Day 37 – Suphan Buri to Nakhon Pathom and Stubbornness
It was a big 125km and 6 hours on the bicycle today. Subsequently, we ate 2 awesome hamburgers at the restaurant in the Rose Garden. Firstly, if you ever visit the Rose Garden please order a 220 Baht hamburger, it was amazing, with some real English style Chips (or French Fries to you Americans) plus Worcestershire sauce (double awesomeness).
Let us tell you how we ended up at this 2,800 Baht per night place when our daily budget for hotels is only 1,000 Baht. Doesn’t add up does it! Well, like I said it was a long day and around 4pm we decided that we didn’t want to be riding in the dark (and a possible afternoon thunderstorm) so we stopped and shelled out the cash under the happy occasion of our two month wedding anniversary. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
We started at 6am, leaving Suphan Buri on the main road but with very little traffic in the early morning, then we turned onto 60kms of great quiet back roads through rice fields, mostly great quality roads and low on traffic. It was a lovely ride and as we approached our ‘destination’ of Nakhon Pathom at 95km our day was nearing its end. We headed to the local bicycle shop, Chalern Bicycle, which was a great place with friendly people. I managed to grab some spare cleats for our unusual Crank Brothers pedals for just 600 Baht. I was very happy, but at this point the daily budget was going to blow out.
As we waited and chatted ‘Bicycle Rescue guy’ from Bangkok (whose family lives in this area) came out to say hello. He spoke decent English and was friendly, we had a chat about his life and his volunteer work doing Emergency Services stuff on the streets of Bangkok. It is his hobby and it sounds like he enjoys it.
Mr Rescue was nice enough to show us around town, helped us grabbed some photos and offered to make sure we made it to a hotel. We visited one place that didn’t really suit us, it was right in the middle of town and didn’t have a good storage location for our precious (to us) bike.
So we headed to the outside of town as there was rumor of a couple of hotels worth checking out. We followed our new friend as he took us to Highway 4 and its crazy traffic. We never planned to ride this road in the late afternoon, we had planned to do it at 5:30am in order to avoid the mess. As we got to the highway I realized we’d popped out 3kms further down the road from the hotels.
It was pretty much my stupid insistence not to ride in the wrong direction that made us travel towards Bangkok (and the direction we would ride tomorrow morning for 10kms). I was SO positive we would find a roadside hotel for businessmen or the like in a few kilometres. At this point we had already done 95 kms for the day and were supposed to be settling into a hotel.
So we cycled, in the crazy traffic, kilometre after kilometre until we found nothing. It was not really a long way, only 30 kms but the heat, traffic, and all that really got to us all. Stupid stubborn Paul. We headed for Nakhon Chai Si where we looked on Google maps and had found the “Green Guest House.” Natt called the guest house and found out that their rooms were ‘fan only’ but the lady who answered the phone assured us that it was NOT hot. So I pictured trees, water, grass, and a pleasant green location with a couple of bungalows. SOUNDED GREAT.
Only 5km later we arrived to a cement car park with a few cement bungalows in a tiny cement walled space, not very COOL at 2pm. The one consolation was that they were painted GREEN… ah, so relaxing. Oh, did I mention the rock hard beds? There was also a “love hotel” behind a dodgy “karaoke bar” only 100 metres away… needless to say we skipped that one.
So we rode on and found a place for 1,200 Baht which was a dive not worth 400 Baht. I don’t know how it ever got rented. Maybe by drunk patrons from the attached restaurant who couldn’t drive home. Then we found a LUSH looking place for 1,800 Baht, it did look amazing. Did we go in?… NO, it was over our budget. We usually pay not more than 650 Baht for a room.
Finally, we ended up back on Highway 4 and amidst more crazy traffic, all the time we’d been cycling the direction we intended to travel the following day, which was obviously good for tomorrow’s ride. So it was 4:00pm when we finally came upon the Rose Garden, which Natt knew had accommodation because she had previously brought a lot of people here from Bangkok for Culture Shows, which I’ve also seen and must admit are well worth a visit.
We cycled in and got a few strange looks since this place is a little posh, not over the top but I don’t think they see many bicycle tourers. We rode up to the front door and Natt quickly jumped off the bike, hoping not to get a stare down because of her dress and bicycle. The staff were super friendly, they told us the rooms were 2,800 Baht. Smartly, just before we pulled in, we checked Agoda for the rate and it said we could get a room for 2,000. Natt asked if we could get the 2,000 Baht price and they said no, but they said we were free to book through Agoda and then give them the BOOKING NUMBER. Funny that.
All this time I was discussing with the staff where I can keep the bike. They wanted to put it in the car park, under shelter next to the space for motorcycle parking. I kept saying no and they kept trying to find a place that would make be happy. In the end they asked if we’d be happy to put it in the luggage storage area behind the front desk. I was very happy with that suggestion 🙂 They got a big smile and thumbs up from me and had a deal.
I whipped out my credit card, put in the details and got a “YOUR CARD HAS EXPIRED IDIOT” message on the machine. So that put an end to that. Luckily, Natt has an ’emergency’ card from her Dad which she then used and saved the day. We finally got a confirmed message and were away to our room.
We got into the room where Natt gets an email from Agoda saying the charge was 82.00 (not 70.00 as outlined). A full 15% more than the price Agoda had quoted. We didn’t understand so we sent them back a message. I would expect we will find out in 3 days time that it was some sort of unadvertised same-day-checkin-fee, or something. Anyway… $82 x 31 (baht/dollar) = 2,550.
Usually 650 for a room!
First Place : 250 – crap
Second Place : 1,200 – crap
Third Place : 1,800 – awesome looking
Fourth Place : 2,550 – awesome with great service
So it was the 5th of May when we were married and today is the 7th of July… so the hotel is now our celebration location of 2 good months together. I plan to eat 1,900 Baht worth of food at breakfast tomorrow, I can only hope it is as good as the hamburger I just finished.
Love You Natt Hamon, Thanks for Putting Up with Me!
NOTE: Just went out to the bicycle and noticed someone had put a big sign on it saying “don’t touch, don’t play with, don’t look at funny” on the bicycle. THANKS Rose Garden Hotel!
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