Heading East and what it's like cycling in Thailand.

Happy Christmas to those with sufficient endurance to still be following this! You can see where we are at the moment - maybe about half way between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, but we are now heading roughly due east to get to Laos.

Today was a little bit of a surprise - not only raining but rather cool - an uncalled for 23 degrees, which whilst sounding warm enough was considerably colder when you are soaked through!

I thought people might be interested in some aspects of cycling in Thailand.

I think I've already said that accommodation is pretty cheap, and we have been using more and more what are termed "resorts". You can't generally find these on the booking agencies like Agoda or Booking.com, but they show up consistently on google maps. It's a bit of a leap into the unknown just rocking up without prebooking but so far we haven't failed. My suspicion is that it's a first come first served situation, and as long as you are there before 3 or 4pm you will be fine. 

This polished concrete look is very popular, and extends inside to sinks, shelves  and shower cubicles.

What you get generally for about £9 to £11 is a little house with A/C, a fridge, sometimes a kettle ( although we now have a little travel kettle), WiFi (Thailand is very good from this aspect) and sometimes breakfast. Beds are generally quite hard and its a particular bonus to come across a soft mattress. A great advantage of these places is being able to cycle right up to them and unload panniers, without the supreme faff of having to cart them up to hotel rooms via lifts etc.

One quirk of virtually all Thai showers is that the loo and the shower are in the same room - so by having a shower the loo itself gets a complete soaking. I presume its space saving, but it does mean using a wet loo afterwards.

All the bungalows were different colours here. 

Breakfast if available varies - but typically toast/jam and an egg. We have also had native options - a fantastic broth and rice and a not so fantastic pad thai ( noodles etc). The latter had an odd smell, and rather than offend the owner I got a plastic bag and whilst he was not looking put it all in the bag and then into my pocket. Sian rather bravely ate half of it, although I am glad so say she is still alive so perhaps it was meant to smell like that.

A cracking breakfast here. Fried chicken, fried rice, sausages and egg. Curiously enough it was the same place the following morning that we had the odd smelling Pad Thai.

Rice broth. The garish concrete tables and chairs are another Thai speciality.The coffee sachets are to be avoided - a lethal combination of coffee, creamer and a ridiculous amount of sugar in order to satisfy the Thai sweet tooth.

We've got into a routine that works for us - usually around 60km per day, perhaps less if there is climbing. Route planning is RidewithGPS and then uploading to my Garmin. With very few exceptions it has worked very well- the exceptions being tracks that are particularly rutted and not easy to ride on.


Sian is still not that keen on hills ( neither am I in particular), and the daily ritual usually involves studying gradients! Usually we will do porridge in thermos flasks to eat throughout the ride, but I have recently taken to buying fruit at the roadside - delightful little bananas are everywhere, but we have had pineapple, watermelon, mango and the longan. This is related to the lychee - you press the ping pong sized fruit to crack open the outer shell, and inside is a lovely sweet slightly melony tasting pulp. We stop about every 10 - 15 km, making use of the numerous shelters along the road.

These shops are everywhere, including little villages. Can buy water, crisps and in this place yummy home made banana bread. Using the machines just behind Sian, you can even top up your phone.

Not necessarily the most sensible weight saving measure, but this is Sian buying some small water melons from an enterprising farmer who stopped when I pointed to his van and went "Oh look, watermelons" Anyway 20p each and very refreshing,

PET water bottles are everywhere sadly, but these water vending machines provide a great alternative. You can refill water bottles for usually about 2p per litre, although some are much more generous. The more rural you are, the more likely you are to find them. We still can't find any logical way of predicting where they can be found. Sometimes you even find a couple of them right next to each other.

Lots of roadside shelters - this being a field workers one in a paddy field. They can be in varying states of repair like this one, and you have to be a bit cautious stepping/sitting to make sure the whole thing isn't going to collapse in a heap. With this one we got a great view of the surrounding rice planting, but every time the wind blew the tin roof lifted up with an alarming clang.

Lunch is usually on the road from roadside restaurants. Well, when I say restaurants, what I mean is a sitting area with perhaps 10 very dusty plastic seats and a Thai person with an apron on ( we worked out that having an apron on meant that they were open for business). Learning a bit of Thai for the basics is helpful, but more often than not pointing to what others are having works well. Current favourite is Son Tum - grated green papaya salad with peanuts, lime juice and just a hint of Thai fierceness. The other option is street food. Markets are plentiful sources of these, and you can simply snack to your hearts content. We love sticky rice, deep fried vegetables, sliced fruit in bags, roti ( indian flat bread), tiny cakes made from a very delicate coconut batter. Equally we haven't been brave enough to try the deep fried grasshoppers and insect pupae.....

Sian buying deep fried squid balls. There is a lot of deep fried stuff, but when the cycling induced hunger calls, its jolly hard to resist. These little beauties were about 10p each. Note our bikes in the background. We will lock them together mainly for peace of mind although generally you don't get the impression bike theft is a big problem in the country areas.

And the joys? You just come across so many surprises - from the restaurant owner who refused to let us pay for our meal,  fantastic views, the Thais who will give you the thumbs up and then light their faces up into a giant smile, fellow phalangs who will happily chat away to you, exotic wildlife ( brightly coloured bee eaters, kingfishers to name but a few) and the tropical plants ( ubiquitous bananas, mango, tamarind, dragonfruit, teak and pineapples)

Limestone karst scenery that you don't get fed up with. These lumps of rock just appear out of the earth.

Rickety moped and bicycle only bridges. Bit unnerving when there is an overloaded moped  coming in the opposite direction. The wires are alarming rusty as well.

One of the ancients wats at Sukothai historical park. Well worth a visit - this was once a major city, and all that remains are the wats. They are kept in immaculate condition .

The jack of all trades of the Thai farmer. Cultivator, tractor and in this  case driving a pump irrigating the parched paddy fields. Most of them come complete with fashionable parasol to prevent them getting wrinkly skin from too much sun.

I think I mentioned in a previous post the number of quirky little coffee shops. Always on the lookout for a USP, this place hit upon using a rather odd preserving bottle with a handle for it's iced latte. These are usually refreshing, but the amount of sugar can vary from the OK to yuk. The safer option is usually iced Americano's if they can understand you. If they can't then they always default to the above.

Mesmerising early morning view from a great little place we stayed called Mulberry Farm.  Owner was from Bristol, delightful wife cooked awesome meal (including roast potatoes.....). 

This is Tommy, and he is from Sweden. We stopped briefly in a  small village looking for lunch, and he appeared out of nowhere and ran up to us for a chat. ( I think this is quite common - there are few tourists around here and ex pats seem to love to speak to non Thais. ). Anyway, he and his Thai wife showed us to a good roadside place, and she ordered what turned out to be our Christmas dinner! Papaya salad,  Pork mince and fried rice, and just when we were full, a fried egg appeared. So thanks Tommy, and Mrs Tommy

And here is Christmas Dinner. The two pink bowls are a pork broth that usually appears without asking, and tastes great.

This rather large spider joined us for lunch. Sian, bless her was remarkable composed on seeing this.She did request  understandably that we move to another table rather than disturb said arachnid.

They knew we were coming! This is the bedding from the yellow guest house at the top. Whilst quirky, the fact that the  springs of the mattress could be felt through the top did not lead to a particularly restful sleep sadly.

Sian sporting some new freckles, which turned out to be mud spatters from my rear wheel. A suggestion that a solution might be to take the lead was not greeted with any particular enthusiasm.