Day 4: Nakhon Si Thammarat to Phatthalung
Was our longest day today, 110kms… not the hardest out of our 4 days but it is getting easier, or at least easier after the day off. We left at 5:30am because we wanted to arrive to our destination before the really hot part of the day. Arriving just after 1pm we managed to avoid most of the days heat as we were treated with light clouds and backroads full of tall shade trees.
The owner of the Baan Na Nakhon gave us a lovely little Buddha tablet from Wat Phra Mahatat (a famous local historical temple). It was a lovely little gesture that is meant to give us good luck during our trip, and if today is any measure then we should be fine.
The GPS planned route of 103kms ended up being a few more with 10% of the day on hard packed dirt roads. We used these dirt roads to link between towns since several of them could only be reached on sealed roads via the Asia 41 freeway that we were none to happy to take (too busy for us). I’m not sure what the dirt roads would be like after a heavy rain, but the quality of them when we used them makes me think they would be fine for most touring bicycles.
The people in the morning were amazing, friendly and all saying hello, waving and very enthusiastic. Not the picture that most westerners imagine when you say the word Muslin, which is the predominant religion in this area. Lovely, lovely friendly people we when stopped for water, snacks, and meals everyone was friendly, inquisitive, and jovial.
During the last couple of hours the riding became a little harder because of a slight headwind and higher temperatures, but still manageable. We pulled into a school to look at typical old-style wooden Southern houses which must have been relocated to the school for preservation purposes. The houses were definitely built in a different style to houses in the other regions of Thailand.
While we snapped a few photos the school kids all ran up and started looking, talking, asking questions and practicig their English. This is not a normal experience for me. Whenever I have visited Thai schools in the past I have found all of the students to be too shy to talk and ask questions. These Southern kids where refreshingly different. I hope we find more people in general like this over the next 150 days.
Arrived in Phatthalung and did a beeline for the Municipal Office where one of Natt’s friends works in the IT department. We had them fill in our log book. Our log book plan is to get 3 names for every Amphur Mueang, giving us some sort of proof of our visit if and when a province does not have a Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) office. So, the Municipality is the next best option. So far the TAT have been very happy to see us, so I think we will head to them first each time we arrive if they maintain an office where we visit.
We’ve put ourselves on a budget of 1,000 Baht per day and so far we’ve only been under it on the first day. With accommodation costing 550 Baht in the provincial capitals it’s been a little more expensive than our last trip when we tried to stay away from the bigger cities.
The budget is our daily target, but we’re not going to sleep on the street or not eat as much local food as we want. It’s important to keep the food intake up in order to be able to ride day after day. Local meals are so cheap, 30 to 40 baht, and I have been staying away from anything farang (foreign), as it will cost more, but that will not last forever. I will need a Pizza and Big Mac at some stage. WHEN will I need it is the better question.
We’ve done 266kms so far and traveled through 3 provinces. We’ve got a lot more to go and I hope it stays like this (reminds me I need to clean the bicycle chain and re-lube it tonight if I can find some old rags else tomorrow night).
NOTE: Just found that the 2 front panniers have holes in them from scraping on the ground when we turn corners. I’m looking into solving this problem until we can make the switch to smaller bags in Hua Hin.
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