Bike touring, jet lag---

[Irulan]

We are going to Thailand in November. The way things are working out, we may end up in Chiang Mai first. We have a 4 day/3 night bike tour booked. I am wondering how many days of recuperating for jet lag, if any, we should allow for before hitting the road on our bikes. I don't anticipate the riding to be difficult ~ it is a mostly dirt road tour, village to village.

I have never gone to Asia or had a trip with this much time change before. Thoughts? Allow for jet lag, or just jump into what ever it is we are going to do?

Thanks!

[Boudicca]

Jetlag is totally unpredictable, and sometimes I think 3-4 hours time difference can be harder than 10-12. I was in New Zealand this winter, and amazed myself by having no jetlag at all, in either direction. I didn't even try to sleep on the plane, so by the time I got to my destination, I was so tired that I slept through the night. So by the day after the one where I arrived, I was good to go. Perhaps give yourself a couple of days, just to be safe?

Have fun.

[Eden]

I prefer to just jump into whatever I'm going to be doing.

1. It's my precious vacation time…. I don't particularly like to fly so if I'm going to do it, I don't care to waste any of my time…

2 - I don't think I can "catch up" on sleep. I get a good nights sleep or not and the next night I reset - if I get a good 7-8 hrs it's all good for the next day. Trying to sleep more just makes me more tired, achy and cranky when I do get up.

3. Physical activity seems to really help me to get into the right rhythm. Getting somewhere and getting going - walking, biking, whatever gets my body and mind into the right time zone.

I do, whenever possible try to plan to leave my home in the evening and get to my destination in the morning. I might be tired the first day, because it's difficult to impossible to sleep well on a plane, but it feels more normal.. kind of like I've just had a very long nighttime, I guess. Then by the end of the day I'm more than ready for a good nights sleep, no matter the accommodations and can step into the new time zone relatively easily.

[Crankin]

If we are doing a tour in Europe, we get there 2-2.5 days in advance. Yes, it's true to get right into the new time zone, but since most flights to Europe are overnight, and I can't sleep much on a plane, even in business class flat beds, I am losing 3-6 hours of sleep. We get there, eat a good breakfast, and walk around, do tourist stuff, have an early dinner and go to sleep somewhere past 8 PM local time. We make a rule not to take a nap; but when we went to Spain, it was like 100 degrees when we got there. We had coffee, lunch, and about 4 miles of walking. We got back to the room, were resting and we fell asleep. When we woke up, it was 9. Problem was, we didn't know if it was 9 AM or PM! It's still quite light out in Spain at that time in late May and we couldn't tell from the TV. Not sure why we didn't go look at our phones right away, but there was momentary panic until we figured out it was PM, still the same day, so we went out and had dinner.
I could never do strenuous riding the same day, or even the next day.

[Irulan]

well it just worked out that the biking portion is last. This is the first portion:


I don't think I'll have any problem with recovering from jet lag, lol