9/9/17
Hua Hin to Phetchaburi
Our hosts kindly left some breakfast in our fridge for us as
we were leaving early, before their little café was open. So with a good breaky and a quick pack up, we
were on the bikes at 6.40am riding out onto the deserted main road. Early morning starts are great, as it’s a
little cooler and the traffic is quite often very scarce. This didn’t last for long, the heat of the day
seemed to build up quickly, as did the traffic. But that was ok as we knew there were lots of
options for cold drinks along the way and we had that nice wide verge to ride on,
keeping us away from the trucks and cars.
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| It took us quite a while to work out that these buildings are crematoriums. |
We had expected to ride Highway 4 the whole way today, but
surprisingly we found a back road for the last 20km’s which was really
pleasant. Dave is always on the lookout
for route alternatives, and with his phone and GPS mounted on his handlebars on
a “QuadLock” we can get lots of information as we ride. We were back out into farming land and shady
trees along the side of the road. It was
so much cooler out the back. We arrived
at our nice hostel, and had a really good cold shower and sat in the air
conditioning for a while before heading out for some food. There was no beer to be found, but then Dave
remembered reading a sign in the hostel that they had beer for sale, so quick
as a flash, we were back and he was able to organise his refreshment.
Dinner time came around pretty quick, and we decided to go
check out the night market just up the road, and found a great little stall
selling a noodle dish that looked really yummy. A little bit of noodle, egg, a bit of this and
a bit of that, all fried up in a hot wok then sprinkled with a bit of this and
a bit of that and served with a smile made for a great shared meal. As we stepped out of the market, Dave checked
the footy score on his phone and boy oh boy, the game had got very interesting
with only 10 minutes to go, the score was so close. Port Power were playing West Coast in an
elimination final. We sat down on a step
just outside the market and listened closely to the broadcast on a streaming
app. With lots of yes’s, oh no’s, come
on power, you little beauty, oh shit and WTF we quickly ran back to our hostel
to listen to the 2 x 5 minute time on, as Port and West Coast had just drawn at
the final siren. Sitting in our room
listening intensely it was looking promising for Port, then it got stressful,
then right at the last, a free was given to West Coast and they kicked a goal
after the siren winning the game by 2 points. Silence………
10/9/17
Phetchaburi to Ratchaburi
Instant coffee and vegemite toast was the order of the
morning, nothing like an occasional taste of home.
Highway four was the only route available today
unfortunately, there was no alternative, it just had to be done. The upside was
that it was quite overcast this morning which kept the temperature down a bit
longer than usual. The first hour rolled by pretty quick, we then said that the
next Amazon coffee we would stop there, it took a while, but we were well over
half way by the time we came across one.
 |
| Not Quite Sure What The Sign Says? |
Meanwhile, back at the coal face, the days' riding was pretty
much done. This was just going to be a
transit stop, cheap hotel just off the highway, with better plans tomorrow.
Funnily enough, next door to the hotel was a huge home
depot, Bunnings crossed with Ikea, where we managed to get some good lunch.
Then we went shopping, it was fun to compare what is available, pricing and
quality to what we have at home. And to
be honest, I would much rather be building a new home here, so much better and
unbelievably cheaper. Fun Times.
11/09/17
Ratchuburi to Mae Klong River
Today is a day we were looking forward to. The last few days of being in the big smoke
and riding the highways had taken its toll on our attitude. Not that there were problems, but the noise of
the highways, even though they are fast rolling and pretty safe was wearing us
down.
So despite the fact that today was a fairly short day, we
had our last highway coffee at Amazon, and turned off highway four at the Mae
Klong River, planning to follow that closely upstream. With a shorter day, we could explore the ‘Path
Less Pedalled’.
Within one hundred metres we could feel the relief, the
chill of local villagers, of shady, tree lined laneways. We instantly knew that
this was going to be great.
The Mae Klong, or the infamous River Kwai in its upper
reaches above Kanchanaburi, looks like a wide lazy river. Until you look closely and realise that there
is quite a big flow there. Also, lots of
aquatic life, the river really looks quite healthy.
We wandered around, following small roads and trails along
the river banks, through sugar cane and coconut plantations. We crossed the
river several times, always looking for the option that would keep us close to
the river.
Eventually we arrived at our homestay, The Antique Resort, a
quirky little resort that was right on the river. Excitingly, we got upgraded to the ‘Home
Theatre Room’, which instead of a TV, there was a home theatre system with a projector and a curtained big screen, just like the real thing. Unfortunately,
it was just hooked up to Thai TV, three hundred channels of nothing we could
watch. Keeping on with the theme though, the hand basin in the bathroom was set
into an old TV, and the tap was the volume control,,, Noice.
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| Great View From Our Office |
Our host asked us where we were going, and when we told him
he said, oh, no no no, it’s very far. It turned out that it was ‘Thai Far’ not
‘Ride Your Bike Across Thailand Far’, so we had a pleasant stroll. The temple
was nice and lots of friendly locals acknowledged us, no westerners ever stay
here. This makes ordering dinner tricky,
but really, this is the real Thailand. Our
host was most pleased to see that we survived the journey on our return an hour
later. It certainly seems that any
amount of walking is ‘far’. Now, for
dinner.
12/09/17
Antique Resort to Kanchanaburi, “The Bridge Over The River
Kwai”.
Last night we couldn’t help ourselves and downloaded ‘The
Movie’. Multi Academy award winner, but
so disappointing. The story was so
terribly corrupted from the truth, and was really just a post war propaganda
movie, trying to convince us that it wasn’t so bad, and if you just keep a
stiff upper lip and do something useful, you won’t die. Terrible way to remember the poor bastards who
suffered building the Bangkok to Rangoon Railway.
Breakfast was fashionably late. 8ish. Strong coffee was
brought, cool, then juice and water, then, rice soup. Mary’s face was not a picture of joy. I actually liked it, but Mary couldn’t handle
it as it had meat dumplings in it as well. Just as we thought that was it, the ‘Full
American Breakfast’ came out. Fried egg,
uncooked sausages, some kind of meat loafy thingy, known locally as ham, and a
piece of toast with a slice of tomato and raw onion. Bloody Americans. At least we could eat the cooked bits. I don’t think any American has ever had this
breakfast.
Then we had to have a photo shoot as we were leaving, at
least we avoided dressing up in the local costume that they tried to get us to
wear. So hilarious. It just wasn’t going to go with the helmet I reckon.
Finally, out the gate we went, determined to still follow
the river as much as possible despite the late start and the longer day ahead,
about 60-70ks, depending how much sideways we wanted to do.
The first few k’s were quiet and cool, but then we hit a
busy patch, a very large town on the opposite side of the river that constantly
spilled our way over numerous bridges. Eventually
we came across an irrigation channel that had a road on both sides. One side was fairly busy, but the other was
really quiet, with just a few motorbikes and occasional farmers vehicles. We followed this for ages, at a good pace too.
All the while, the temperature was
climbing high. 
We surprised a little village shop family when we pulled up
looking for a cold drink. We were just out of water and the shop exploded into
action digging water bottles out of ice filled eskys, and then Mary decided we
needed something fizzy and ordered a fanta. We always forget that fanta comes in three
colours here, Red, Green and Orange. Well,
Green is what arrived. We were so
thirsty we drained the recyclable glass bottle quick smart, and headed on our
way with our icy water bottles refilled.
Our camelbak stainless vacuum bottles are the best bit of kit we brought
this trip, put something cold in them and it stays cold as long as you need it
too. We can’t stress how much this has
helped us with the hot conditions.
There were some great sights along the way, including some
massive temples on mountain tops, some of them very commercial, not our style,
but spectacular from a distance.
As we rolled into Kanchanaburi about 1pm, we were pretty hot
and buggered, so we found a nice place to eat, and nearly froze with the temperature
difference when we walked in. After ten minutes it really wasn’t that cold
inside.
We chilled out for a while in the afternoon, but then went
out to find somewhere to top up our mobile data, which wasn’t a problem.
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| Why Not Hey? |
13/9/17
Rest Day in Kanchanaburi
Luckily we weren’t riding today, as we didn’t wake up until
well after 8am. After our homestay
breakfast down by the river, we walked out to the main road in search of a
decent coffee. All fuelled up, it was
time to check out the Bridge Over The River Kwai.
A quick walk up the main street saw us come across an open
square with the railway line running through it. To the right was a small station, and to the
left the infamous bridge and the river below. You can walk across the bridge,
and despite the fact that there were quite a few people on the bridge, in the
usual Asian style, nobody was going to walk that far. So once we got through the first fifty metres,
we pretty much had it to ourselves and an occasional westerner who could walk. I’m not being racist, seriously, I just love
how they are so different to us in this fact, nobody walks anywhere.
The bridge is very different to the movie perception. The movie bridge was timber, while the real
one is concrete piles and a steel structure. Presumably why it is still standing. Two of the middle spans are different, having
been replaced post war after being blown up by allied air raids. It was nevertheless a surreal experience, and
somewhat moving. This was the real
thing, so many died to build this bridge and many others, and of course the
death railway itself. Around 20000
allied forces soldiers and horrifically, 80000 slaves from Thailand, Myanmar
and other Asian nations. You can’t walk
on this bridge and not feel the emotion of all those lives needlessly lost.
We were actually just off the bridge when a whistle blew to
announce that a train was coming, this is still a working railway. The train stopped at the station bridge and
then slowly crossed the bridge before disappearing into the jungle on the other
side.
We decided we would walk to the war cemetery about 4km’s
back through the other side of town. It
was really starting to get hot, but we declined the few offers for a taxi as we
knew there were cold drinks along the way. We arrived at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery
feeling pretty hot and sweaty and just stood at the entrance looking at the
cool green oasis and the most beautiful manicured garden. Thousands of head stones marked the graves of the
fallen allied soldiers, and despite having now visited a few Commonwealth war
graves sites, we still feel deeply moved when visiting them.
We discussed feeling honoured that we are able to visit
here. We realise that despite having no family connection to these men, that
most of them would never have had family visit their graves. So maybe, our
visit, and the others who visit, is that connection to home that some of their
families have never managed to achieve for them. Lest We Forget.
Funny dogs: we went back to the bridge just before sunset
and here a market had set up for the evening. We could hear lots of barking, but nobody
seemed to be paying any attention to it. As we got closer to the bridge we could see
one dog on the bridge barking and preventing a large black dog from crossing. The black dog ran off, and a few minutes later
went up to the bridge again and the bridge dog barked ferociously at him again.
Back down he came again. Another few minutes later he was heading back
to the bridge, this time with some mates, but as soon as they got close to the
bridge bark, bark, bark. The two other
dogs just looked at the bridge dog and walked away leaving the black dog to
fight his own battles. Next thing we
could hear the train coming. Oh dear, I
hope the bridge dog gets out the way in time. He was a very clever dog and followed a couple
of people to the safety zone on the bridge and stayed there while the train
went past. As soon as the train passed
he was back at his post barking again at the black dog trying to cross. Black dog was having so much fun stirring up
the bridge dog, I don’t even think he really wanted to cross the bridge as I
saw him go into a shop nearby and lay on the floor. I think he just wanted to be an annoying Black
Dog just like our Brown Dog at home.
14/9/17
Kanchanaburi to Nong Prue
Was this a sign of the climbing to come? Nope. A few gentle
hills rolling out of the Kwai River Valley just teased us, but despite the ride
today being mostly open large scale farm land, geologically we were seeing
changes. In the distance we were seeing
more raised limestone buttes, similar to what we saw in the far south. The riding was easy and uneventful and we
arrived early afternoon to our little village homestay at Nong Prue.
This place was run by a lovely lady by the name of Pem, and
her expat South African husband Mark and their two children. Mark met us on arrival and got us settled into
a really nice room and we showered and cooled our bodies under the fan for a
while before later heading off into the village for an evening meal and the
sights.
There was a village fair setting up in the grounds of the
temple, so we went in for a look. Strange
sights were seen, yep, westerners, a rare animal almost never seen in these
parts. They cause much giggling, and
sometimes, especially men, can’t avoid just staring at them. We were treated to a gong and drum display
from the temple monks, signalling the end of the day.
We found the little restaurant that Mark recommended,
belonging to a nice lady by the name of Noi. Noi had a little English, but no
English menu or food pictures, so we had to wing it. It turns out that she could do vegetarian
fried rice, no problem. But it comes with chicken. Doh.
On our walk back, we were treated to the most beautiful
sunset we had had in Thailand, truly spectacular.
15/9/17
Nong Prue to Dan Chang
We planned an early start, which was ok for Pem as she has
to get up at 4:30 to get her boys on the school bus. She cooked us a nice omelette for breakfast
with, wait for it, roast potatoes, yay. Good
energy food for a big day in the saddle, thanks Pem.
We were so glad we got our early start as the heat was
starting to crank by about 8am. Riding
in to Dan Chang was pretty nice, and we got into town around 10:30 and hit a
coffee shop until it was a reasonable hour to go and find some accommodation.
We actually had lunch today, a very difficult no translation
possible menu. But we ended up with a
nice meal, no worries. We finally worked
something out today. A lot of
hospitality staff are Burmese, we knew that, but what we didn’t realise is, that
while they speak Thai, they don’t read it, making google translate completely
useless in that situation. More
challenges.
Spending the afternoon catching up on the blog, we ducked
out around sunset and had a walk around town and just picked up some street
food.
Coming back to our cheap hotel (400 baht tonight), we met a
group of local workers outside the room next to us, preparing their evening
meal. They offered me a dink of the
“Whisky” they were drinking. Well I
suppose I had to try it. This stuff was
serious rocket fuel. This is a large
sugar cane growing area, and I think that this was pure ethanol, man, they
really shouldn’t be drinking that stuff.
But the interesting thing is what they were cooking. They had a wok on a small burner with a clear
broth in it. They were slicing
vegetables into the broth and had a boiled chicken that they were shredding and
adding slowly to the wok. It smelled delicious, but we headed off, as I felt
they were about to offer us dinner, and that wouldn’t have been fair as there
were eight of them there to eat. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that they would
have shared. Such nice people here, I
suspect that these guys were Burmese.
16/9/17
Dan Chang to Hup Pa Tat
It was a fantastic start to our morning being all packed up
and on the bikes at 6.30am. It was nice
and cool and the traffic very light as we left the large town of Dan Chang
behind us. Before too long we started to
climb, yep we had hills, and boy did they hit us. Not so much the actual climbing part, but the
higher we got on the climbs, the more humid it became. Suddenly we were climbing in the clouds, with
no breeze and sweating heavily. We could
see a mobile tower in the distance so knew we were approaching the top which
meant a nice cooling ride down the other side.
As we reached the bottom of the climb we turned right onto a
smaller road that soon became dirt. Now this looked fun, as it led us into
farming land, where hundreds and hundreds of acres of sugar cane and sweet corn
were being grown. The track was damp
from the rain last night, but not muddy, and rolled pretty quick. It was so quiet out there in amongst all the
farming land, with just a couple of scared dogs that went running into the cane
fields to hide from us.
We had a few turns on and off the back tracks that were all
just amazing. The morning seemed so much
cooler than the previous couple of days as we had cloud cover and a lovely cool
breeze. The temperature was 32 degrees on
the Garmin, but it seemed so much cooler. As we got closer to Hup Pa Tat we started to
see the large cliff faces in the distance. The closer we got the bigger they became. Our last stretch of dirt was again a track in
the middle of large crops of sugar cane and sweet corn with the view of the
cliff faces ahead, so picturesque. We
both felt that we could just ride this all day, it was so beautiful. It
was one of those days where you could always find the right gear, and we went
forward effortlessly, an amazing feeling.
Our last couple of km’s before our accommodation was on a nice
quiet bitumen road, and here we spotted a small cave on the left that looked
like it had a buddha inside it. We
stopped to have a look and found ourselves exploring a really interesting cave.
It didn’t look like anyone had been in
there for quite a while, as there were no foot prints around and no fresh
incense or offerings. The cave was
really earthy and raw. No flash colours
painted around, but lots of beautiful hidden treasures when you started to look
a bit closer. A large rock that had been
carved at one end to resemble an elephant, small Buddha’s placed in crevasses
high up inside the cave, a rock face that had carvings on it, and special
stones added to it. There was a large buddha placed at the back of the cave
sitting in near darkness. This cave was
not full of splendour, but gave us a feeling of being a very spiritual and
original place. |
| Massive Cave Millipeed |
The lovely girl that greeted us at our homestay didn’t speak
any English but was expecting us and showed us to our room. She was able to communicate to us that
breakfast was between 6 and 10 in the morning. We tried to ask if we were able to organise
some dinner but that just didn’t seem to work. We tried to use google translate
but the look on the poor girls face was even more confused than when we asked
in English. She then said ‘Myanmar’!! She couldn’t read Thai as she was from
Myanmar. We then realised we would have
to scout up some supplies for dinner from the little shop outside the National
Park cave.
We wandered back to the National Park area on foot, and
bought our ticket to go and explore the cave area. We were glad the ranger handed us a torch as
the first part of the cave was very dark. There were lots of little bats
hanging off the roof of the cave, with a couple flying around as they must have
got disturbed by our torch. Once through
the cave it opened up into a beautiful rainforest full of large old trees, all
reaching up high in the sky and forming a canopy that protected the palms below.
There was a path that meandered through
and around the floor of the gorge.
After the cave exploration, we wandered down the road and
found a cave temple and spotted a raised path that was looking interesting for
on the way back. The raised path hadn’t
been used in a long time as it was overgrown in some parts and had thick bright
green moss growing on it. We saw lots of different types of butterflies as we
walked along and even spotted a Bird of Paradise. How lucky were we to have spotted this little used path. As we walked back to our
accommodation a guy on a motor bike rode past singing out something and then
stopped. He said something about ice
cream and opened up his metal box sitting on the back of his bike and showed us
his goods. Yep he had homemade ice
creams for sale. Not knowing what
variety they were we just grabbed two and ended up with a coconut and a
spearmint ice cream. What great luck,
they were really good.
So for dinner, we started with dessert, our ice creams,
and then ended up having 1 dragon fruit, peanuts, chips and a peanut butter
sandwich with a cold beer and fanta. With
tummies full and the silence of nature, we are sure we will sleep well tonight.
17/09/17
Hup Pa Tat to Khao Chon Kan
We woke up feeling really hungry, luckily breakfast was
ready and waiting for us at 6am. The
gorgeous girls cooked us up a treat. There
was rice soup for Dave, nice eggs, meaty stuff that I hide in my bag just in
case I see a hungry dog on the road, and we had donuts. We were on the road at 6.30 and just loved
being out in the fresh cool air riding through this beautiful part of Thailand.
We just scooted along nicely for a good three hours, before
we stopped at a 7/11 to top up our water bottles and have a nice cold soft
drink and some chocolate. As we sat on
the step outside of the 7/11 having our snacks a sweet dog appeared. He looked a little worried and scared, so I
thought he might like one of my little meaty sausage things. I threw it out to him so he didn’t have to
come too close to me as he was really scared. He gobbled it up like nobody’s business, so I threw all that I had out to him. I think we made one poor little guy pretty
happy.
Back on the bikes we had about 15km’s to go to check out
our accommodation, Baan333. We hadn’t
booked as they had no booking agents and their website wasn’t working, so we
were just winging it. As we turned into
the driveway, we were greeted by a friendly guy in the garden who ran and
grabbed the lady that owned the small resort. She was really lovely and helpful and spoke
English and had plenty of rooms as we were the only guests for the day. We got shown our little studio that was nearly
brand new, and had a great bathroom with an outdoor garden in it that allowed
for lots of light and fresh air. This is not often seen in Thailand.
We ventured over to the small restaurant and ordered some
lunch and cold drinks which we enjoyed having while overlooking the river that
was flowing quite quickly past the resort.
We made friends with the cat that lives there, or she made friends with
us, sneakily and quietly climbing onto my lap for cuddles and purred loudly
with joy. The afternoon whizzed by
pretty quick, and all of a sudden it was late afternoon, so we decided to go
for a wander out the gate and down the road looking for something light and
easy for dinner. We didn’t get very far
before it started to rain so we headed for the local take away chicken stall on
the side of the road. When we rode in earlier,
we had noticed that they were cooking chickens rotisserie style over hot coals,
so Dave thought he should grab one for an early dinner. The lady grabbed a half chicken, which was the
only one left and as quick as a flash with hatchet in one hand she chop, chop,
chopped that half chicken into little bits. This chopped up chicken was enough for one
person and they had beer too, so that balanced out his meal, hahaha. Me well umm, some sort of chip things was all
we could find in the little shop so that would have to do. The chicken lady insisted we take an umbrella
with us back to Baan333. She seemed to
know where we were staying. Probably a
good guess as it was the only place to stay, and she more than likely saw us
turn in there after we rode past checking out her rotisserie chickens.
Not feeling really that hungry even after just that small
packet of chip things, we decided to go over to the restaurant and order
something small anyway just to make sure we were topped up before bed. Dave was just going to share a bit of whatever
I ordered as he had just smashed that half of a chicken. Well our ‘let’s just have something small’
turned out to be a feast. We ordered a
vegetarian fried rice to share, and then the lovely lady brought us out a big
bowl of freshly made soup with egg tofu and fresh shiitake mushrooms and it was
amazing. Then she brought us out a large
bowl of two different variety of bananas that they grow in their organic
garden. One of many types of fruits that
they grow there. So now we were both
absolutely chockers and waddled back to our room for a nice peaceful sleep.
18/9/17
Khao Chon Kan to Mae Wong
National Park
Our host had offered us free coffee and toast at 6am, or
cooked breakfast at 7:30. We went for
the 6am option and got every one going early, I don’t think they expected we
would get going at that time. Nevertheless,
they swung into action and a bit later our host came down and got talking about
the local attractions etc. She was
really trying to convince us about going to Mae Wong National Park. It looked great, but was a bit out of our way.
We have been agonising a bit over our route options since
cancelling going to Myanmar. Also, our
planned 50k average day had been turning into seventy to eighty km range
lately, so we are a few days ahead of schedule. We don’t want to arrive in Chiang Mai too
early, as we will just get bored. Mary looked up the top ten things to do while
in Chiang Mai the other day, and we crapped ourselves laughing as we read them
and found that none of them were actually in Chiang Mai.
We hadn’t committed, when ten k’s up the road, we came
across a really cool little espresso bar built into a wood cabin on the side of
the road and decided to make a decision over a real coffee, always the best
way.
We have this underlying problem with route deviations
without purpose, I certainly think that we are more destination driven than we
care to think at times. But on our
current rate we would be in Chiang Mai nine days before we planned to fly out. So we decided that we would go up to Mae Wong.
Having paid the day fee at the lower park entrance, we began
the gentle climb through the rainforest towards the park headquarters. Following a noisy stream off to our right
somewhere in the jungle, we were starting to get a nice feel about the place. We passed signs cautioning us about elephant
crossings, exciting hey. Funnily enough
our legs felt ok with a little steep climbing on the ten k’s or so up to HQ.
Park Headquarters is set in a lovely clearing and we were
seeing signs for camping on nice lawns and wished we had our gear with us. But luckily they had two cute little timber
bungalows that we could hire as well, so we sat down and hatched a plan over a
cool drink.
Mary was very happy to be in natural surroundings again, so
we decided that we would stay two nights, as long as food was available, and
tomorrow we would do a ride up to a lookout within the park unloaded, to get
some climbing into our legs.
The bungalow was basic, but fun, with the noisy stream
running right behind it. The insect life was both amazing and shocking,
beautiful butterflies of all colours, but also, mosquitos like we have never
seen them before. Lucky we weren’t
camping. We had good food, and met a
lady who was involved in the tiger programme within the park, which was great
to hear about. Tigers,, Cool.
19/09/17
Day Ride In Mae Wong National Park
Naturally, our daughter Lauren cautioned us, that we “Mae Be
In The Wong Park”, nice one Loz.
 |
| Maybe If We Could Have Read The Sign? |
It’s a big climb, 28ks and tops out at 1350 metres, starting
at about 320m, and then of course we had to get back. It was a beautiful clear
morning and we were the only humans out on this little road. There were lots of
scats from jungle animals on the road from over night, we were trying to guess
who they belonged to.
The first ten k’s were undulating and while we were actually
climbing overall, the descents we had were going to add up at the end on the
way back. We were hearing lots of
movement in the jungle, but never really seeing anything, as it was so thick,
right up to the side of the road. We
were seeing quite a few birds that we couldn’t identify, and so many different
butterflies, they were truly amazing. But
I have to say, that some of the noises in the jungle were making us a bit
jumpy.
About fourteen k’s up the road, and on quite a steep section
we were going pretty slow. Mary was
about fifty metres behind me. I heard a low
growl, a sort of burbling, it only lasted a few seconds, but it sounded like a
warning growl, whatever it was, just letting me know it was there and I
shouldn’t come any closer. Freaking out,
one side of my brain is saying don’t be stupid, Tigers are so rare, there’s not
going to be one hiding in the grass right next to the road. The other side is saying, Mary still needs to
go past it, shit. But if I turn around
and warn her, will it just force whatever it was to come out. I decided, watch your mirror, slow down and
say nothing.
Mary came up to me and said, ‘did you smell that just back
there? A rank animal smell?’ Shit. That’s when I told her what I heard and we
tried to convince ourselves that we were imagining things. Later back in our cabin, Mary downloaded Tiger
noises and one of them was exactly what I heard. So Fucking Freakin Out Man.
Meanwhile the climb was getting tougher and the Duracell
bunny was running out of juice. So we
decided to call the end at the 21km mark. We were at 1050metres elevation.
Now for the fun part, and what an incredible descent. No tigers would be catching us. We finished back at our bungalow with just
under 1000metres of ascent and ready for a very late breakfast.
Our afternoon was just resting and lounging around, blogging
and reading, with a Granny nap thrown in as well. It was hot and really humid, so sitting under
the fan out of reach from the mosquito’s was a wise decision. By late afternoon clouds started to move in
and just before dinner the thunder, lightning and rain started. Suddenly it felt much cooler and we became
alive once again.
The lovely girl in the kitchen had us put our dinner order
in early so it would be ready and waiting for us at 6pm. We had a great meal and a chat with her and
one of the young rangers. Our chat was
mostly through google translate which worked really well. There were laughs and photos taken and then we
were sent on our way with 2 apricot pies. We weren’t back in our cabin for more than
about half an hour when the lovely girl came down and gave us some croissants
for our breakfast as she knew we were leaving very early, way before the
kitchen staff arrive to open up. How
sweet and caring was that?
20/9/17
Mae Wong National Park to Kamphaeng Phet
We really enjoyed our stay in the National Park, being right
in the middle of nature, fresh air and sleeping to the sound of rain and
running water from the river just behind our bungalow. We ate our croissants for breakfast, the gift
from the lovely young girl from the kitchen, packed up our bikes and were
riding out of the park at 6.30am. The
ride out was mostly downhill and a lovely easy cruise for the first 15km's or
so. We seemed to ride for ages in the
search of coffee, and finally found a little place in the main street of some
random town. Awesome coffee and cake for
second breakfast hit the spot perfectly.
We reached Kamphaeng Phet by lunchtime and it was already
pretty hot. We found a nice looking
hotel which actually gave us a discount on our room and it also included
breakfast. It really was a great
bargain.
When we rode into the town we noticed something going on, it
was really busy with people everywhere. It
was much bigger than just a market, and a few of the ladies were dressed in
traditional dress. In the Main Street there were banners with dates referring
to today, the 20th to the 30th. Something
big was starting today.
We did our usual check in, shower, find coffee, beer and
food and then ventured down the Main Street towards the event that was taking
place. Wow this was like a Royal Show. Lots of fruit and vegetables being judged. Best bananas, first prize pumpkins, winning
papaya and so many tastings, maybe we didn't need lunch after all. As we walked through the temporary pavilion it
all opened up into crazy chaos. Row
after row of stalls full of fresh amazing street foods and clothing, jewellery,
herbs, furniture, drinks, knives, rubber band guns and all sorts of things. Then the stalls sitting on the outside of this
large area were all stalls selling plants. So many types of tropical fruit trees for
sale, beautiful orchids, air plants, numerous varieties of cactus, so much
beautiful greenery all for sale. This
was just like a royal show but so much better. No junk and useless crap, no showbags or rides
but a great show case of food and goods to taste and buy. We enjoyed the tastings and bought a few
little snacks and a couple of locally made drinks and had a ball.
We left the 'Royal Show' with a bag full of high energy
snacks for our next week of riding. The
Main Street was looking a bit lacking in traffic, but had lots of people
standing around on the footpaths looking like they were waiting for something
to start. We looked down the road and we
could see a parade all lined up waiting to commence. Taking a position on the footpath, we too
stood and waited. We really didn't know
at this stage what it was we were waiting for, but that became pretty
clear once the parade started. The
leading group in the parade were the 'Tourist Police' all on bicycles. They all waved to us and gave us the thumbs up
as they rode past. We wondered if we had
Larry and Priscilla with us if we would be allowed to join them and get a cool
'Tourist Police' shirt too. Bugger, we
should have had the bikes. Then there
was the marching band followed by beautiful girls and guys dressed in
traditional dress all carrying baskets of fresh bananas. The first float came past and that was covered
in fresh bananas, more traditional dress, more floats with bananas and other
produce. This is looking like the
opening of a harvest festival. It turns
out it was the annual Kamphaeng Phet Sart Thai Tradition and Banana Festival. It is a festival to celebrate the provinces’
harvest of bananas. There is a 'Banana
Festival Queen', so many beautifully decorated floats, drums playing, colourful
dancers, children and all the traditional costumes were on parade. It was the most interesting and colourful
parade we have ever seen. Wow, how lucky we were to have stumbled across this today. We were just at the right place at the right
time.
We eventually got walking again, back towards our hotel and
through the park and again were surprised at what we saw. Three lush green parks all of which had
outdoor exercise equipment in them plus a running track and better still, all
being used. There was music playing
through loud speakers in one of the parks and at the far end of the park an
outdoor exercise class was taking place. I started to really love this city.
Eventually we got back to our hotel pretty excited about all
our adventures today. Our day full of
surprises didn't end there. Back at our
hotel we found out that we have just ridden into a city that has a historic
park in it. Now this sounded really
interesting so we did a little research and nearly fell over backwards with
what we found. There was an ancient
walled city to explore, ruins dating back to the 13th and 14th century and
other ruins spread out all over town. We
didn't have to think too much about this one, and we made up our minds pretty
much there and then that we would stay an extra night and explore this ancient
city tomorrow.
With more research we found that there were two other
ancient cities in two other towns further north. One was called Sukhothai, 75km's away, and the
next town on was Si Satchanalai, about 125km's away. Here we had to make a major decision on a
route to Chiang Mai. Do we follow the
road to Mae Sot and then to Chiang Mai as planned and ride the punishing hills
in hot and humid conditions? Or do we
follow the ancient road of centuries gone by, and visit all three ancient
cities and immerse ourselves in history and culture following a less demanding
route to our final destination, Chiang Mai? Ummm let's get ruined!!
21/9/17
Exploring the ancient city and surrounds of The Sukhothai
Empire (Kamphaeng Phet)
After breakfast we headed off on unloaded bikes towards the
ancient walled city. Following the
outside of the wall and past the ancient city we continued a few km's down the road
and came to the Historic Park. We had a
look around the museum and gained a little bit of knowledge which helped us
gain a foundation of understanding as to what was about to unfold, out in the
park. 
We needed the background knowledge of the museum, but we
desperately wanted to get outside and discover this amazing site. Back to the bikes and vaguely following the
site map, we arrived at the first major ruin to be explored. Set amongst a light forest, the dappled light
almost camouflaged the site. All the
buildings on this side are made of laterite, a muddy conglomerate that when
quarried can be shaped, and then when dried, will harden and can be used to
build like bricks.
Originally, this was plastered over with a render, but this
was almost entirely gone, exposing the bones of these structures and statues to
the elements.
There was no one else around as we approached this first
relic, it felt mystical and very old.
I think that as Australians who have no buildings of this
age and history, that the effect of visiting an ancient site is very profound. Yes, we have very ancient aboriginal history,
but they were nomadic and didn't establish civilisation in a permanent way like
this.
We walked amongst the ruins, imagining, photographing, and
trying to take it all in.
What continued to blow us away as we moved from site to site
was that we were still pretty much the only ones here.
It was just so amazing to stand, observe, and just breath in
these ancient ruins all of which had differences as we explored them all.
We left the historic park feeling over-whelmed with all that
we had just discovered and decided we needed to find somewhere to sit and rest
a while, and have a bite to eat. We
ventured back into the town and found a cafe, had some lunch and a drink before
heading off for more ruin adventures.
This time we went into the ancient walled city and explored
parts of the old wall, the moat and the fort. The ruins inside the city walls were again
breathtaking. There was a large Buddha
in a reclining pose with another large Buddha in a seated meditation pose
sitting behind it. The ruins of a large
hall with another large Buddha in a seated meditation pose with a beautiful
bell shaped Chedi directly in front. We
just loved every bit of this ancient history that we came across whether it was
just parts of a ruin, or whether it was a complete ancient relic. It all made you stop, look deeper and
imagine. 
It really was a massive adventurous day. We headed back to our hotel and freshened up,
ditched the bikes, and walked back to the 'Royal Show' for some street food for
dinner. We found lots of great yummy
things to eat and enjoyed the madness and chaos of all the people enjoying the
celebration of the Banana Festival. As
we were leaving, there was a lot of thunder and lightning and it was threatening
to rain. We thought we would make it
back to the hotel in time, but no, down she came. Not just light rain but a heavy downpour, and
all we could do was to duck for cover and wait until it passed. We found a shelter in front of an old store
and just sat there waiting for it to clear, but no, it just got heavier and
heavier. No taxi's around, no tuk tuk's
and no Uber. We waited for about an hour
until it finally eased off and we were able to make it back to our hotel.
22/09/17
Kamphaeng Phet to Sukhothai
A nice hotel breakfast saw us on our way early.
Leaving Kamphaeng Phet seemed a bit premature, it was like
there was so much more to explore here, but the road was calling us.
We were a bit flat. Despite
having a "day off" yesterday, it was a really full day, we crammed in
a lot, and we would seriously recommend anyone to visit this town and it's
historic sites. Just beautiful.
We meandered out of town, keen for what was next in this
trilogy of ancient towns. But more than
that, we were hopeful of discovering the ancient connections that created this
whole story. A canal and an ancient
road, linking the three cities.
Walk mode to the rescue. Once again, using walk mode helped us to find
the path less pedalled. We had to ride a
bit of road getting out of town, but then we found the canal and the paths that
followed either side. These were gravel,
and due to the heavy rain last night, a fair bit of mud, but we ventured on and
felt the seven hundred years of history underneath our rolling fat tyres.
It really was an amazing experience, almost spiritual,
imagining the generations and empires that have used this road built seven hundred years ago.
We were thrilled to find confirmation that we were on the
right path about half way. A great sign
letting us know that our research had paid off.
We were able to follow this ancient road, the first road
ever built in Thailand, for most of our 76ks today, and we were thrilled about
it. Sukhothai is a much more tourist
oriented town than Kamphaeng Phet and hopefully equally as interesting, but we
can't forget the significance of passing along this old road, just amazing.
We rolled into Sukhothai around midday, 76ks today and we
were ready for coffee and food. A cold
drink would help too as we had run out of water with five ks to go. So we just grabbed a cold drink quickly and
decided to check in and go for food after.
Our little hotel, the Sukhothai Garden was really nice, and
the owners were great, giving us a nice plate of fresh fruit to take to our
room.
We got moving and grabbed a light lunch and coffee before
heading to the museum. This gave us a
great heads up about the area, despite being ushered out by the staff at 4pm,
we are always the last to leave.23/9/17
Exploring the ancient city and surrounds of The Sukhothai
Empire (Sukhothai)
Our hosts at our homestay put on a delicious breakfast with
lovely tasty Thai dishes, eggs, toast with jams and honey, fresh salad,
beautiful sweet pineapple, freshly squeezed juice and coffee. Perfect to set us
up for a full day of exploring more ancient cities and ruins. 
Our first exploration took us to the Historic Park. There was so much to see and immerse ourselves
in. We took our time wandering and
exploring the ruins not wanting to miss anything. The sky started to look a bit dim and it
looked like rain coming but there was no thunder, lighting or wind. The rain
started slowly, an ominous sign, and after an hour it was getting much heavier.
Not wanting to rush things, we decided to exit the park and go sit in the
coffee shop across the road until the weather passed through. Luckily we made that decision, because as soon
as we sat down in the café, down it came and it was really heavy. We sat down and had a coffee, then another,
and then some food. Still the rain came.
Finally it was looking brighter outside,
the rain cleared and out came the sun. We
headed straight back over to the park to continue our exploring, and found that
most of the other tourists had moved on. The rain must have washed them all away. It was exciting to continue to explore and
learn all about the history of this ancient city mostly by ourselves. 
The last area of the park that we explored was of real
interest to us, Wat Si Sawai. The ruin was dated around the eleventh century, and
it is suggested that it was pre Thai Budhism originally a combination of
Brahmanism from Sri Lanka and Khmer influences.
Later, under the Sukhothai empire the temple was updated to fit with
more modern Buddhism. This was very
evident if you looked closely at the art on the ruin. The first arch was decorative but the other 6
levels above had been covered over in mortar. Except one area where you could see that the
mortar had fallen off exposing decorative art. Mostly what they were covering
were images of deities that didn’t fit with thinking of the time. 
After completing our exploration inside the historic park,
we rode out onto the main road heading to the next area a few km's away,
stopping at a few smaller ruins along the way. The next major area to explore was really of
great interest. It was three towers of
again pre-Buddhism, two of the towers had collapsed, but the third was in good
condition. By the looks of things, parts
of the middle tower may have fallen into the outside tower, knocking it down. The one still standing on the other side still
had decorative art that had been untouched. You could see on the insides of all three
towers remnants of linga and yoni, suggesting that this site was dated
back well before the other sites. 
Our last site to visit was quite spectacular. It was an enormous Buddha sitting in
meditation pose protected by four very thick and high walls. There was an
entrance in the front wall, and as you approached the ruin you already had a
great view of the Buddha. This site has
had a great amount of work done to it in preservation, including the re
plastering of the Buddha, which has brought him back to life and now allows
people of today to experience what people in the 12th century would have
experienced, pure beauty. It was a
privilege to be able to stand in front of this enormous Buddha and for just a while,
sit and be as one with all the energies of the worshippers that from days gone
by have stood and worshipped Buddha within these four walls. 
We ventured back to our homestay to freshen up and have a
little rest. On Saturday evenings the
Historic Park is all lit up at dusk, so we thought we would walk over and take
a look. It was amazing. The lighting
changes the look of a lot of the ruins and made you focus on different aspects
that during the day you did not notice. Dave
had a ball with the camera, taking some awesome shots with different light. There was even an opportunity for reflection
shots in the lakes. What was even more
exciting was the fact that there was lightning in the sky as well. 
Did I mention lightning? Yep lightening, and a little thunder usually
means rain. Here we were again out at
night and got caught in the rain once more. Here again we had to find shelter and wait out
the heavy downpour that lasted what seemed like forever. As soon as it eased off, we made it back to
our homestay safe and sound and not too wet.
24/09/17
Sukhoti to Si Sitchanali
Another great breakfast at Sukhothai Garden Resort, but a
little light rain saw us wondering if we would get away ok. Our lovely hosts saw us off with a care pack
of drinks, fruit and a little bottle of special after sun ointment, I think we
look a bit too tanned for Thai tastes. We
just can't get over the kindness of the wonderful Thai people we meet along
this journey of ours. We had several
photos out the front of the hotel as we left, and several heartfelt 'safe
journey's'. But by the end of coffee
number two, the rain had all but stopped and by the time we filled our water
bottles at the seven eleven it had stopped.
We cruised past a lot of the ancient sites we had seen
yesterday as we headed out of town and back to our northerly route.
We really weren't sure if we were on the old road today, as
it just went straight towards our destination. We noticed lots of Dragonfruit being picked,
and we stopped and asked at a stall if we could buy one. Another lovely lady sliced one down the middle
and handed us a half each and wouldn't accept any payment, and when she saw how
much we enjoyed her delicious fruit, she split another one and still wouldn't
take any money. We love these guys.
A little while later we noticed a coffee shop and stopped
for one, the two ladies asked for photos with us as we went to get back on the
bikes.
Not long after that, we turned off the road to the right and
were very shortly on a nice dirt path meandering through the almost mature cane
fields. Our daily dose of dirt. As usual, walk mode got quite adventurous for
a while, taking us through very narrow paths in rice paddies, with the locals
laughing and pointing out a better way when the path petered out. In Australia we would be asked what on earth
we were doing, but here, they are happy to see us travelling through their
fields, enjoying our unusual path. A big
smile from us always helps the situation though. And we are usually laughing, mostly at
ourselves, as we try to find our way.
I am sure that if we got genuinely lost, within a few
minutes a lady would come along and whip out a wok and have a meal served up on
the side of some drainage ditch while we worked out a rescue plan. Guaranteed.
We got a bit more dirt than we thought we would today, and
as we arrived at Si Satchanali, we noticed a sign at that end, that confirmed
that we had indeed been on the Thanon Pra Ruang, for most of the way, which was
great. We had very muddy bikes to prove
it.
After finding a hotel and checking into a great room, right
on the bank of the very fast flowing Yom River, we headed out to find some
lunch. The owner introduced himself, and
we asked if he had a hose that we could wash the bikes with. He said he would organise one for us after we
had lunch, and he took us to the dining room and helped us to order some food. Lunch was good, but the big thing of the day
was walking back to our room and noticing the bikes weren't where we left them,
oh oh. As we turned the corner, there
they were, all shiny and washed, he had organised one of his staff to wash them
for us. How nice is that? It's been an amazing day of receiving, and our
gratitude is enormous. Going out for a
walk a bit later, we came across a ruined temple, about fifty metres from our
hotel front gate, like just right there. Just another seven or eight hundred year old
archaeological site, just across the road. Cool as, everyone should come here.
25/9/17
Exploring the ancient city and surrounds of The Sukhothai
Empire ( Si Satchanalai)
This is just an amazing place to stay. Our
room was so quiet and peaceful, and we had the curtains open and awoke to the
sight of the river flowing as the sun came up. Breakfast was really nice with Thai rice
porridge with chicken for Dave, and me just the rice porridge bit. Then there
was hot toast and beautiful fresh fruit and coffee. We are craving sour dough though, and Bircher
muesli with yoghurt!! 
It was just a short ride down the road to the Historic Park. From
the map outside it looked like we were in for another big day of ancient city
exploration. We rode past the fort, over
the moat and through the gate of the ancient city's wall. The first site was in reality, four large
monastery ruins in a long line called the axis of the city. These took us most of the morning to explore,
each one a little larger and more beautiful than the last. The first ones’ main feature was a plastered
wall that still had the decorative stucco patterns preserved. A later one was believed to be a royal burial
temple as it had many stupas of varying designs, some of these still had quite
good images on them. The final temple on
the main axis was a giant stupa with many elephants in the position as if they
were carrying the stupa. This was a very
nice site.
It was getting hot so we headed out for a cool drink before
coming back in and checking out some of the minor monuments.
All morning we had been noticing the large storks, flying
around, circling in large numbers. As
the morning went on and the closer we got to the river, we were hearing a
cacophony of bird noises coming from that direction. We were thinking it must
be a breeding colony.
Next on the list was two hilltop temples in that direction,
so we would be able to check out the colony as well.
We climbed the 144 ancient laterite steps up to the temple,
not knowing which way to look. The noise
was amazing, and once we realised to look up in the trees, we could see
thousands of birds and nests with chicks in them. We were a bit dumbfounded, I had imagined
these large wading birds nesting in swampy land on the ground, but no, they
were all up in the trees, some of them ten to fifteen nests in each one.
We later identified them as asian open billed storks, and apparently,
they migrate here every year from northern Asia for the winter. There were countless thousands of them, as
well as lots of white egrets and some others we couldn't identify, hopefully we
got some good shots.
As well as this the hilltop temples were also amazing and
kept surprising is with subtle design changes.
One had a large sitting buddha in good condition. On the opposite hill, was a large stupa that
you could climb up to the middle level which gave a panoramic view of the
surrounding Yom River valley.
After this we went off in search of the royal palace site,
which unfortunately turned out to be just that, a site, nothing was left.
All in all, we had a great day. This is a beautiful site, well worth the
visit, and the end of our trip up the ancient road linking these amazing sites.
Now to plan the final leg of the trip to
Chiang Mai.
26/9/17
Si Satchanalai to Thong Saliam
No rush this morning as we had a pretty easy 40km's to do. We enjoyed a breakfast in the resort’s Sala
that overlooked the river. It was a
beautiful morning, and as we scoped the view we noticed a temple spire sitting
up amongst the trees. Well, just when we
thought we had explored all of the ancient sites to be explored, one more pops
up above the tree line just down the road. 
You would have thought we had had enough of this ancient
ruin exploring, but no, we were so excited to have one more surprise to
explore. We headed off with smiles,
thanking our lovely hosts for our awesome stay, and headed in the direction of
that spire in the sky. As we approached
we were blown away. We thought this may
have been just a minor site, but it was looking pretty serious as we rolled up.
There was a modern temple built in front
of the ancient ruin and as we walked past, we peered in through the open timber
shutters and there were the golden Buddhas shining in the streaming sunlight. Large candles were burning and a monk was
attending to his duty. It was a great sight to see this, as it gave you the
feeling that this is what would have been happening centuries ago in the
ancient ruins. Not much has really changed.
The ruins were once again surrounded by a solid wall and we
entered through the front gate. This time the walled gate was really thick, and
had a very heavy stone lintel over the top, and it was unusually very low. The first building was the hall, which is
where the large sitting Buddha and two standing Buddhas stood. The large sitting Buddha has had some work
down to him at some time, and was in quite good order. The two standing Buddhas were set down in an
area that was lower than the main Buddha, indicating that the whole platform area
has been altered dramatically at some stage. These two standing Buddhas have not been
touched for possibly hundreds of years. Behind the hall was a very Large stupa with
a lotus base. Narrow steep steps were leading
all the way up to the top. We could not
ignore the sight of the steps, and began to climb them carefully. Inside the
stupa, was a large heavy teak door and behind the door was a beautiful lotus
bud stupa. 
Before we climbed back down we took the time to view the
ruins from above, and it was a truly beautiful sight. Carefully, we climbed back down, and as we did
so, we noticed that there was a wall inside a wall. This outside wall really didn’t seem to have
any purpose, but we followed it all the way around anyway.
Once we stepped out of the double walled area we came to a
ruin housing a large standing Buddha on one side, and the remnants of three
other Buddhas on the other three sides. Then
for the finale, two large sitting Buddhas with numerous smaller sitting
Buddhas.
It was a fantastic start to our day, having once again
discovered another site to explore. None
of the sites were ever the same. Each
and every one of them had a different story to tell. They all were so different from each other
which made it such an interesting adventure, touring from ancient city to
ancient city.
We followed the Yom River out of town, backtracking for a
few Ks before heading West for a change. We were travelling through flat
farmland, and there was quite a bit of rice harvesting happening and lots of
roadside fruit stalls, so we stocked up.
Just after having a little roadside fruitnic, we spotted a
little espresso bar, "Arm Strong's". Hmm, I wonder if Lance is around. It turned out that the guy who runs the cafe
is a road cyclist and spoke very good English, so we chatted a little about the
route from here to Chiang Mai, and he helped us with a few tips. His coffee was
very good too.
We got on our way and did the last fifteen ks into Thong
Saliam in good time.
We checked out the place we were planning to stay and
decided it was ok, and did a side trip into town to get some more
supplies.
Later we went back into town to get some dinner, we just got
street food in the end. We found a lady
selling nice egg salads, so we got two of those and a couple of pieces of fried
chicken, carefully avoiding the fried frogs that we had seen on their way to
market earlier. A quick stop at seven
eleven for some m&ms and we headed back to our room for a feast. Another great day.
27/09/17
Thung Saliam to North of Theo
A dim overcast morning greeted us as we looked out of the
window at 5:30am. We were looking forward to an early start, so had an instant
coffee, a vegemite sandwich and a couple of bananas before heading out into the
gloom, definitely a 'lights on' start to the day.
We were heading towards mountains, and mist was swirling around
the peaks and spilling out onto the plane we were approaching from. Passing more temples, and another Unesco site
that we hadn't heard of, we forced ourselves to keep going. If we stopped at every interesting place along
the way, we wouldn't be half way yet. We
had had plenty of temples and history to keep our minds active for some time to
come.
And so the road slowly went up, undulating for the first ten
ks and then got a bit more serious. We
did find a nice little coffee shop, just open at 8:30, so we had a quick one
and then threw ourselves back at the climb ahead. Several times we thought we had topped out,
but several false peaks later, we stopped on a bridge over a mountain stream
and had another round of sandwiches and fruit, the energy deficit was getting
real.
With renewed energy, we finished the climb, sweating more
heavily than any other day on this trip so far.
 |
| Chiang Mai 175km to go |
It didn't go too badly. The road was very wide and the
traffic was relatively light compared to what we experienced on highway four
down south.
There was a very wide verge and the road was new. We noticed that disappointingly, it bypassed
all the small towns, so we need to be aware of that when looking for food and
water. Anyway, we will only be on it for
today and then about thirty ks tomorrow.
We found our little bungalow resort that had a nice looking
restaurant attached, so we settled in for the afternoon, and thought about
refuelling our bodies.
28/09/17
North of Thoen to Hang Chat
We have discovered that beds in Thailand come in various
grades, ranging from 'hard', 'very hard', 'wood' and 'might as well sleep
on the floor it will be softer'.
Last night we had the latter, seriously, even sitting on
this bed caused great pain.
Needless to say, we didn't sleep very well. So it wasn't too hard getting up at 5:30,
eating some sandwiches and sneaking out the locked front gate of the ‘resort’. I had to lift the gate off the hinges. We were rolling at 6:15 and immediately
realised that there was some climbing to be done. Not steep, but plenty of
it.
We had done fifty ks by 9am, so all was going well except
for the fact that we hadn't found a coffee yet. Tough times.
Highway one, seems to have bypassed everything, which is
unusual for here, so we were happy when we finally turned left towards Lamphun
and onto a secondary road, we found a nice little espresso bar within a couple
of ks.
That was great, but no real food. Being so close to the end
now, we are getting picky about food, and that led to me (Dave) having a bit of
a blow out, a bonk, an "I hit the wall baby", at about the sixty five
k mark.
Recovering from this required sitting in the shade near a
temple for a few minutes and smashing some water and a couple of bananas. I
must make myself eat!!!!!
We are now craving home food, and even though we have done
well on Thai food, we just really need some homemade sourdough and fresh
veggies and good organic yoghurt and avocados and,, did I mention homemade
sourdough?
Anyway, I'm back now, and just after turning onto highway
eleven, we found a coffee shop and guess what? They had ham and cheese
toasties, I smashed two while Mary looked at me rolling her eyes.
The final eight ks had us settled into a nice little
homestay, and we had more lunch and then visited a market right next door. A bit of a tourist trap, not really any fresh
food, but then Mary saw them, AVOCADOS 🥑. Mentally, she went into overdrive, now if we
can find a lime, check, I've got some sea salt, check, now what about that
sourdough? Hmm, no chance, just some
fresh bread? Nup. Ok, just some plain old white death? Nope. Ok,
we can do smashed avo on toast without the toast right? Yep. Ok,
lets get the Avocado. Back to the
avocado lady, one please. Umm, they are
all as hard as rocks, you could throw them against the wall and they would
bounce right back at you, bugger. Next plan?
Did I mention that tomorrow is our last riding day?
29/09/17
Hang Chat to Chiang Mai
One eye snapped open as a round of thunder cascaded around
our tiny cabin. Time check, 4am.
It's ok we said, just a bit of thunder, no rain, two hours
before we ride, no problems.
Dozing back off, another round boomed all around us. Then, down it came, rain like you never heard
before, lightning cracking and thunder claps that lasted longer than we have
ever heard, rolling around us for up to thirty seconds at a time. It looked like the adventure gods were going
to throw one last challenge at us and it was all Mary's fault, for threatening
to throw her crappy rain jacket out last night. Luckily it was still in the cabin's bin. It was going to have to be resurrected.
We had about seventy five ks to do today, about five hours
with a fair bit of climbing to start the day. We were at the foot of the range that
separates the Wang and the Ping Valleys.
We lay in bed, discussing our options, we had time to wait
it out, but we decided that we would have breakfast at eight and if it hadn't
stopped by then we would go. That should
get us to Chiang Mai by 2pm which is fine.
We lingered over a second coffee, it was still smashing down
and didn't look like changing. So it was
time for Mary to put her second hand bin jacket on and go for it.
The climbing began, it was steady, and so was the rain. By the end of the first hour, we were going
really well, but my boots were full of water. It's one thing wearing a rain jacket in this
climate, but it's way too warm for rain pants, so you just accept that
everything below the waist is going to be sodden, especially in rain like this.
You still get wet inside your jacket,
but it's sweat, not rain, that's better right?
It took about two hours to clear the pass, and by this time
the rain had stopped and the heat was coming up. We ditched our jackets and enjoyed the long
descent, avoiding overtaking the slow moving trucks with the smoking brakes. No truck driver here understands the idea of
engine braking, so dangerous.
The highway just became slightly undulating and had a good
bike lane which only occasionally had vehicles parked in it.
With about twenty ks to go, we saw our last amazon, and
decided we should have a parting espresso. So we sat down and chilled out for half an
hour, contemplating our achievement, hoping that Chiang Mai was going to be a
better final destination than Medan was in Sumatra. We were going to have five days there, in one
place, crazy.
We cranked out the last twenty, keeping our eyes open for a
'final destination' photo, that just didn't happen.
We had booked what we thought was a really nice place for a
chill time in Chiang Mai. The Rainforest
Boutique Hotel. Well it turned out to be
better than we hoped, with a great room in an older 'Lanna style' building with
a huge dressing room and outdoor bathroom. Very nice.
The staff were great, and really fussed over us and our
bikes and took photos and it was all very nice, especially once we had a shower
and a late lunch to celebrate.
The next few days we did the tourist thing, night markets,
walking and riding around the old city checking things out. And of course, the AFL grand final was on, so
we went to the DownUnder Bar and watched it, another ‘cultural experience’. Unfortunately our hometown team "The Adelaide
Crows" got beaten pretty badly, but we had lots of fun.
 |
| Last Coffee in Thailand Larry And Priscilla Boxed Up Ready To Go. |
We found a car wash and went there to clean the bikes before
we packed them up. Three guys took over
from us and there was water and bubbles flying in all directions. Larry and Priscilla emerged looking like new,
well, almost. We have to make sure they
are very clean to get through Australian quarantine requirements.
What a great trip, two thousand seven hundred and eight
kilometres, 2708, and we are already trying to get our heads around planning
for our next stage. We have some big
jobs to do at home that we are eager to get on with, and of course some awesome
family time. Then we’ll get serious about the final leg.
Kuala Lumpur to Chiang Mai in review:
Malaysia.
We enjoyed Malaysia. Very friendly people, although they are
also quite uptight and stressed. They have a great cycling culture and are quite
diverse culturally, which often led to a lot of food alternatives. From the standard Malay fare that we were used
to (and a bit sick of) from Indonesia, to the awesome roadside Roti stalls of
the Indian population, to the great Chinese restaurants just about everywhere. We could always get a good meal. The cycling was fairly flat, but often there
wasn’t a lot to see, and the option to find alternative routes away from main
roads was limited, but we did find some.
Malaysia rates poorly on the cleanliness index. They have
managed the rubbish problem a little better than Indonesia, but the industrial pollution
in their rivers and ultimately in the ocean is appalling. Accommodation was
always clean and well presented.
I found most people in Malaysia to be quite friendly. Interestingly
Mary found this to be the opposite. I
think this mostly came from a fairly gruff tone of voice that Mary took
differently to how I did? Not sure.
Malaysia rates poorly on the Coffee Index, it was hard to
find a good one outside of Chinatown in KL.
Thailand:
From the moment we crossed the border into Thailand we felt
more relaxed. People were definitely friendlier, and more importantly, more
relaxed. Once again, other than the one range to be crossed on the border,
Thailand was mostly flat until you get into the North West. Accommodation was plentiful, cheap, and other
than two or three bad ones was of a high standard.
Thailand is managing it’s environment much better than Indo
and Malaysia. Their rubbish is under control, pollution levels were good and
mostly the water quality in rivers and beaches was quite good. Very good out on
the Gulf side Islands. There were many more wild birds, with only low levels of
poaching for bird cages. It seems that Thailand have control of deforestation
as it seems that when Thailand make laws around the environment, people respect
those laws and comply. Most unusual for our experience of SE Asia so far.
Thailand is diverse along the route we took, constantly
changing and always surprising us. We
come away with so much respect for this country that we have both said that if
anyone asked us what destination to take on a cycling tour we would both say Thailand. It’s
easy, it’s accessible and there is so much on offer. Great food, friendly people and cool parks
and historic sites, just wonderful.
Thailand rates 10/10 on the Coffee Index, it was rare that we couldn't find a very good espresso at some stage during the day.
