Captain Motorcycle: Jakrapong “Jak” Poomsuwan
46,500 Miles. 18 Months. 22 Countries. 5 Continents. Still Counting.
Text: Laurie Blanchard
Feature | Jakrapong “Jak” Poomsuwan pulled his bike into Scooter City on a hot September evening, his Yamaha Super Tenere loaded down like a mythical beast of burden. It weighed 900 pounds and took four men to push it up onto the lift to change the tires.
Covered in road dust, stickers from exotic places and enough high-tech riding gear to even raise eyebrows at a motorcycle repair shop, it was easy to see, this was not your standard customer.
Jak is not your standard, well, anything. He’s not just some rich kid on a gap year, or retiree going for it one more time. Jak left his career as a commercial air pilot for Thai Airways to follow his dream, and with the blessing and support of his wife, who is at home with their new baby.
Jak came from a poorer part of Thailand, but his good grades and winning attitude brought him to the attention of someone who facilitated his opportunity to go to a good school in Bangkok.
After graduating, he leveraged that into a position as an air steward at Thai Airlines. His first flight was into the beautiful Nepal valley, flying into Kathmandu. As he looked out the little window in the cabin, all he could think about was how amazing the view must be from the captain's chair up front and he said, right then, he knew he was going to be a pilot with Thai Air.
Within three years, he had applied for, passed the test and been accepted into the pilot's program in Adelaide Australia, where he learned how to fly DC-10’s. He was the last pilot to ever fly them for Thai Air, where he has worked for 25 years.
“I was first in my class in everything. I was the first to solo, make First Officer, First Pilot: Everything I do is first one in my class. First to fly Super 7 in my class.”
During his career, in addition to DC-10s, Jak has flown Airbus A3800s and Boeing 747s and 777s.
Over time he got to know the geography of the world really well, from 10 kilometers in the air. He soon began itching for another adventure. Something closer to the ground. He wanted to get out there and meet people. See the world close up, not from so far removed.
“Me and a Malaysian guy and a British rider decided the three of us would go to the end of the road where North Korea, China and Russia’s borders merge.”
When he became a pilot in the mid ’90’s he rewarded himself by buying a friend’s bike. He’d never really ridden before, but he found himself on his vacations going further and further from home. He put 13,000 kilometers on his bike the first year and a half he had it. The trips stretched as far as Japan. He went to Laos five times followed by Burma and Bhutan.
And then came the trip that changed his life forever. Just three months after getting married he decided to ride to Vladivostok on the east coast of Russia. He almost ended up in a Russian jail.
“I crossed Tibet and rode through Mongolia, to the south of Russia and South of Siberia to Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake. Me and a Malaysian guy and a British rider decided the three of us would go to the end of the road where North Korea, China and Russia’s borders merge.
“The Malaysian guy turned back first. He saw the North Korea/ China border up ahead and he pulled off. The British guy rode really slow like he was scared, but I continued on. I rode past him. I saw the Russian guy holding the gun, and I waved and said, “Hi.” I saw signs that said, ‘Border area; you can’t enter with permission, must contact this phone number, etc.’ I just took a picture of the sign and I continued riding.”
Needless to say, the Russians were not amused.
Jak smiled, his eyes twinkling, and said, “I was 50 percent scared and 50 percent go. And go was a little bit more, so I went to the end of the road. I wouldn’t have been arrested if I had just turned around and rode back. But, I made myself into a problem.”
The soldier at first was friendly, but after telling his superiors on the radio there was a civilian on a motorcycle at the checkpoint, he quickly became much more serious. Jak decided it was time to leave, tried to start up the bike and ride off and the soldier stopped him, telling him he couldn’t go.
Jak’s assurances that he was just a tourist who had gotten lost did not sway the soldier from his duty. Both Jak and his British friend were told to stay. Five more soldiers rode up in a jeep. One of them was a major who started yelling at them in English. Demanding to know why the two motorcyclists were there, what were they trying to do, and what were their intentions?
Jak tried to tell them he had a Russian guide and offered to call the guide and have him talk to the soldiers, but Jak couldn’t get a signal on his phone. At this point, the soldiers told him, with guns pointed, “We have a great signal in the camp. You should follow us.”
Jak tried to tell them he’d be happy to just keep trying from outside the camp, but they insisted.
Jak and his riding buddy parked their bikes outside the gate and followed the soldiers. The major kept asking them, “Why are you here?” Jak kept repeating the truth: He really just wanted to see the North Korea border. “It’s right over the wall there,” he said to the major, “Can’t you just let us see it?” The major repeatedly told him no. But Jak can be very persistent. He wore down the officer. Probably just to shut him up, the commander finally agreed to let Jak look at North Korea.
“He said ‘Yes, you can see it, but only for one minute.’ I still remember that picture in my mind,” Jak says, getting a bit sentimental. “I wasn’t allowed to take a real photo of it, but it is still so clear in my memory, I could draw it for you.”
Then the soldiers put Jak in front of a garage with 40 to 50 hunting dogs in a kennel.. The major was nice and offered them tea and cigarettes. He said, “You can escape if you want to. But you hear those dogs bark? You know what will happen,” and he nodded toward the barking dogs in the kennel. Jak assured him he wasn’t going to try to escape,
A soldier with a gun stood guard, watching the lads the entire time. They were not able to reach their guide. The soldiers searched the bikes, looking for anything suspicious. They contacted their superiors to see if anyone knew anything about Jak and his companions.
After being searched, they were taken to another base. Jak and his partner had to ride their bikes between two jeeps. Again they were told, “You can try to escape if you want, but you know we’ll catch you, and you know what will happen if we do.”
At the new camp the two men were put in a room and made to watch an hourlong video, on “Why you can’t be here.” The video was in Russian. Neither Jak nor his friend spoke Russian.
Hours went by and another man came and interviewed them, asking the same litany of questions. “Who are you. Why are you here?”
Eventually they were given a long document written in Russian. The riders were told it said what they had done, that they knew they had broken the law and promised to never go back there again. And they had to pay a fine.
Jak, obviously not repentant, smiles. “Then they asked me, ‘Can you pay for this?’” Given that the bill, while possibly high on a Russian soldier's wages, was the equivalent of $15, Jak and his friend assured the soldiers they could cover it. As he drove off, Jak reflected on what a close call it was, but still was completely stoked he’d seen North Korea.
Shortly after the trip to Russia, an unexpected tragedy struck close to home. Jak’s best friend had a stroke and has been in a coma ever since.
“The next day I drank wine with my wife from 5:00 or 6:00 on. We went through two bottles of wine. About 1:00 AM, my wife said to me, ‘Your friend, he had everything. He was wealthy, he had it all, and yet he went just like that, and now suddenly he is in a coma. You should do what you want with your life. Do you have any unfulfilled dreams? Is there anything you feel you need to do?’”
“And I said, ‘Yes! I have a dream! I want to ride around the world.’ She said, ‘Yes! You should do that.’ I was so excited? I said, ‘Really? You’d let me do this? You won’t change your mind?’ and she said, ‘Go! You should do this!’’’
“Well, we were both a bit drunk at the time; she probably regretted it the next morning, but since that day, I never changed my mind.”
Jak started planning the trip in 2015. He knew a trip like this would take time to plan and save up for. The kickoff date was March 2018.
He said, “I have strong views. When I decide to do something, I follow through. Some people say, ‘One day I’ll do this, and one day I’ll do that.’ But you know what? One day or someday is not on the calendar.”
Due to company policy regarding vacations, Jak was almost forced to quit his job to do his trip.
“For a year and half, I asked, reached out, and ... nothing. Nobody was donating, my boss still wouldn’t agree to allow me to go.” The date for departure was coming soon, and Jak still didn’t have a bike or sponsor, and he still didn’t have permission from work. For most people this would have signaled it wasn’t going to work out and they would have scrapped the whole thing. Not Jak.
He decided to quit.
“I called my boss and was super happy to tell him, “Boss, you don’t have to do anything for me. I quit.”
His boss’ reply? “Oh … no! Wait! Let's talk about this.”
After much back and forth between Jak’s supervisors, upper management and the board of directors, Thai Airways finally agreed to give Jak a two-year unpaid sabbatical but keep him on the books as an employee and he could come back to work at any time within that period.
After he knew he now had a solid kick-off date, his wife said, “OK, you need to give me a baby to keep me busy while you are gone.”
“So we planned it,” Jak tells me with a grin. “We decided to have a baby before the first of March 2017, and in January 2017 the baby came, just planned perfectly.” Jak helped with the newborn the first six months, while he and his wife planned his trip.
He was able to get gear sponsorship from Heidenau tires, GoPro, National Petroleum Company and a bike from Yamaha, but the rest of the cost of the trip was on him.
He started his ride traveling through Thailand headed south down the long peninsula toward Malaysia and Singapore. He crossed over the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra, Indonesia and rode on through Java, Bali and Lombok. He took two months in Indonesia alone.
Then he went to East Timor. He spent a month arranging to send his bike to Australia. Due to the high costs in Australia, he camped. Most nights he’d set up on the side of the road, but once every three to four days he’d pay to camp at one of the formal campsites that had showers, etc.
After visiting Ayers Rock, he decided Buenos Aires in winter looked pretty good for the next part of the journey. While he was waiting for his bike to arrive in Argentina he flew back for a visit to Thailand to see his wife and child.
He spent most of a year traveling through South America before arriving in Southern California. He rode to the tip of the continent and parked his bike for a while so he could take a boat to Antarctica. He then rode north up through Chile and Peru and on to the United Sates. heading for Alaska.
There have been a few bumps. On his first day in America, someone shouted at him to “Go home to where you belong,” as he drove by.
But Jak is a positive energy kind of person. He focuses on what he wants to happen and the state of mind he wants to be in when he does it, and things just always work out for the best. The majority of the trip has been just an amazingly positive experience, making new friends wherever he goes.
After Jak left Sacramento, he hit the road north and purely by chance on the road in Oregon he found a friend, a fellow rider, he’d made in Peru, and they had a wonderful surprise reunion.
He rode the Alcan highway through Canada and on to Alaska, finally ending his trip at Prudhoe Bay, “driving the top of the world” highway.
I recently texted him to find out how his trip is going.
“So far I did 46,500 miles. In one year and eight months. I’m (likely) the first Thai who has done the Pan-American Highway from Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world) to Alaska, Prudhoe Bay (the Northernmost tip) and probably the first commercial pilot to do this epic.”
What’s next for our intrepid world traveler? He will go to South Africa. He plans to ride up through Africa into Europe and travel through Europe. If anyone can pull this off and come home with hilarious stories and new friends, from all around the world, it's Captain Jak.
Wherever you are, Captain Jak, when you read this, just know a little part of us is traveling with you and wish you nothing but safe travels. Please keep us posted!