13/8/17
Thailand Border Crossing to La’Ngu
The time zone had changed when crossing the border, despite
there really being no change in Longitude between KL and Bangkok. This messed
our body clocks up a bit, and we were up and keen to go well before seven am.
Breakfast at our homestay was included in the rate, so we went up at about 6:45
and found our host setting up brekky and welcomed us in. We thought it was just
going to be toast and coffee, but then the eggs came out, then the banana
pancakes, then the Papaya again, yumm. Then more fruit, and she sent us on our
way with a bunch of bananas and two bottles of water. This was such a great
introduction to the friendliness and hospitality of Thailand, we can’t wait for
The start of our ride was gently down this morning, it was
so nice, but didn’t take long to come out of the jungle. Our route then took us
on some cool backroads, through quite a lot of rubber plantations and all sorts
of mixed farming. We had a great ride and the time just flew by, as did the
kilometres.
As we were coming into La’Ngu, we spotted a phone store, we
needed to get some local sim cards for our phones as this helps us heaps with
trip planning, route navigation and of course, keeping in touch with family. We
have found that hotel wifi is usually insufferably slow, but in Thailand, we
can get unlimited 4g data for 30 days for three hundred baht, which is about
twelve aussie dollars, bargain. Just as we walked into the shop though, there
was a crack of thunder and down came the rain, heavily. Great timing. So we
sorted out the cards, this gave us some time under shelter, but by the time we
finished, it was still smashing down. We sat down in the shop, and the staff
brought us out two bottles of water and said we could stay as long as we
wanted, how nice is that. It rained for a good hour, but at least we made sure
our data was working while we were still in the shop.
We had a homestay booked that was only about 1.5ks further
on. It was still raining lightly, but we decided to go for it. Well, our homestay
was more like a resort, a separate bungalow with heaps of room and a beautiful
bathroom, great gardens all around and a nice deck for Larry and Priscilla to
sit on where we could keep an eye on them. We are really starting to like
Thailand.
After getting cleaned up, we headed for a short walk back
into town and found a nice café, which had good food, coffee and wait for it,
beer. Happy Happy after the five day drought.
After a little while I noticed Mary being a little sheepish,
something was wrong, and then she spilled the beans, she had accidently been bitten
by the cat that she had been feeding out on the deck. Her finger got in the way
while she was emptying the packet of food and this gentle cat mistook her
finger for the food. She had washed it etc, but was starting to really worry
about Rabies even though the cat looked healthy and not at all diseased. We had
been immunised, but if you are bitten, you are supposed to get booster shots.
The wound was minor, just one tiny puncture but that’s not the issue. We
consulted our travel doctor booklet and checked the procedure. We washed and
dressed the finger with loads of betadine, then looked for the nearest
hospital. There was one about six k’s away which was on our way in the morning,
so we decided that would be ok, and hope that they would be able to advise us.
After our late lunch, the rain had set back in, so we picked
up some supplies and headed back to our ‘luxury bungalow’ and had a chill out
and then a long sleep.
14/08/17
La’Ngu to Thung Yao
A quick six k’s to La’Ngu hospital had Mary in round and out
quite quickly, as it was only just past 7:30 and there weren’t many people
there. They advised a booster shot, but also a course of antibiotics for the
cat bite. All Good.
The route then turned us off the main road, and on to minor
roads for quite a while. The road became very minor for a few k’s with some
muddy tracks through the plantations, this was really nice.
After a while we were back onto the nice quiet sealed road,
and eventually as we headed North, became a bit busier. Looming ahead, we could
see something across the road. As we came closer, we could see that it was an
Army/Police checkpoint. The occasional car and motor bike was just slowing down
and cruising through, they weren’t stopping anybody. So we just made sure we
caught their eye, gave a nod and kept riding.
Suddenly, there was a loud “STOP” and Mary pulled over, I
braked to miss her and got lightly rear ended from a motorbike coming up behind
me. No damage.
Next minute, two soldiers with machine guns were coming up
to us with their Captain (we think he was police). They were all smiles and it
turned out that they just wanted a photo with us. They offered us some water, which we
graciously declined as we had plenty on the bikes, and we now will only trust
water that we know where it came from. They were nice guys, we’re not sure if
some terrorists got through while they were chatting with us, but we made sure
we got the photo anyway. There were handshakes all round and best wishes for
safe travels as we rode on down the road.
All the while we were cruising through this beautiful valley
between massive limestone cliffs, we were really enjoying the riding. There
were signs to waterfalls and caves, which ones should we look at, we didn’t
know. Eventually we picked one, it was time to eat some fruit, so we stopped a
little off the road at a cave that had a stream flowing noisily out of it.
Next minute, a few old WW2 Jeeps and Landrovers came in,
they were on a tour, so they also wanted to know all about us, then some more
photos. Such nice people, we really love interacting with them, even though the
language barrier is much more pronounced this side of the border.
The hotel we booked in Thung Yao was ominously called ‘The
Cupid Hotel’ (sound of alarm bells ringing). It turns out it was really nice, I
would almost give it five stars on the western scale, but well within our
budget, I think it converted to $24 Aussie.
We got sorted and headed out to find lunch. As we walked out
of the hotel, we noticed that a market was being set up on the large apron out
the front, this was going to be interesting for dinner perhaps? We walked on
around town but we were noticing a serious lack of eating options. There was
one very large Chinese place, that had lots of tables on it, but the few people
who were sitting in there gave us the biggest ‘don’t you dare come in here’
looks, we kept going.
We found a minimart, and grabbed a few back up supplies, and
wandered back to the hotel via a different road and still found nothing. This
is very unusual, as we can normally pick from any number of potential eateries.
By the time we got back to the hotel, the street market was really getting
going, so we cruised that and found some plates of freshly cut dragon fruit and
another of mango. I was needing some protein, so found a satay vendor. I was
speaking to the guy cooking, making sure I understood what I was getting, he
was saying Chicken, but then pointing towards his own belly, I wasn’t sure what
he meant. They looked heavily marinated in chilli, so I bought two different
ones, thinking that at least I would be safe with one. It turns out that the
belly pointing thing meant Liver, Chicken Livers. Oh well, turns out it was
actually pretty nice, amazing what you can do with a good marinade hey.
We sat out in the gutter and ate our stash, with the
vendors, customers and street dogs moving all around us, it was lots of fun and
the fruit was delicious.
We headed inside just as the rain started, and chilled out
for a couple of hours. Evening saw us getting a bit hungry again, so we headed
out again under the hotel’s umbrellas. There was a fixed produce market across
the road, so we went there in search of something fresh, Mary felt like some raw
carrots, and we scored some nice ones. There was a lady with a stand selling
interesting looking burgers, so we grabbed an egg one to share, which was nice.
But then she said to Mary, you ride the bikes with the big wheels? She must
have seen us ride into town this afternoon and put it together, there were most
certainly no other westerners in this town today.
15/8/17
Thung Yao to Hat Yao
It rained all night and it was still raining when our 6am
alarm went off. We stayed put until 7.30 and then made the decision to get
ready to leave and hope that the rain would clear in time. By 8.30am the rain
was still falling, so downstairs we went and sat down and had a couple of
coffees at the hotels café. We felt so luckily as the coffee was awesome. By
9.15 it looked like the rain was easing, so we quickly loaded up the bikes and
made our way out the door. All dressed in our rain jackets we ventured out onto
the road with just light rain falling that kept us nice and cool. We were
followed by an advertising ute playing add music as he went along. He seemed to
like going slowly behind us, and followed us for about 10-12km’s. Nothing like
having your own tunie ute behind you as you ride. We had no idea what the add
was for, but it sounded cheerful.
The road we travelled on today was reasonably busy, but it
had a really nice wide verge for us to cruise on that made the riding
pleasurable. We started to see more street dogs along the way and sadly came
across a young puppy that had been run over and killed. His poor little body
just lying in the middle of the road with his young friend just standing on the
side looking quite scared. We stopped the bikes and when all the road was clear
I went over to him and picked him up off the road and placed him to rest in
peace on some green grass, so his friend could see him without being hit
himself. The dogs have to become road wise pretty quickly, otherwise sadly they
just don’t stand a chance.
Onwards we ventured covering our longest day so far on this
trip 77km’s. We had threatening rain looming overhead for the last 25km’s, but
luck was on our side and we rolled into our beach accommodation without the
skies opening up. The wind was blowing strongly and the ocean was wild. This is
not going to be a lay in the sun sort of beach today. We read an article in the
Bangkok Times and they stated that the monsoon season has not finished down the
southern end of Thailand and that large wind and rain squalls are expected for
the next few days. Luckily for us we had planned a rest day here tomorrow and
hopefully the weather will blow itself out and we will be right to go on
Thursday, with sunshine and tail breezes.
16/8/17
Rest Day at Hat Yao
Rest days are for exploring and today we ventured off on
foot and decided to walk the beach from one end to the other. About 5k’s later
we were thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a restaurant at the end of
this beach. And before we knew it, we saw a sign pointing to a restaurant. They
had freshly made Thai food, cold drinks and cold beer. We sat outside under the
shade of an umbrella and enjoyed our lucky lunch. We ventured back to our
accommodation along the beach once more having to cross a few creeks along the
way, that now on our return were a bit deeper than they were earlier due to the
tide coming in.
For dinner we thought we would go to the same restaurant
that we went to the previous night, on the bank of the tidal river overlooking
the islands, but they were shut. As we walked around the small village we
noticed that all the eating places were shut. Our only option was a packet of chips
and a beer for Dave at the tiny shop near our homestay.
17/8/17
Hat Yao to Pak Meng Beach
With having quite a light dinner last night, we both woke
feeling seriously hungry. The sight of eggs, toast, fruit and coffee waiting
for us in the restaurant gave us both smiles on our faces and very happy
tummy’s. The bikes were all packed and ready to go, but we lingered over a
second coffee and a big plate of fruit before hitting the road to Pak Meng
Beach. It was a short day, so we were in no hurry.
Finally, we wandered up the road and let our legs find their
own rhythm.
The route was a nice shady one today, with lots of friendly
people out and about. There were quite a lot of Hellos and Good Mornings as
these two crazy cyclists meandered along the beachside road. We stopped in at
the beach for a look a few times, it was quite windy, remnants of the heavy
storm a few days before. We were looking out through the monsoon haze at some
cool looking islands, like Koh Muk and Koh Lanta. The forecast was for pretty
rough weather ahead though, so we have decided to do our island hopping on the
other side of the peninsula, in the Bay Of Thailand, where the weather is
supposed to be better.
We were cruising into town and started to get a good feel
about the place, it was off season chilled out. As usual, we sniffed out a good
coffee bar and sat back and enjoyed it, as we were way too early to check in
yet, even for us.
We just had a very basic room, which was cool, and then we
just chilled for a while before going out to find some lunch. Lunch was
ordinary, but it was a nice view, with cold beer, no problems.
Later we just went looking for street food and found a guy
who was making nice looking banana and egg roti. Sounds weird, but highly sweetened,
they were very nice, eaten out of the ubiquitous plastic bag of course, with a
skewer.
18/8/17
Pak Meng Beach to Krabi Life Homestay
An early start saw us missing out on breakfast. We had run
out of back up supplies, so that wasn’t an option. There was nothing on offer
in town on the way out, so we just rode, something would turn up, we had water.
About ten ks up, we came into a small village that had a
good mini mart. We bought some bread, a bottle of juice and some more water and
guess what, we found some peanut butter, yay. We sat out the front and ate a
sandwich, before moving on.
Not much else happened until we arrived at the Krabi Life
Homestay (still 50ks from Krabi).
This was a quirky place with strange dome shaped concrete
rooms, that were disturbingly like large pizza ovens, and nearly as hot. The
owner, Kung, was a really nice guy and quite an entrepreneur. There was really
no reason for this place to exist, it’s not near anything. It worked for us,
purely as a good ride distance, but for no other reason. But this guy is
developing a bit of a reputation, people are staying here, he helps them heaps.
There is good food on offer, the pool was good for a dip, and the aircon kept
the temperature in the pizza oven just right, I mean room.
We had a great afternoon, chilling in a hammock, having a
swim, and we had a big route planning session that led to some major decisions
on what’s next. Cool.
19/8/17
Krabi Life Homestay to Krabi
After a wonderful quiet sleep in our little dome room we
were fed an amazing breakfast, fuelling us well for our ride into Krabi. This
was such a friendly, relaxing and chilled out homestay and it wouldn’t be hard
to stay here at all for a few days. Sad to say goodbye to the tiny little
kitten and her 3 siblings that we got to know yesterday, but I think after
giving the mother a good feed of my dinner last night, she had more milk to
feed her babies and the tiny one looked a lot better than she did yesterday.
Fingers crossed she will be ok. So wish I could have taken this sweet little
one with me.
The ride continued out on the main highway with again, a
really nice verge to ride on. The surface was nice and fast and we clicked up
the k’s at a pretty good fatty pace. We were just spinning along when we heard
a siren and could see two police cars coming up behind us and then a
motorcycle. It looked a little familiar, similar to how they clear the road
when the Tour Down Under goes through. Next thing we had a cyclist fly past
with a motorbike at his heels. Then nothing for ages. Ok, is it a one man race,
is he a breakaway, or is he just a super star out on a bike ride. Soon enough,
another couple of motorbikes went past clearing the road and then a team went
past ‘Team Thailand’, with a couple of riders coming up behind them. We just
loved it as now it became obvious that this was a race. It turned out that it
was a three day tour, Tour De Andaman. Satun to Trang 150km then today was
Trang to Krabi 125km and tomorrow they will ride Krabi to Phuket 150km. As we
rode past their 100km sign they had a water station set up with officials
handing out water bottles to the riders as they rode past. They couldn’t help
it, but have some fun and ran along side us as we passed them, handing us water
bottles as well and to make it even better the water was nice and cold.
We were about 10km’s out from the city of Krabi, when in the
distance was one of our favourite coffee shops in Thailand. You will not
believe this, but one of the best coffees you can buy here in Thailand is a
servo coffee!! There are a number of café’s set up in service stations called
Cafe Amazon and they have really great coffee and yummy cakes. We cannot
believe how excited we get when we see these service stations, and this
particular Café Amazon had a giant parrot sitting out the front.
With us topped up we ventured on, finishing our ride through
the finish of the race, passing the podium and into our hotel. We were greeted
by a very friendly and welcoming lady boy, who helped us to our room and made
sure all was good. Once cleaned up we ventured outside to explore this exciting
looking city. We came across a great restaurant that had a huge menu of mainly
western food which was nice to have again. All day breakfast was on offer, so I
had a huge serving of my much missed muesli, homemade yoghurt and fresh fruit
which was to die for. Dave had a beer and a beef hamburger. We had a great look
around the market, a stroll down the river and then spent an hour having a Thai
massage.
The walking street market would be on at 6pm, so we stopped
off and had a cold drink before hitting this crazy weekend market. So many
stalls, food, clothes, art, jewellery, you name it, it was there. There was
live music playing and so many people. Bus loads of people come here just for this
walking market. You can even join a tour to do the market. We just cruised the
lanes and had a look and bought just a bit of food along the way. Dave found
some good satays, and just as we were leaving decided he should finish with
just one more. As the lanes started to all look the same, we couldn’t find
where he got the last ones from, so stopped at another stall that still looked
pretty good. Just to make sure it was chicken and not chicken liver, like he
got the other day, he asked the lady and she said ‘yes, yes chicken’ and
pointed to her butt ‘chicken butt’ which we assumed meant thigh. Feeling pretty
good that he got it right this time, he soon discovered that he wasn’t eating chicken
thigh satay, but it was a satay of the parsons noses, chicken BUTT. We cacked
ourselves laughing for so long it still hurts, I am forever thankful that I am
a vegetarian.
20/8/17
Krabi to Suan Bang Bon
It was an awesome morning with cool air outside, and a light
breeze blowing as we made our way to breakfast just down the road. Eggs and
avocado on brown toast, freshly squeezed orange juice and good coffee made for
an excellent start to our day.
We ventured back onto the highway, regained our position on
the wide verge and continued our happy pedalling regime. Today’s ride on the
highway took us along a beautiful route. On both sides of us for most of our
journey was tropical rainforest. Even though the road was busy with cars,
buses, trucks and motorbikes it was nice to see some tall old trees, jungle,
and hear some birds singing from within their environment.
We had clicked over 40k’s when we decided it was time to
look out for a ‘Café Amazon’ and within a few k’s down the road, one appeared. We
sat inside in the aircon and enjoyed our coffees and cake
On the way back we popped into a 7-11 to grab a couple of
things and a beer for Dave. ‘No sir you cannot have a beer. It is 3 o’clock’. They
seem to have this weird middle of the afternoon alcohol sale thing, where you
can’t buy it, so ‘We cannot sell you a beer at 3 o’clock’. Ahhhhh!!!!! Ok let’s
try this shop down a bit further. Success, one tinnie purchased. A little further down the road we popped into
the local produce market for a look around and came out with fresh bananas!!
And carrots. Dinner sorted.
21/8/17
Suan Bang Bon to Southern View Resort
Well, that was one of those nights you don’t want to
remember, even though you always will. Let’s just say that, there were much
comings and goings in the adjoining rooms last night. People being dropped off
by motorbike, then following a few pretend enjoyment bits, being picked up by
motorbike around an hour later.
Not much sleep happened in our room, so we just got up,
threw the bags on the bikes and pointed them north up the road and about ten k’s
later we found a coffee place and the day started to look brighter. We did
another twenty, and found a cute little restaurant, no English, but we ordered
fried eggs and hoped for the best, we seem to be doing that a bit. Anyway, out
came two little omelettes sitting in their pans, with lots of vegetables and
other things that Mary won’t eat. No, no chicken arseholes, but stuff that
ended up on my plate anyway. It was actually pretty good.
We felt like now, we could make it to the next coffee stop
at least. A bigger than average day today. Regardless, Larry and Priscilla were
feeling their oats, and just chewed up the kilometres at a cracking pace,
seventy k’s before lunch and our destination today.
We had picked a spot on the map, where a place called
‘Southern View Hotel’ was marked. Stupidly, following last night’s lesson in
booking accommodation, we were acting on a hunch again. This place didn’t exist
in any booking service, so we didn’t even know if it was open. We rolled in
through the front entrance, it existed, but was it open? It certainly looked
quiet. This was a strange place, a bit like Wirrinna on a good day, no-one
around. (Sorry, only people from Adelaide will understand that one).
Then just after we pulled up, a sweet ‘Hello’ from the
garden, and a nice lady came out to greet us. She found us a room, the first
one from reception. Opened the door, turned the aircon on and left us to it. We
asked if there was somewhere to eat and she pointed up the nearby stairs. So we went and got showered and changed and
headed up to the vast restaurant. This place was huge, and we were the only
one’s here.
We got the idea that she was just going to make us what she
thought we wanted, there was just no point in trying to get across that Mary
was vegetarian. So first the two glasses of red cordial, with ice. Then a few
minutes later we had soup, which was nice. Then fried rice with vegetables,
sliced pork and a couple of prawns. It was actually very nice and Mary managed
to eat around the meat once again. We just can’t expend the energy we do and
not eat.
With full bellies, we headed for the aircon as the afternoon
heat was really picking up.
We emerged in the late evening, with the now two ladies,
eagerly waiting to make us dinner. We had thought that we didn’t need any,
following the big lunch, but we just couldn’t say no, and then they said a word
that vaguely resembled ‘Beer’ and I said ‘Yes Please’. The rest is history.
PS: Guess what we had for dinner?
PPS: I made the profound discovery that pouring warm beer
over a glass of ice is vastly preferential to drinking warm beer and most
definitely better than no beer at all. Good Night.
22/8/17
Southern View Hotel to Don Sak
It was a fast run to start with today up the highway with a
cool breeze to start the day. With just a peanut butter sandwich and a small
banana to start with, we were open for a suggested coffee stop along the way. And
sure enough another ‘Café Amazon’ appeared before us. This was one of the best
servo’s we have ever seen. Brand spanking new, with life size transformers
standing their ground and characters from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ looking
scary and life like. How amazing would the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne be
if we had these amazing servo’s along the way. Travelling by car would be so
exciting with artistic displays at every stop, gardens, really good coffee,
fresh food and local cuisine. Thailand does it so well out on the highways, come
on Oz, we could do this!!
Continuing on the highway for around 40k’s, we then turned
off onto quite a busy secondary road for about 10k’s before finding a back road
that took us out onto a local dirt road following a canal. This was picturesque
riding. The canal was flowing with fresh clean water, the crops looked so
healthy, with rubber trees, coconut trees, numerous variety of fruit trees and
lower level crops growing along the outside boundaries. We noticed almost
immediately that there was not one single piece of rubbish to be seen. Thailand
has been a much cleaner country to cycle through so far, with only a small
amount of rubbish around and clear signs of a working rubbish system in place. To
find a place that did not even have one speck of rubbish, a place where the
water was fresh and clean gave us a glimmer of hope for our world. It can be
done if people take care, take responsibility and have pride in their environment.
We travelled along this canal for over 10km’s and it stayed pristine all the
way. 
Our ride ended for the day when we arrived at Don Sak just
on lunch time. We were happy to have reached our destination early, as the
weather suddenly became very hot. Once we checked in to our room and cleaned up,
we got a lift down to the pier and sat in the cool of a restaurant there for
lunch. We took our time with lunch, made a few plans and then walked back in
the heat to our accommodation. It was about 36 degrees but felt more like 40+. We
got talking with a lovely couple from Holland back at our accommodation and met
up with them again for dinner. They were travelling with their two children and
it was lovely to hear their stories of their travels through Thailand. 
23/8/17
Don Sak to Ko Samui
We were really looking forward to today, a bit of something
different ahead, a boat trip to the island of Ko Samui and then a few days of
luxury at a Yoga Retreat before heading
to further islands for other non cycling activities.
It was only ten ks from our accommodation to the ferry port,
which we got done quite quickly. We went through several ticketing stations,
security and immigration checkpoints, all of which just waved us through as if
they knew where we were going. We certainly didn’t, so we just went with the
flow and ended up going past all the queued up cars, buses and trucks waiting
for the ferry, got shown where to buy a ticket, had time for a quick coffee and
then we were pretty much first on to the ferry. Nothing like the priority you
get when you are on a bike, we are always able to jump the queues like this.
With Larry and Priscilla safely stowed on the vehicle deck
with fat tyres chocked, we headed for the top deck for the best view of the
trip.
The ferry seemed very slow, we knew it was going to be a bit
over ninety minutes, but if the skipper just revved the engine a bit??? Maybe it had something to do with all the
black smoke chugging out of the stack, the poor old ferry, really didn’t have
much life left in that engine.
Arriving at the ferry terminal in Ko Samui, we waited for
all the cars and trucks to clear before we retrieved the bikes and got on our
way.
We had about twenty one ks to go to the Vikasa Resort, and
frankly, it was a bit nuts. Koh Samui is quite a large island with one main loop
road around the coast. It was quite narrow in places, and the traffic, “mainly
crazy tourists on motorbikes” was a bit dangerous. The scenery from the road
isn’t all that interesting as it is set back, in order to allow lots of ocean
front real estate for the resorts, which makes sense. There is no doubt
however, that this is tourist central, and reminded us very much of Bali, but without
the Aussies.
We grabbed some lunch and then did the last ten ks to the
resort. On arrival, the place looked quite small. But when we walked into the
reception area and looked down the cliff to the ocean, we could see that all
the bungalows were hanging off the cliffs down below the road, this was a very
steep site, and the view was just amazing.
We got Larry and Priscilla parked up and headed to our room,
which was awesome. The pool was about ten metres away and we just couldn’t
resist. So we showered, swam in the pool and then went to our 4pm yoga class.
Mary did a second, stronger class at 6pm and then we went
back up the one hundred and forty steps to the cliff top restaurant, where we
had a terrific vegetarian buffet meal. I think we are going to enjoy the next
few days.
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