to help you in the Chiang Rai/northern Thailand area. For the Chiang Rai area, 089-429-4562 for Woraphat, English and Thai language, 24 hours.
We are open to suggestions that will help to get this project off the ground outside of the Chiang Rai area. We are also open to suggestions that will make things run more smoothly in the Chiang Rai area. If you know of a service that has already been established in Thailand, let us know and we will link up with them instead of starting this from scratch.
We know that in most areas that a person could have trouble, there are locals with trucks that will help if asked. However, we often hear from people who cannot communicate with the locals or for some other reason, do not want to get them involved. Some of those riders call us from the hospital and cannot return to the scene of the disabled bike. This service will be for those who genuinely need help from an English and Thai speaking source. If you know of a phone number that is manned 24 hours a day that can take calls in English and Thai, Thailand-wide and connect the rider with a recovery team/shop in his area, please let us know.
This service is not meant to be a profit making business venture for us. We do not charge anything for our help in connecting people with a recovery truck nor do we make any commission from the various folks who have done recovery for us. We do not repair motorcycles nor do we wish to have any bikes needing repair dropped off at our shop. There are other shops in town who specialize in bike repairs and that is where the bikes should be delivered if they aren't delivered to the owner's home. However, if you do require recovery for a motorcycle, you can be expected to do whatever is right for the team that shows up to assist you. We can hardly expect anyone who is called for a recovery run to drop what they are doing to come get you and not receive anything for their time, fuel and vehicle use. If you call Woraphat for help, she should be able to give you a very good idea of how many baht that particular recovery person will be expecting.
Looking forward to some input to help make this work.
Marty and Woraphat
Chiang Rai Saddlebags and Biker Gear