Lucky Day 33 – Petchaburi to Ratchaburi via Samut Songkram
Today, was a-ok. Only 95kms which included a couple of side trips, but it was our first day with 2 provinces covered in one day. Samut Songkram is Thailand’s smallest province with only 3 districts, and we rode through all of them.
Leaving Petchaburi was great, the road we took was the shortest to Mae Klong (nickname for Samut Songkram) only 45kms away, where we got the book signed, mailed a postcard to ourselves, and headed to the Amphawa Tourism Authority of Thailand office.
The morning was uneventful. I was a little sad we didn’t see any cycling tourists along the way. Last time I rode here I saw 12 people on a group bicycle tour.
Natt had success finding someone from Samut Songkram using ThaiMTB.com. His name was Oh. He came out to meet us at Amphawa and rode us all the way to our room in Ratchaburi. We visited an authentic sugar production house where they turn the coconut ‘juice’ that drips from the coconut flower into a uniquely flavoured sugar. It was interesting to see how it is done and they even allowed me to try my hand at it.
Apparently not many of these places are left because demand is not so high and most of the remaining ones are in operation only to show tourists from Thailand and overseas about this old world technique of producing sugar.
Finally we visited Oh’s home and waited for other cycling friends to join us. One of them was was very keen to check out our unique and crazy tandem bike. She is a self confessed bicycle nut. She spoke decent English, was tall, attractive, and unfortunately for all the single male cycling friends I have, married.
Anyway, she didn’t ride with us for long, but we did have a good chat at lunch and then ‘Oh’ and his other friend ‘Boi’, I know, you couldn’t have picked 2 names that go better together, rode on with us to Ratchaburi.
I can tell you the last twenty kilometres were doing my head in. It was hot and I had a splitting headache that made my brain hurt. It still hurts a little even now. I have to remember to purchase a couple of litres of water before I go to bed. I hope that’s the only problem, I made sure I ate a decent dinner tonight and will hopefully be going straight to bed after I finish this.
Thanks to Jiratthakon Rawinhan for looking after us today. Having a local show you around always makes for a good day. They make finding things and getting fed so simple, you can put your head on autopilot and not have to worry about anything.
Tomorrow we head to Kanchanaburi, where we will take a day off to wash the mountain of dirty clothes we are hauling around, and also give our legs a nice break. 3 days and approximately 300 kms is enough to warrant a day off.
The bicycle has been making a random collection of new noises recently. I know I need to clean and oil the chain, but I think the suspension seat post was also making noise today. I’m not sure if something is wrong with it or it was just making noise because it spent all morning cool and damp and all afternoon warm and dry. We’ll listen tomorrow and work on it on the day off if required.
PS – I have no idea why I called this day lucky, the double numbers 33 I guess.
