Day 24 – Chumphon to Ban Krut (Prachuap Khiri Khan)
We left later than usual today in order to take advantage of the breakfast offered with our room (900 Baht) at Nana Beach Resort in Chumphon. So we didn’t get rolling until 8amish, which seamed like a good idea at the time, but as the day wore on I felt like I would have rather ridden the extra 30kms before the sun had come out. The benefit of leaving late was that our friend John Graham of BicycleThailand.com joined us for the day, which is always good company.
John is happy chap that can cycle like a bullet but shows great patience when riding with slower riders. He is able to take a hard day and make it into a simple and fun trip. I’m sure he does it deliberately. He will chat about topics, make discussion and more just to keep your mind off of things. For example, when a hill is approaching he’ll start a new topic just to distract you from the hill as long as possible, and then when it becomes too much hard work for you he’ll shut up and let you ride in peace. John possesses that rare gift of knowing what to do and when to do it.
Early in the day we ran into David Hiades. He is a French man riding his bicycle with fully-loaded panniers and a trailer who has ridden from France north into the Netherlands, across into Russia, south to China and down through Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to make it into Thailand. He was chatty and nice. He was on such a long trip that he was camping wherever possible, something that I really have no desire to do, but others seem to enjoy. Anyway, we chatted about the the route south and Thailand’s ‘red zone’ and whether it was safe or not. We told him of our experience in Thailand’s ‘red zone’ and encouraged him to do it and not to worry. After a 15 minute chat and an exchange of contact details we bid farewell to David and headed North, while he continued South.
The sun came out in full force, it was hot and we’d only done 50-60kms so far. I was beginning to dread the remaining 50kms of the day but luckily some clouds rolled in and took the edge off. It was still hard work after our 145kms yesterday but we kept moving forward, in the end our moving speed was 19.5km/hour with 440 metres of elevation. I am looking forward to a day off, and also the flatness of the next 200 kilometres that I am very familiar with, having ridden it 3-4 times before.
We ate a few more times during the day, the final time in Ban Saphan just before the final run into Ban Krut. Ban Krut is a lovely little beach side area miles from everything and possibly what Cha-am was like 30-40 years ago. John has some good friends that live there and we managed to get invited to stay for a couple of days, which is great for the budget and also very lovely of them.
Kasama and Byron have lived in Ban Kurt for many years and they own the local Italian Reasturant. We met Kasama for the second time (once a few years earlier while riding the Tour de Thailand) while Bryon was currently out of town for work. After our greetings we excused ourselves and spent an hour or so sitting in the pool and relaxing, with a loose plan to have dinner in a few hours.
During the day’s ride we had seen a large king cobra crossing the road about 20kms before reaching Ban Krut, as we passed on our bikes it flared it’s neck and displayed all it’s snakeness to us. We only caught a glimpse of it before we had a chance to turn around, but by the time we did the snake was long gone, disappeared into the undergrowth on the side of the road.
Gop (Kasama) is a lovely lady who is very hospitable to, even to complete strangers. She gave us a place to stay and took us out to the best Thai restaurant in Ban Krut, a simple but very lovely place at the end of town. Awesome food that really hit the spot, we ate and chatted for a few hours and relaxed. After doing 260km in 2 days we think we deserved it, plus tomorrow will be another day off.
Tomorrow we will do the usual washing of clothes, repacking of bags, and more importantly booking of bus tickets to Surin to travel to our friends (Chris and Gae from Tour de Thailand) wedding. Gop and Byron will also be there along with a whole group of other mutual friends which should be great. BUT THE MOST important thing tomorrow will be to visit Kasama’s Resturant so we can eat amazing western food before heading off for another 4 months of cycling.
Lovely people make a good place great. We’ve now done 14 province and 1,922 kms, the southern area is done and we have now entered the western or central area depending on which system you use to map out Thailand, but more on that tomorrow. We will take a day off and then head to Prachuap Khiri Khan’s provincial capital to get our log book signed and complete our 15th amphoe mueang.
Laterz!
