Day 34 – Ratchaburi to Kanchanaburi
Thanks to some of the guys from yesterday, and Natt’s hard work on ThaiMTB.com, we had another couple on a tandem come out and ride with us for 50kms this morning. It was a great ride, light traffic and friendly chatting. They both spoke about as much English as I do Thai, but it was lovely to have another couple come out and ride with us to our chosen breakfast location.
We all enjoyed a roast duck breakfast after our invitation from another person via ThaiMTB.com to visit his newly opened restaurant. The restaurant owner, until recently an Engineer, has now chosen to finally do something he truly loves. He says that he’s always loved cooking but admitted to us that it does sometimes cut into his cycling time. I had a couple of portions of duck, it was great… he was very friendly and talkative. In the past he had done plenty of tour cycling, which just goes to show this is not anything really new to Thailand. I think tour cycling is just getting a lot more attention now from a new generation and the media.
I’d love to tell you the name of the Roast Duck place but the sign was written in Thai. Here is the GPS location N13 49.036 E99 52.521 Stick that into Google maps if you want to find out where exactly this restaurant is. After the 4 of us had finished breakfast and said our goodbyes we went our separate ways. For us it was just under 100kms to Kanchananburi, a long day of more hard work on the bike. The third day of cycling in a row is always hard for me, but certainly not as hard as the fourth.
We arrived in town, found the bicycle shop, post office and Tourism of Thailand office and then checked-in to a room down in the backpacker end of town. It was impossible (or we might have been too tired) to find a room which would fit our bicycle inside, so we found one that had a covered balcony and locked it there.
The bicycle has some clicks and squeaks. Natt is currently outside giving it a wash, she seems to enjoy washing it, or maybe she does not like arriving at locations with a dirty bicycle (I’m not so worried). Once she’s finished I will give it some lube and have a look at the chain, seat post, and a couple of other areas which have been making noise.
I think the lube will fix it all up. Nothing is really wrong with the Hase Pino Tour, I just think it’s been a week since I lubed it last and we’ve now done just under 2,400 kms in many different weather conditions (but not real heavy rain). So it’s just time.
I just did the 35 days (5 week) rundown of the trip.. we’re spending around 1,400 per day which is around A$40, about 33% more than we’d budgeted. But, we have traveled through a few tourist areas where accommodation and food are always more expensive. I expect the costs in Isan (North East Thailand) will be considerably less next month.
MEALS AND SNACKS – 750 Baht
ACCOMMODATION – 550 Baht
WASHING – 40 Baht
OTHER – 40 Baht
BICYCLE – 20 Baht
Tomorrow (It’s actually today because I didn’t finish this article last night) we have a day off to do our 7kgs of washing, pretty much all our clothes. And we’ll use the day off to give the legs a break before heading off to Suphan Buri.
