August 1, 2013, Thursday, Somewhere-Chaiya (Thailand) 130km 7495km
We were so slow and melonchaly while packing, I thought Khanom might be the next black hole. But we made it on the road and flew to Surat Thani for lunch. And we found a quiet rural road which we road to Chaiya, where we saw a sign for a temple, and tried our luck. Language skills are still a bit low, but even through miming we got the clear to sleep there. At first we were directed to a multi purpose, room but were later directed to our own room.
After settling in, exploring, and eating, we got talking to Hen, a monk we were talking to earlier. Hen was an architect, originally from Chaiya, he returned to be a monk for a few years. After another one or two years in Chaiya, he’s going to go to a temple in Vietnam. Hen spoke a bit of English, so I prodded him with questions about his experience. In the mornings, the monks go through town and collect food from local shop owners and residents. He spends his time talking with his teacher, asking him questions and meditating. Another focus is walking around, observing nature, the local plants, birds, bugs, etc. Sometimes on the temple property, and sometimes venturing to the surrounding natural areas. Hen even plans to spend extended time (a few months) living in the forest, but needs to wait until the dry season. And how could I forget to mention that Hen brought us a variety of snacks: bananas, rice popcorn, and sticky rice. Wow, how hospitable Thailand is.
August 2, 2013, Friday, Chaiya-Langsuan( Thailand) 75km total: 7570km
Ate our snacks for breakfast and set out to complete our primary goal. Taking a dip in the natural hot springs. Upon Hen’s recommendation, we sought out the the pool out of town a bit. We wandered along our route into town, almost gave up and ended up at a temple where a monk told us “hot water!” and directed us to follow him down a small path for a few minutes. The path ended at a big natural, steaming pool. Yes! None of this piped water lameness. The water was warmer than a bath and but not quite hot tub status. Needless to say, it was relaxing.
The hot springs were awesome, but I was met with some unfortunate luck. I lost my gps, spot device. No more gps check in’s. I rode back to hot springs, perused the temple, checked the pool, asked the monk, asked the gardener, returned to the temple, asked Hen, checked out breakfast spot. Nothing. I’ve lost a shirt on this trip, but that was three bucks. This was a lil bit more of a loss. Arggh! It’s inevitable though, on such a long trip, something like this will happen. As to its whereabouts? I’d hate to think that someone swiped it off my bike, maybe a dog picked it up, or it fell off while riding? Oh well, it’s gone.
More quiet back roads brought us to Lang Suan, where we sought out the next temple. Though we didn’t get a room. We were directed to a an open air, covered and caged area. Fine by us! At the market, we found an awesome deal for noodles with unlimited veggies all for 50 baht(we maybe have even been tourist priced, but we ate our fair share, so it’s ok)
August 3, 2013, Saturday, Lang Suan-pathio 150km total 7720km
We continued on the back roads today, cruising along the beach, passing through villages, some nice probably vacation homes and some resorts. I almost lost faith in Raj’s GPS, as the mileage to our planned lunch spot jumped from 40 to 60, after an hour of riding. I don’t want to ride on the highway, but I was so hungry! Just when morale was sinking, or sunk rather, we rounded a corner, heard loud blaring speakers and both Andres’ and my ears perked up. We stopped in front of some sort of tented event and all the locals started excitedly laughing, motioned for us to eat, and we took up the offer, duh! Apparently, it was a funeral, found out through miming, It was quite a happy funeral, with loud music, and the neighboring community all congregated for the celebration. Just like Indonesia, and Malaysia, the crowd was segregated by gender, woman, sitting on long platforms, preparing food, and men seated in chairs in their own section. They set up a table, sat us down and brought us awesome, fresh cooked pork, curry(fiery fiery curry), boiled leafy veggies, banana and banana sticky rice. We did our best to converse a bit, and even dance.
Refueled, stoked and ready to go, we raced to Chumpong, rested, and then pushed out a last blaringly fast 30 km to Pathio where we found a temple, and other Thai travelers sleeping there too!
August 4, 2013, Sunday, Pathio- Wat An Thong 100km Total 7820 km
Today I decided to change riding pace. I’m here to travel, not to race. I’d started realizing the day earlier that my memory is slipping, each day is harder to distinguish, and each section of riding meshing into a blur. 20km/hr is good enough for me. Though I am physically capable of ripping through the rides, its just not what I’m focused on. In fact, this morning, I paused to oil my chain, thinking that it would fix the skipping. I found that I had broken all my links, crushing the rings that surround the pin of every other link. I’m riding a heavy load, super heavy in fact, too much clothing, plus electronics, not too mention I’m a bigger guy myself built more for swimming than biking. I’ve got a lot of useless muscle. I had to replace my chain(the other one was only 1000km old!!), yet it just confirmed that there is no reason to rush. I’d chewed through my chain, the first cog on my cassette, and unfortunately, myself too. I’d sensed I’d been riding too hard, but changed pace a day late and a dollar short. My body was really tired. We went on nice coastal roads, but I was distracted by an overall feeling of discomfort. We ended our ride where the coastal rode met the highway and arranged to sleep in the adjacent temple. I was sooo ready to be off the bike. My body was aching all over and I was even running a fever, I felt like I had the flu. A bit of a lie down reduced the pain to simple discomfort and we ate at the nearby highway restaurant. Thank God I still had my appetite!
A stroke of luck landed us inside a room at this temple. Thank goodness. And even luckier, we were able to chat with a monk Werapong. Though our communication was still limited to just the basics, we still had an extensive interaction. He motioned that he and his wife have separated and now he meditates I’m guessing to find resolve or some clarity, or both? We flipped through an Amway promotion book(he used to work there) and various pictures of his. He even presented us with Thai medallion necklaces and bracelets that he’d made.
August 5, 2013, Monday, Wat Ang THong-Kui Buri (Thailand) 80km total 7900km
We ate breakfast with the Werapong and the rest of the monks. Breakfast was a mix of the foods that the monks had collected from the surrounding area, from homemade snacks, to packaged food items. And rice with a variety of dishes(I think this was cooked here, but honestly I’m not sure). We said goodbye to Werapong and set off down the highway. It was straight and flat. And I had a strain building up in my legs. At 50k we stopped for a snack and at 80km we stopped for lunch and my legs had had enough. It felt like my inner quads were on taffy pullers. I had to call it a day. No more riding. #cyclingtip soreness is okay, but pain you stop. Do not continue physical stuff if pain is involved. We went to the local temple, washed up, and were directed to a bit open air platform outside. We grabbed food, and cycled to a nearby restaurant/highway motel to use wifi and eat. The sun went down and the rain came up big time. We asked the restaurant owner if we could pitch camp there and got the clear! It was an empty open air restaurant, we weren’t camping in a pizza hut or anything.
August 6, 2013, Tuesday Kui Buri- Cha Am 105 km Total: 8005
More coastal back roads today. In hindsight, I probably should have rested, as my neck and back were still out of whack. But I just wanted to finish off this stretch. The day was a blur of back roads. We stopped in Hua Hin for a rest, but didn’t find much in the town besides a ton of tourists. We pushed on for the next 30k and ventured through the back roads to find the local Wat.
August 7, 2013, Wednesday Chaam-Sumat Songkhram, 100km Total: 8105km
I took it slowly through the first half of the day. Still feeling sore plus a headwind to fight for 60km till a lunch break. Only problem is that the highway went left and the next town was sign posted down a street to the right. I went back and forth debating which turn to take. Some locals confirmed that two bikers had passed by. Great! Andres and Raj were nowhere to be found. A local laughed in my face when I asked him the same question. No sign of Raj and Andres so I popped in a lunch spot, that had wifi, luckily. I popped off an email to Raj and Andres, trying to work out the logistics of reconnecting. An email did pop from Raj, yet it didn’t have any useful information, besides the fact that they were wondering if we took a different turn. Aya, I had no idea if they carried on or not, where they were, or if they had a goal destination, as we’d simply been riding until we feel like its enough. I decided to carry on, unsure of where or when we’d reconnect. I checked wifi about 30km out of town, still no response. By a stroke of luck, just as I was starting down the main highway, Raj and Andres rounded the bend. Found a temple in the next town, had dinner at the market and I set out to find a café to write.
August 8, 2013, Thursday Samut Songkram-Samut Sankhon (Thailand) 40km Total 8145km
I brought Andres and Raj over to the café I’d found and we did a semi rest day here. Simply sitting, writing, wifing blogging, researching and skyping. After lunch we made a small move closer to Bangkok, found the next temple, were given the key to the great room, picked up food at the market, brought it back to the temple and watched some Seinfeld episodes. Sometimes, days are simple.