February 4, 2006
Hello. Jodi here. It’s been awhile since I blogged and I finally was inspired to write a few impressions from our latest escapades. Kirk wanted me to catch up from where he last left off so I’ll go with his format. Prepare to be on your butt for a while. This is long winded!
Prachuap Kirhi Khan: We forgot to mention that just before arriving in Prachuap we passed the narrowest section of Thailand that was only 10 km wide. As we continued north, the mountains on our left in the near distance were on the Burma side of the border.
At the guesthouse in Prachuap we met a really nice couple from North Carolina that were staying in the room next to us. We chatted with them for a while and found out that they come to Thailand at least once a year to visit Moon’s family. She is from Thailand and has family in the Bangkok area. She and her husband Rob own a Thai restaurant on the small island they live on in NC. Apparently they were in Prachuap looking for property to buy. Rob was surprised that the banks here will not lend foreigners money and want cash only deals for property. I guess that didn’t surprise us too much. Anyway, we had a great time in their company and exchanged tales of our journeys here in Thailand. We told them how much we liked Ban Krut since it was a small charming beach town that wasn’t too touristy. We must have talked it up enough since they wanted directions to check it out too.
We ended up laying over in Prachuap for a day so we could hit a bank on Monday morning. Here’s a little tip for anyone coming to Thailand in the near future. All the banks charge 30 baht to process each traveler’s check, which is almost $1 USD. So it pays to have fewer checks and higher denominations (go for $100 denominations at the minimum).
We laid low and enjoyed the rest of the day and did our usual tour of the local night market for dinner. We love the fresh blended fruit drinks (we’re partial to the watermelon ones) and trying new dishes that pop up from town to town. The specialty here is squid so we had stir fried squid with veggies over steamed rice. Yummo! Kirk jumps right in there when ordering and tries to speak Thai to the vendors. A lot of times they look at him like he’s crazy and they shake their heads and say “no English”. That cracks me up because he’s trying to speak their language and obviously it’s so butchered they mistake it for English. Usually Kirk ends up repeating the words several times using different pronunciations and speed each time and eventually he stumbles upon something they recognize. Then they laugh and repeat it so he can say it right. So he’ll say it over and over trying to practice, which must be very entertaining for them because they laugh a lot. Thai is a very difficult language because they use sounds that we don’t have in English, which also makes English a difficult language for Thais. We’ve discovered that not one Thai has been able to say Kirk’s name correctly. It comes out sounding like a slurred “Gurg”. Kirk has been quite the entertainer on this trip for me and for the Thais. Occasionally at the night markets we get the feeling they aren’t fond of “farangs” there, but as soon as Kirk or I use at least a few Thai words to communicate, they warm up to us quickly and seem impressed.
Khao Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park: We hit the road early the next morning and planned on riding about 60km to one of the beach resorts short of reaching Hua Hin. We couldn’t really tell from our maps if the back roads went all the way through and unfortunately we found ourselves on Hwy 4 again for a small stretch before finding another back road. There we several mountains ahead of us and we were surprised that the road ended up turning South for a while and taking us around the hills instead of through them or between them. Since this was about the third time in our recent travels that we were redirected around a mountain, we determined that the Thais like to build their roads flat and go around the mountains instead of up them. Works for me! As we rounded a bend turning back to the Northeast we came upon a gang of monkeys in the road. Haven’t seen those little buggers in awhile with the exception of a few larger sized monkeys that we have occasionally seen sitting in the back of pickup trucks as they pass us on the road. Apparently these larger monkeys are sent to a training school where they learn how to harvest coconuts. Kirk read they are quite efficient at it and can harvest up to 1000 coconuts per day. (And I digress…) Soon after that we pulled up to an entry gate for the Khao Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park. They charged us 200 baht each just to ride through on our bicycles, which seemed pretty expensive for Thailand standards ($5 USD each). Kirk was not very happy about that at all. Especially considering that the road wasn’t kept as well as the portion outside the park and there really wasn’t anything to see in the park that we hadn’t seen other places. We felt like it was another “skin tax”…but as I told Kirk that kind of thing is just going to happen sometimes in our travels. Inside the park we passed several homes and some farms. I thought it was interesting that people are allowed to live inside a National Park here. We stopped at the Sam Phraya Beach inside the park just to check it out. It was a beautiful quiet stretch of beach where they rented tents if you want to camp right there on the beach. They had campground type facilities with one small restaurant serving food. We weren’t in the mood to be that isolated and weren’t quite ready to stop so we decided to move onward.
Laem Sala Beach: We eventually rode out of the park and came to a sign pointing to Laem Sala Beach. As we turned onto the beach road it looked like just a tiny local fishing village with one or two high priced resorts around it (one even had a golf course that looked pretty nice). But we rode on further and came upon several bungalows and resorts lined up along the road across from the beach. We were both really hungry after riding 75km so we stopped at one of the Thai owned resort restaurants for some lunch. We enjoyed our meal and observed how quiet this beach was and surprisingly how few tourists were around for the amount of resorts it had. Kirk asked the women at the restaurant how much their bungalows cost and they wanted too much. We checked down the road further and they were all pretty pricey compared to what we have been paying at most of our previous destinations. We decided to try the next beach up the road knowing it was only 25km away. At that point it was during the heat of the day but we were fortunate enough to have overcast skies so we felt up to it.
Pran Buri Beach: We pulled into Pran Buri and found our way to the beach road. It was a disappointing scene as we realized we left a lovely beach to come to a crappy one. There wasn’t even a beach here only an ugly sea break with palm trees planted along it that looked like they were transplanted from else where. The dirt road next to the sea break took us in front of an all-inclusive resort that had far too many chunky tourists sporting their smallest bathing suits swarming around the pool. It was a disturbing sight for Kirk and I since we haven’t been around that kind of Vegasy scene in quite awhile. It looked like the resort sprung out of nowhere, it didn’t fit in with the surroundings and gave off the sense that it was erected for the cheap real estate and the “build it and they will come” theory. Obviously it’s working for them, but we were so turned off that we immediately about faced and rode the other direction in search of a more charming place to stay that still felt like it was in Thailand. Everything along that road was incredibly expensive which seemed ridiculous to me. Several times we have stayed right on the beach in beautiful bungalows for about the equivalent of $10 USD a night and these places charged anywhere from the equivalent of $30 to $80 USD for rooms that were across the road from the sea break and didn’t even face the ocean. I’m not sure what they were charging for. Again…yes we’ve become incredibly spoiled. As we were searching for a place to stay the sun came back out and started melting us. We had done over 100km and really needed to get down and out of the heat. When we couldn’t find anywhere to stay in our price range we went into the town a couple blocks back from the beach looking for a local guesthouse or hotel. No luck there either. We ended up back on the beach road staying at a Thai owned hotel that was next to the “Vegas” all-inclusive resort and paid twice as much as what that room would have gone for anywhere else. Ugh! What a day! We took our punches and collapsed on the bed to take a nap. Later in the evening we woke up hungry and managed to coerce ourselves to get on our bikes to venture a few km into town to find a night market for dinner. Mission accomplished there.
Cha-am: The next morning we woke up early since we were anxious to take our last ride in Thailand for a while before moving on to Bangkok. As we rode through the town of Pran Buri in the morning light Kirk made the comment that this town really looked third world because it was so dug up. He said if he didn’t know better we could be riding through the streets of Beirut. He was right. The roads were the dustiest we’ve encountered yet. We think they were upgrading their water and sewer systems, which made the place have a very rough feel.
As we found out way to the right road (after asking a local) we rode behind a share taxi (a pick up truck with a roof over the back and benches inside) that was stopping frequently to pick up kids for school. The school kids are packed in like sardines and stare at us as they go by sometimes being brave enough to wave or say “hello”. When we respond with a wave and hello it sends them into giggle fits. It’s interesting because all the kids wear uniforms to school here and a lot of them look like boy scout and girl scout uniforms.
We estimated it would be a short 60km ride to Cha-am where we would stay for the night. The next day we would take a train the last 200km to Bangkok since we heard the traffic beyond Cha-am is crazy fierce and not worth the brain strain.
We were planning on stopping about halfway in Hua Hin to enjoy a western breakfast. We pulled into this buzzing little metropolis and were immediately thrown into several lanes of crazy fast traffic that was moving in all directions. I found it quite difficult to change gears in my head that quickly. All along we’ve been riding mostly back roads with little to no traffic. We were able to ride side by side a lot of days and enjoy conversations while riding. Here we were suddenly in the center of a beehive and I was completely overwhelmed. We tried to get off the main road and find a back road, but there wasn’t one and navigating that ended up being just as scary. We had to go through several intersections that I like to call “4 way gos” since no one stops and you just pick your way through. Kirk and I quickly learned the best thing to do was pick a motorcycle buddy going the same direction in the intersection and when they go you go. Seemed to work okay since we survived, but it takes a little blind faith. I watched Kirk pull out across a couple lanes of traffic and cringed thinking he was going to get squashed, but he made it. I think the traffic here is a little different in that they seem accustomed to the craziness and someone is always willing to give way. We managed to survive it and trust the drivers around us, which goes against everything I’ve learned from years of driving in the States. At that point I was ready to get out of there and just go on to Cha-am which sounded a lot more pleasant from the description in our guide book. So we got back on the highway and off we went. Once out of Hua Hin the traffic wasn’t so bad anymore. We pulled into Cha-am and were pleasantly surprised. It was a fun beach town bigger than any of the other ones we’ve visited but not nearly as crazy as Hua Hin. Whew! We found guesthouses everywhere that were cheap and clean so we checked into one and were quite happy to have an easy day on the bikes and be done so early in the day. We found a nice outdoor restaurant that served scrambled eggs with ham and a side of toast. Yay! Just what I wanted. Thais eat their eggs fried not scrambled so it’s hard to find that here unless you’re in a touristed area. We enjoyed our meal and went back to our room to lay low during the heat of the day. Later we went to a seaside restaurant to have our happy hour of Chang beer and nuts to celebrate our ride from Singapore to Bangkok. Woohoo!
I asked a girl at our guesthouse when the train left for Bangkok and she told me there was one at 11 am the next day. I was happy to hear that since I was eager to sleep in the next morning and still be able to go have a nice breakfast before hopping the train. The next morning went as planned and after breakfast we packed up our bikes and rode the 5 minutes over to the train station. Unfortunately the girl at the guesthouse gave me the time for the train that was going south from Bangkok not north to Bangkok. We talked to the ticket guy and he explained there was a train in the afternoon but it was a passenger train only and didn’t have a cargo car for our bikes. He said the only train with a cargo car to Bangkok came at 4 in the morning. So in our disappointment we took that information and went to check out things at the bus station across from our previous nights accommodation. There was a bus heading to Bangkok that was leaving in 15 minutes. We decided against taking the bus because it was more expensive and it would have dropped us outside the main area of Bangkok where we would have to find another mode of transportation to the inner city area. We read that the train would take us directly into the city even though it takes about an hour longer than the bus and obviously runs at a less convenient time. At that point we checked back into the guesthouse and decided to make the 4am train. We had lunch on the beach from the cart vendors of fresh roasted squid on a stick and spicy peanut salad. It was delicious! I find myself able to eat things here that I wouldn’t normally eat before. I’ve always liked calamari, but I’ve never been fond of the tentacles. Here we watch them pull out a raw squid, cut out the eyes and then pull out the cartilage and some of the guts (which they save to grill and eat themselves). Then they cut up the squid and pop it on the grill for a few minutes. It’s ready to eat with some spicy salsa type dip. I like it even though it’s still a little raw and sometimes I have to pull some of the remaining guts out. Crazy eh? I also notice that I can eat much spicier food here than I’ve ever eaten before. Kirk LOVES spicy food so he fits right in here and is always encouraging the cart vendors to make their dishes spicy Thai style for him. I’ve always enjoyed some spice in my food but often cannot take the same heat that Kirk likes. Here it’s no problem. I think I’ve built up a tolerance for it over the last couple of weeks and now I like it! It also helps that the Thais have perfected the perfect blend of hot and cool flavors. Often a hot dish is served with slices of cucumber or other green veggies to help soothe the palate. Every meal here is a treat and we find ourselves looking forward to our next meal time with great anticipation.
Okay, so back to the story….Kirk and I enjoyed one more day in Cha-am and weren’t too upset about moving our schedule back by one day since we were both feeling tired. We went to bed early and woke up at 3am to make the 4am train. We arrived at the train station to buy tickets 20 minutes early as directed but the guy selling tickets told us the train was late and wouldn’t arrive until 5:35am. Ugh! I wish we knew that before. We decided to just wait it out. So we waited patiently and the train pulled in around 5:45am. It sat there until about 6:30am so now we couldn’t expect to arrive in Bangkok until 10:30am. Fun fun! We realized we weren’t asked about what class ticket we wanted so they sold us tickets in 3rd class. On our one other train ride from the border of Thailand to Hat Yai, we rode 2nd class with A/C. The difference in this car was that the seats were less comfortable (bench type and stiffly upright), it had operable windows, was much dirtier, and had no other tourists. They sell you tickets with seat numbers on them so we had to kick an old man out of our seats as all the Thais were spread out sleeping everywhere and we didn’t know where else to sit. He was a happy guy though and it didn’t seem to faze him since he had family members in the seats across from us and next to us so he scooched in with them. I felt a little uncomfortable as everyone was staring at us probably wondering what we were doing in 3rd class with them since I think most tourists take 2nd class. But Kirk said, “Hey, if this is good enough for the Thai people, it’s good enough for me”. Good point. So we settled in for the ride.
Bangkok: I noticed since I woke up yesterday that my low back was unusually sore. It got worse on the train and I spent the whole ride shifting around in my seat trying to get comfortable. I had a feeling this was a bad sign since a similar thing happened to me last year just before returning to Pole. I was told my back “went out” due to stress overload. Great! I’m on vacation here and not supposed to be stressing, but apparently I am because my back says so. I toughed it out though and we made it to Bangkok yesterday around 11am.
First order of business as always when coming off public transport is to find a bathroom. So Kirk ran off to find one and ran into a couple that were also cycle tourists and had just come off the train. The woman was on crutches and told Kirk that she got hurt and wasn’t able to finish out their trip. Bummer! I would hate it if that happened to us! Making our way to the exit we ran into another cycle tourist. He was an older Belgium gentleman (Eddy) who just finished the same route we will be starting in Laos (riding along the Mekong river over to Vietnam and back through Cambodia to Bangkok). He must have been in his 70’s, but he was a spry little man. He told us he completed 9000km in 2 months! He was going on from Bangkok to ride down the West coast of Thailand and into Malaysia. Wow! I was totally impressed. It made our progress over the last 2 months seem tiny in comparison. Good for Eddy! I have some serious respect for that guy. Kirk and I looked at my cycle computer the other day and saw the total trip distance read 2500 km. We figure we’ve actually done about 3000 km since it wasn’t working for several of our long days in Malaysia. That still feels like a long distance and quite an accomplishment for us in 2 short months even though Eddy totally kicked our ass.
We left the train station and walked our bikes across the busy streets to the sidewalk on the main road that we were trying to find. There are crosswalks, but the cars must not be required to give way to pedestrians because they don’t unless they have a red light. It was like being the frog in the game Frogger where you try to navigate yourself across several lanes of a busy road without getting squished. It was smoking hot out of course and so we were sweating buckets and trying to figure out where we were and which direction to head. I was totally overwhelmed so I suggested to Kirk that we go back to the train station and sit down, get some lunch and talk about a plan of action. He agreed and it turned out to be a good decision since we don’t work well together when we’re hungry. Then compound being hot, tired and overwhelmed and well….let’s just say it’s not pretty. Kirk had read in our guidebook about an area by a park that sounded good so we asked for directions and off we went. We walked our bikes for several blocks because I was too intimidated to ride in the traffic. It reminded me of riding in Sydney with how fast the cars go except here you have hundreds of motorcycles weaving in and out of the lanes as well. Kirk pointed out a guy going past us on his bicycle riding in the left most lane of traffic and so I realized that maybe we could do it too. Thankfully I did because it would have been a really long walk otherwise and it actually put less pressure on my back to ride than it did to push my bike. It was scary nonetheless and I find myself often putting my faith in the drivers behind me because looking back is pretty dangerous when you’re focusing on staying as far to left as possible, avoiding parked cars, pot holes, cars pulling out, buses pulling over, motorcycles whizzing close by, pedestrians, cart venders, etc. It’s a lot of input and every time I look behind me it causes me to swerve out into traffic…so I don’t do it anymore and I hope my hand signals are enough to allow me to survive. Thankfully the driving here seems to be crazy but courteous.
We made it to our landmark and Kirk went in search of accommodations while I stayed with the bikes. It was amazing to sit on the sidewalk and watch the action around me. It’s also very very hot in the city! About an hour later Kirk came back to tell me he found us a room in a guesthouse. He had to go to several before finding one that wasn’t totally booked. Kirk carried our bikes over the footbridge and we rode the few minutes to the guesthouse. I took a shower and then laid down to try to get the pressure of my back while Kirk went out to run some errands.
It’s very inconvenient to be in Bangkok and be holed up in a guesthouse feeling crippled because it hurts to move very much. We have to move on though because our visas expire on the 8th so we’re going to take the night train to the Laos border on Monday night. I’m hoping that a couple of days of R&R here will get me back in order before heading out. It’s just a drag since there are things I wanted to see and do in Bangkok and now that will have to wait until the end of our cycle trip when we come back here for a couple of days before we fly out.
I heard a good saying that sometimes comes to mind on this trip. It’s “Want to make God laugh? Have a plan.” It’s tough sometimes to be flexible in our remaining schedule knowing that our time is running out. I counted how many days we have left in SE Asia and I’m sad to say we’re down 47! I know that sounds like a lot of days in American vacation time, but it’s really not in cycle tour time. Since we’ve been on the road the days have quickly passed (as full as they seem) and I expect the next half of the journey will fly by as well. Kirk and I love SE Asia so far and Kirk even halfway joked about reconfiguring our itinerary to just keep going and bike through China (but don’t worry mom…we’ll be home as scheduled). We’ve spent a lot of hours lately trying to plan our time left and we just can’t fit everything in! But we know we will be back here again as there is so much left for us to see and do.
Lately we’ve noticed how 100km days don’t seem to faze us as much. We can sit on our bikes for longer periods of time with fewer breaks while keeping a pretty good pace all day. As our cycling gets stronger we also notice some of the pangs that come with cycle touring. Our backs, wrists, butts and legs are often sore from riding so frequently. I’ve noticed the tip of my pinky seems to be constantly numb and we always have to move our hands around and shake them out while we ride to get our circulation going again. Sometimes towards the end of our rides we will also feel discomfort in our toes from being pushed in the end of our bike shoes all day. During one of our layover days I had a weird continuous twitch going on in my bicep. So needless to say we have our fair share of ailments due to riding, but thankfully they are small and don’t hinder us from enjoying our rides along the way. (Can you tell I wrote this paragraph before my back went to hell?)
All in all I have to say that Thailand has been absolutely spectacular! We really love it here. The people are friendly and helpful, the food rocks, the rooms are always clean and cheap and the scenery is top notch. Riding up the East coast was such a pleasure and we’ve loved seeing how the people, the food and the landscapes change along the way. We noticed that the closer we rode to Bangkok the more tourists we saw, the beaches became less impressive and littered with high price resorts and the Thai people seemed less intimate towards us. So looking back it’s no surprise that Kirk and I have the fondest memories of the tiny little beach towns with wonderful unspoiled beaches and the most charming people. It sure seems like the some of the “must see” touristy destinations that we’ve paid more money for leave us feeling disappointed in comparison. I think it’s because we have so much adventure in our everyday road experiences by bicycle that “normal” type vacation things just don’t hold enough luster anymore. We end up wishing we were back on the quiet little roads that we can always count on to lead us to good times, if that makes any sense.
This journey so far has been such a rich experience for both Kirk and I individually and as a couple. Some days it is hard as I find myself struggling to get out of bed and talk myself into getting on my bike. But once I do I’m happy to be there. I have had a few intense moments of heat exhaustion where I find it hard to keep pedaling, feeling as if I’m drowning in my perspiration, trying to overcome my mental “melt down”, and pushing my body to go on when it just wants to quit (and probably driving Kirk nuts in the meantime as he has a little more tolerance for those type of things). But every time we get through a really hard day, which have been few and far between, it makes me realize that most of our days have been spectacular and we’ve been pretty lucky overall. The whole way from Singapore up the coast of Malaysia and even into Thailand we had people telling us that had we been there a week earlier we would have been in floods. So our timing has been impeccable without planning it that way…it was just luck! We’ve also found our way to our destinations without too much effort. Every time we have felt like we might be lost or in trouble, something or someone comes along to steer us in the right direction. I think we have a pretty good guardian angel. J
On January 31st we were riding along and realized that last year on that day we were flying back to the South Pole for our second winter. We talked about how our hardest days on the road here are just a blast in comparison to our lowest days at Pole. We are loving life when we think like that and even though the sun (the “Death Star” as we call it sometimes) is scorching here, I’ll take that over no sun any day of the week! It’s weird but we both still have dreams about being back at Pole. It’s good to wake up in Thailand and realize it was just a dream…believe me!
In a way we are sad that our ride to Cha-am was our last ride in Thailand for a while. We really wish we had more time to explore this country as it is so much fun! But, we’ll just save that for another journey, as we definitely do not think this will be our first and last cycle trip. There’s a whole big world out there to explore!
Prachuap Kirhi Khan: We forgot to mention that just before arriving in Prachuap we passed the narrowest section of Thailand that was only 10 km wide. As we continued north, the mountains on our left in the near distance were on the Burma side of the border.
At the guesthouse in Prachuap we met a really nice couple from North Carolina that were staying in the room next to us. We chatted with them for a while and found out that they come to Thailand at least once a year to visit Moon’s family. She is from Thailand and has family in the Bangkok area. She and her husband Rob own a Thai restaurant on the small island they live on in NC. Apparently they were in Prachuap looking for property to buy. Rob was surprised that the banks here will not lend foreigners money and want cash only deals for property. I guess that didn’t surprise us too much. Anyway, we had a great time in their company and exchanged tales of our journeys here in Thailand. We told them how much we liked Ban Krut since it was a small charming beach town that wasn’t too touristy. We must have talked it up enough since they wanted directions to check it out too.
We ended up laying over in Prachuap for a day so we could hit a bank on Monday morning. Here’s a little tip for anyone coming to Thailand in the near future. All the banks charge 30 baht to process each traveler’s check, which is almost $1 USD. So it pays to have fewer checks and higher denominations (go for $100 denominations at the minimum).
We laid low and enjoyed the rest of the day and did our usual tour of the local night market for dinner. We love the fresh blended fruit drinks (we’re partial to the watermelon ones) and trying new dishes that pop up from town to town. The specialty here is squid so we had stir fried squid with veggies over steamed rice. Yummo! Kirk jumps right in there when ordering and tries to speak Thai to the vendors. A lot of times they look at him like he’s crazy and they shake their heads and say “no English”. That cracks me up because he’s trying to speak their language and obviously it’s so butchered they mistake it for English. Usually Kirk ends up repeating the words several times using different pronunciations and speed each time and eventually he stumbles upon something they recognize. Then they laugh and repeat it so he can say it right. So he’ll say it over and over trying to practice, which must be very entertaining for them because they laugh a lot. Thai is a very difficult language because they use sounds that we don’t have in English, which also makes English a difficult language for Thais. We’ve discovered that not one Thai has been able to say Kirk’s name correctly. It comes out sounding like a slurred “Gurg”. Kirk has been quite the entertainer on this trip for me and for the Thais. Occasionally at the night markets we get the feeling they aren’t fond of “farangs” there, but as soon as Kirk or I use at least a few Thai words to communicate, they warm up to us quickly and seem impressed.
Khao Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park: We hit the road early the next morning and planned on riding about 60km to one of the beach resorts short of reaching Hua Hin. We couldn’t really tell from our maps if the back roads went all the way through and unfortunately we found ourselves on Hwy 4 again for a small stretch before finding another back road. There we several mountains ahead of us and we were surprised that the road ended up turning South for a while and taking us around the hills instead of through them or between them. Since this was about the third time in our recent travels that we were redirected around a mountain, we determined that the Thais like to build their roads flat and go around the mountains instead of up them. Works for me! As we rounded a bend turning back to the Northeast we came upon a gang of monkeys in the road. Haven’t seen those little buggers in awhile with the exception of a few larger sized monkeys that we have occasionally seen sitting in the back of pickup trucks as they pass us on the road. Apparently these larger monkeys are sent to a training school where they learn how to harvest coconuts. Kirk read they are quite efficient at it and can harvest up to 1000 coconuts per day. (And I digress…) Soon after that we pulled up to an entry gate for the Khao Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park. They charged us 200 baht each just to ride through on our bicycles, which seemed pretty expensive for Thailand standards ($5 USD each). Kirk was not very happy about that at all. Especially considering that the road wasn’t kept as well as the portion outside the park and there really wasn’t anything to see in the park that we hadn’t seen other places. We felt like it was another “skin tax”…but as I told Kirk that kind of thing is just going to happen sometimes in our travels. Inside the park we passed several homes and some farms. I thought it was interesting that people are allowed to live inside a National Park here. We stopped at the Sam Phraya Beach inside the park just to check it out. It was a beautiful quiet stretch of beach where they rented tents if you want to camp right there on the beach. They had campground type facilities with one small restaurant serving food. We weren’t in the mood to be that isolated and weren’t quite ready to stop so we decided to move onward.
Laem Sala Beach: We eventually rode out of the park and came to a sign pointing to Laem Sala Beach. As we turned onto the beach road it looked like just a tiny local fishing village with one or two high priced resorts around it (one even had a golf course that looked pretty nice). But we rode on further and came upon several bungalows and resorts lined up along the road across from the beach. We were both really hungry after riding 75km so we stopped at one of the Thai owned resort restaurants for some lunch. We enjoyed our meal and observed how quiet this beach was and surprisingly how few tourists were around for the amount of resorts it had. Kirk asked the women at the restaurant how much their bungalows cost and they wanted too much. We checked down the road further and they were all pretty pricey compared to what we have been paying at most of our previous destinations. We decided to try the next beach up the road knowing it was only 25km away. At that point it was during the heat of the day but we were fortunate enough to have overcast skies so we felt up to it.
Pran Buri Beach: We pulled into Pran Buri and found our way to the beach road. It was a disappointing scene as we realized we left a lovely beach to come to a crappy one. There wasn’t even a beach here only an ugly sea break with palm trees planted along it that looked like they were transplanted from else where. The dirt road next to the sea break took us in front of an all-inclusive resort that had far too many chunky tourists sporting their smallest bathing suits swarming around the pool. It was a disturbing sight for Kirk and I since we haven’t been around that kind of Vegasy scene in quite awhile. It looked like the resort sprung out of nowhere, it didn’t fit in with the surroundings and gave off the sense that it was erected for the cheap real estate and the “build it and they will come” theory. Obviously it’s working for them, but we were so turned off that we immediately about faced and rode the other direction in search of a more charming place to stay that still felt like it was in Thailand. Everything along that road was incredibly expensive which seemed ridiculous to me. Several times we have stayed right on the beach in beautiful bungalows for about the equivalent of $10 USD a night and these places charged anywhere from the equivalent of $30 to $80 USD for rooms that were across the road from the sea break and didn’t even face the ocean. I’m not sure what they were charging for. Again…yes we’ve become incredibly spoiled. As we were searching for a place to stay the sun came back out and started melting us. We had done over 100km and really needed to get down and out of the heat. When we couldn’t find anywhere to stay in our price range we went into the town a couple blocks back from the beach looking for a local guesthouse or hotel. No luck there either. We ended up back on the beach road staying at a Thai owned hotel that was next to the “Vegas” all-inclusive resort and paid twice as much as what that room would have gone for anywhere else. Ugh! What a day! We took our punches and collapsed on the bed to take a nap. Later in the evening we woke up hungry and managed to coerce ourselves to get on our bikes to venture a few km into town to find a night market for dinner. Mission accomplished there.
Cha-am: The next morning we woke up early since we were anxious to take our last ride in Thailand for a while before moving on to Bangkok. As we rode through the town of Pran Buri in the morning light Kirk made the comment that this town really looked third world because it was so dug up. He said if he didn’t know better we could be riding through the streets of Beirut. He was right. The roads were the dustiest we’ve encountered yet. We think they were upgrading their water and sewer systems, which made the place have a very rough feel.
As we found out way to the right road (after asking a local) we rode behind a share taxi (a pick up truck with a roof over the back and benches inside) that was stopping frequently to pick up kids for school. The school kids are packed in like sardines and stare at us as they go by sometimes being brave enough to wave or say “hello”. When we respond with a wave and hello it sends them into giggle fits. It’s interesting because all the kids wear uniforms to school here and a lot of them look like boy scout and girl scout uniforms.
We estimated it would be a short 60km ride to Cha-am where we would stay for the night. The next day we would take a train the last 200km to Bangkok since we heard the traffic beyond Cha-am is crazy fierce and not worth the brain strain.
We were planning on stopping about halfway in Hua Hin to enjoy a western breakfast. We pulled into this buzzing little metropolis and were immediately thrown into several lanes of crazy fast traffic that was moving in all directions. I found it quite difficult to change gears in my head that quickly. All along we’ve been riding mostly back roads with little to no traffic. We were able to ride side by side a lot of days and enjoy conversations while riding. Here we were suddenly in the center of a beehive and I was completely overwhelmed. We tried to get off the main road and find a back road, but there wasn’t one and navigating that ended up being just as scary. We had to go through several intersections that I like to call “4 way gos” since no one stops and you just pick your way through. Kirk and I quickly learned the best thing to do was pick a motorcycle buddy going the same direction in the intersection and when they go you go. Seemed to work okay since we survived, but it takes a little blind faith. I watched Kirk pull out across a couple lanes of traffic and cringed thinking he was going to get squashed, but he made it. I think the traffic here is a little different in that they seem accustomed to the craziness and someone is always willing to give way. We managed to survive it and trust the drivers around us, which goes against everything I’ve learned from years of driving in the States. At that point I was ready to get out of there and just go on to Cha-am which sounded a lot more pleasant from the description in our guide book. So we got back on the highway and off we went. Once out of Hua Hin the traffic wasn’t so bad anymore. We pulled into Cha-am and were pleasantly surprised. It was a fun beach town bigger than any of the other ones we’ve visited but not nearly as crazy as Hua Hin. Whew! We found guesthouses everywhere that were cheap and clean so we checked into one and were quite happy to have an easy day on the bikes and be done so early in the day. We found a nice outdoor restaurant that served scrambled eggs with ham and a side of toast. Yay! Just what I wanted. Thais eat their eggs fried not scrambled so it’s hard to find that here unless you’re in a touristed area. We enjoyed our meal and went back to our room to lay low during the heat of the day. Later we went to a seaside restaurant to have our happy hour of Chang beer and nuts to celebrate our ride from Singapore to Bangkok. Woohoo!
I asked a girl at our guesthouse when the train left for Bangkok and she told me there was one at 11 am the next day. I was happy to hear that since I was eager to sleep in the next morning and still be able to go have a nice breakfast before hopping the train. The next morning went as planned and after breakfast we packed up our bikes and rode the 5 minutes over to the train station. Unfortunately the girl at the guesthouse gave me the time for the train that was going south from Bangkok not north to Bangkok. We talked to the ticket guy and he explained there was a train in the afternoon but it was a passenger train only and didn’t have a cargo car for our bikes. He said the only train with a cargo car to Bangkok came at 4 in the morning. So in our disappointment we took that information and went to check out things at the bus station across from our previous nights accommodation. There was a bus heading to Bangkok that was leaving in 15 minutes. We decided against taking the bus because it was more expensive and it would have dropped us outside the main area of Bangkok where we would have to find another mode of transportation to the inner city area. We read that the train would take us directly into the city even though it takes about an hour longer than the bus and obviously runs at a less convenient time. At that point we checked back into the guesthouse and decided to make the 4am train. We had lunch on the beach from the cart vendors of fresh roasted squid on a stick and spicy peanut salad. It was delicious! I find myself able to eat things here that I wouldn’t normally eat before. I’ve always liked calamari, but I’ve never been fond of the tentacles. Here we watch them pull out a raw squid, cut out the eyes and then pull out the cartilage and some of the guts (which they save to grill and eat themselves). Then they cut up the squid and pop it on the grill for a few minutes. It’s ready to eat with some spicy salsa type dip. I like it even though it’s still a little raw and sometimes I have to pull some of the remaining guts out. Crazy eh? I also notice that I can eat much spicier food here than I’ve ever eaten before. Kirk LOVES spicy food so he fits right in here and is always encouraging the cart vendors to make their dishes spicy Thai style for him. I’ve always enjoyed some spice in my food but often cannot take the same heat that Kirk likes. Here it’s no problem. I think I’ve built up a tolerance for it over the last couple of weeks and now I like it! It also helps that the Thais have perfected the perfect blend of hot and cool flavors. Often a hot dish is served with slices of cucumber or other green veggies to help soothe the palate. Every meal here is a treat and we find ourselves looking forward to our next meal time with great anticipation.
Okay, so back to the story….Kirk and I enjoyed one more day in Cha-am and weren’t too upset about moving our schedule back by one day since we were both feeling tired. We went to bed early and woke up at 3am to make the 4am train. We arrived at the train station to buy tickets 20 minutes early as directed but the guy selling tickets told us the train was late and wouldn’t arrive until 5:35am. Ugh! I wish we knew that before. We decided to just wait it out. So we waited patiently and the train pulled in around 5:45am. It sat there until about 6:30am so now we couldn’t expect to arrive in Bangkok until 10:30am. Fun fun! We realized we weren’t asked about what class ticket we wanted so they sold us tickets in 3rd class. On our one other train ride from the border of Thailand to Hat Yai, we rode 2nd class with A/C. The difference in this car was that the seats were less comfortable (bench type and stiffly upright), it had operable windows, was much dirtier, and had no other tourists. They sell you tickets with seat numbers on them so we had to kick an old man out of our seats as all the Thais were spread out sleeping everywhere and we didn’t know where else to sit. He was a happy guy though and it didn’t seem to faze him since he had family members in the seats across from us and next to us so he scooched in with them. I felt a little uncomfortable as everyone was staring at us probably wondering what we were doing in 3rd class with them since I think most tourists take 2nd class. But Kirk said, “Hey, if this is good enough for the Thai people, it’s good enough for me”. Good point. So we settled in for the ride.
Bangkok: I noticed since I woke up yesterday that my low back was unusually sore. It got worse on the train and I spent the whole ride shifting around in my seat trying to get comfortable. I had a feeling this was a bad sign since a similar thing happened to me last year just before returning to Pole. I was told my back “went out” due to stress overload. Great! I’m on vacation here and not supposed to be stressing, but apparently I am because my back says so. I toughed it out though and we made it to Bangkok yesterday around 11am.
First order of business as always when coming off public transport is to find a bathroom. So Kirk ran off to find one and ran into a couple that were also cycle tourists and had just come off the train. The woman was on crutches and told Kirk that she got hurt and wasn’t able to finish out their trip. Bummer! I would hate it if that happened to us! Making our way to the exit we ran into another cycle tourist. He was an older Belgium gentleman (Eddy) who just finished the same route we will be starting in Laos (riding along the Mekong river over to Vietnam and back through Cambodia to Bangkok). He must have been in his 70’s, but he was a spry little man. He told us he completed 9000km in 2 months! He was going on from Bangkok to ride down the West coast of Thailand and into Malaysia. Wow! I was totally impressed. It made our progress over the last 2 months seem tiny in comparison. Good for Eddy! I have some serious respect for that guy. Kirk and I looked at my cycle computer the other day and saw the total trip distance read 2500 km. We figure we’ve actually done about 3000 km since it wasn’t working for several of our long days in Malaysia. That still feels like a long distance and quite an accomplishment for us in 2 short months even though Eddy totally kicked our ass.
We left the train station and walked our bikes across the busy streets to the sidewalk on the main road that we were trying to find. There are crosswalks, but the cars must not be required to give way to pedestrians because they don’t unless they have a red light. It was like being the frog in the game Frogger where you try to navigate yourself across several lanes of a busy road without getting squished. It was smoking hot out of course and so we were sweating buckets and trying to figure out where we were and which direction to head. I was totally overwhelmed so I suggested to Kirk that we go back to the train station and sit down, get some lunch and talk about a plan of action. He agreed and it turned out to be a good decision since we don’t work well together when we’re hungry. Then compound being hot, tired and overwhelmed and well….let’s just say it’s not pretty. Kirk had read in our guidebook about an area by a park that sounded good so we asked for directions and off we went. We walked our bikes for several blocks because I was too intimidated to ride in the traffic. It reminded me of riding in Sydney with how fast the cars go except here you have hundreds of motorcycles weaving in and out of the lanes as well. Kirk pointed out a guy going past us on his bicycle riding in the left most lane of traffic and so I realized that maybe we could do it too. Thankfully I did because it would have been a really long walk otherwise and it actually put less pressure on my back to ride than it did to push my bike. It was scary nonetheless and I find myself often putting my faith in the drivers behind me because looking back is pretty dangerous when you’re focusing on staying as far to left as possible, avoiding parked cars, pot holes, cars pulling out, buses pulling over, motorcycles whizzing close by, pedestrians, cart venders, etc. It’s a lot of input and every time I look behind me it causes me to swerve out into traffic…so I don’t do it anymore and I hope my hand signals are enough to allow me to survive. Thankfully the driving here seems to be crazy but courteous.
We made it to our landmark and Kirk went in search of accommodations while I stayed with the bikes. It was amazing to sit on the sidewalk and watch the action around me. It’s also very very hot in the city! About an hour later Kirk came back to tell me he found us a room in a guesthouse. He had to go to several before finding one that wasn’t totally booked. Kirk carried our bikes over the footbridge and we rode the few minutes to the guesthouse. I took a shower and then laid down to try to get the pressure of my back while Kirk went out to run some errands.
It’s very inconvenient to be in Bangkok and be holed up in a guesthouse feeling crippled because it hurts to move very much. We have to move on though because our visas expire on the 8th so we’re going to take the night train to the Laos border on Monday night. I’m hoping that a couple of days of R&R here will get me back in order before heading out. It’s just a drag since there are things I wanted to see and do in Bangkok and now that will have to wait until the end of our cycle trip when we come back here for a couple of days before we fly out.
I heard a good saying that sometimes comes to mind on this trip. It’s “Want to make God laugh? Have a plan.” It’s tough sometimes to be flexible in our remaining schedule knowing that our time is running out. I counted how many days we have left in SE Asia and I’m sad to say we’re down 47! I know that sounds like a lot of days in American vacation time, but it’s really not in cycle tour time. Since we’ve been on the road the days have quickly passed (as full as they seem) and I expect the next half of the journey will fly by as well. Kirk and I love SE Asia so far and Kirk even halfway joked about reconfiguring our itinerary to just keep going and bike through China (but don’t worry mom…we’ll be home as scheduled). We’ve spent a lot of hours lately trying to plan our time left and we just can’t fit everything in! But we know we will be back here again as there is so much left for us to see and do.
Lately we’ve noticed how 100km days don’t seem to faze us as much. We can sit on our bikes for longer periods of time with fewer breaks while keeping a pretty good pace all day. As our cycling gets stronger we also notice some of the pangs that come with cycle touring. Our backs, wrists, butts and legs are often sore from riding so frequently. I’ve noticed the tip of my pinky seems to be constantly numb and we always have to move our hands around and shake them out while we ride to get our circulation going again. Sometimes towards the end of our rides we will also feel discomfort in our toes from being pushed in the end of our bike shoes all day. During one of our layover days I had a weird continuous twitch going on in my bicep. So needless to say we have our fair share of ailments due to riding, but thankfully they are small and don’t hinder us from enjoying our rides along the way. (Can you tell I wrote this paragraph before my back went to hell?)
All in all I have to say that Thailand has been absolutely spectacular! We really love it here. The people are friendly and helpful, the food rocks, the rooms are always clean and cheap and the scenery is top notch. Riding up the East coast was such a pleasure and we’ve loved seeing how the people, the food and the landscapes change along the way. We noticed that the closer we rode to Bangkok the more tourists we saw, the beaches became less impressive and littered with high price resorts and the Thai people seemed less intimate towards us. So looking back it’s no surprise that Kirk and I have the fondest memories of the tiny little beach towns with wonderful unspoiled beaches and the most charming people. It sure seems like the some of the “must see” touristy destinations that we’ve paid more money for leave us feeling disappointed in comparison. I think it’s because we have so much adventure in our everyday road experiences by bicycle that “normal” type vacation things just don’t hold enough luster anymore. We end up wishing we were back on the quiet little roads that we can always count on to lead us to good times, if that makes any sense.
This journey so far has been such a rich experience for both Kirk and I individually and as a couple. Some days it is hard as I find myself struggling to get out of bed and talk myself into getting on my bike. But once I do I’m happy to be there. I have had a few intense moments of heat exhaustion where I find it hard to keep pedaling, feeling as if I’m drowning in my perspiration, trying to overcome my mental “melt down”, and pushing my body to go on when it just wants to quit (and probably driving Kirk nuts in the meantime as he has a little more tolerance for those type of things). But every time we get through a really hard day, which have been few and far between, it makes me realize that most of our days have been spectacular and we’ve been pretty lucky overall. The whole way from Singapore up the coast of Malaysia and even into Thailand we had people telling us that had we been there a week earlier we would have been in floods. So our timing has been impeccable without planning it that way…it was just luck! We’ve also found our way to our destinations without too much effort. Every time we have felt like we might be lost or in trouble, something or someone comes along to steer us in the right direction. I think we have a pretty good guardian angel. J
On January 31st we were riding along and realized that last year on that day we were flying back to the South Pole for our second winter. We talked about how our hardest days on the road here are just a blast in comparison to our lowest days at Pole. We are loving life when we think like that and even though the sun (the “Death Star” as we call it sometimes) is scorching here, I’ll take that over no sun any day of the week! It’s weird but we both still have dreams about being back at Pole. It’s good to wake up in Thailand and realize it was just a dream…believe me!
In a way we are sad that our ride to Cha-am was our last ride in Thailand for a while. We really wish we had more time to explore this country as it is so much fun! But, we’ll just save that for another journey, as we definitely do not think this will be our first and last cycle trip. There’s a whole big world out there to explore!
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 3:46 AM
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