Wat Tanod Luang > Wat Doa Loi (76km)

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After two days off, we are back on the road, good! Except I have a stomachache that doesn’t seem to disappear. The last few days has been very windy. This morning was fine but after 8am the headwind hit again. Eddie and Manon were right, we are now in Camargue haha. Well, it doesn’t look exactly like this from what I remember but it does not match the image I had of Thailand! There is hectares of salty water and hundreds of people working in the “fields”. Today we met two other cyclists, Ronan from France and another guy from England who is doing a 3 weeks trip with a folding bicycle. During we stopped to take some picture we saw 4 other cyclists on the road going the opposite way of us. Later, we were cycling on a secondary road and saw one more French guy cycling by himself. When he saw us, he just said “Salut”. He knew we were French but we did not even talk to him. That’s 7 people touring today!

Map.

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First morning lights.

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Ah, the landscape is changing. The salty areas surround us.

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That’s nice to see something different.

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Like snow!

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This looks like an hard layer of salt but it’s not, it’s very soft indeed.

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Graphic picture :-)

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We have to stop again along the road. This become better and better the more we go.

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Every two hundreds metres there is huge sheds full of salt. This one looks like old.

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Great colours :-)

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Same on the other side of the road.

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Look at the different colours of the water. From purple to pink.

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We met a lucky guy called Ronan. He left Bangkok yesterday with the wind pushing him. Ronan is French too. So many French here! The sign means “Soon, not any more fuel. So be ready to pedal”. I wish I will see that time coming!

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Steph and Ronan talking.

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The weather this morning is super cold. We stay static here and freeze minute after minute.

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Ronan has started cycling from Bangkok (if I remember well). He just came back from 3 weeks in Japan where he was snowboarding. In France, he lives in a truck and does seasonal jobs. His plan his to get to New Zealand on his bicycle. He does not have a special plan to get there and uses only paper maps to find his route. He said he tries to avoid carrying electronics. Sounds good, but I like my phone to be able to find tiny roads on the way. Everyone is different :-)

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We could talk more but we got very cold. We finally humped on our bikes and continue our roads. Bye Ronan, Enjoy Thailand :-)

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The colour of the water is bright here. ‘never seen something like this.

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Wow! That’s even better! That’s the pile of salt Manon and Eddie talked about.

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Very nice!

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The workers are now finishing the last piles of this area.

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Sunglasses must be wear here. This is very bright.

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Work done! I guess they are going to move somewhere else.

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We got back on our bicycles for few minutes when we saw another step of the process. A lot of the workers are now carrying the salt inside the big shed.

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I guess two baskets are about 20 kg minimum. They look heavy.

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We keep on going.

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And stopped again. The reflection of that building is perfect!

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Pure reflection :-)

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Portrait version with the salt texture at the front.

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That’s four cyclists over there! We missed them.

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Salt texture.

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Ice cream break. This sign says: “Be aware of monkeys”.

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We are not very far from Pita’s house but will stop before her place. I prefer to arrive tomorrow morning than too late tonight. And I still have an heavy stomach ache.

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We spotted a temple about ten kilometres from Pita’s house but it’s on the other side of this highway. The only solution and the shortest one is to cycle against the traffic. I’m not scared at all because Thai people always pay attention to their environment. In countries where there is too much rules makes us thinking less. If someone does what we are doing now, every driver will be surprised and might do a mistake. But here in Thailand (and mostly in Asia I guess), everyone is driving more freely. That makes people to think more and be more alert of what’s going on around them. To me, this is a much better solution. Looking at the stats I’m all wrong but that’s how I feel when I’m travelling.

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Finally we reached the Doa Loi temple at around 5:30 pm. The monk welcomed us very well. We did not have the time to set up our campsite that they came back several times with food. Even after given us some rice, meat, soup, veggies. On of them offered us to cook noodle for us. They gave us fruits, fruit juice, milk, water, coffee. Stooop! This is too much! haha.

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This monk can speak a tiny bit of english and he is very pround a it. He asked many question and translated to his friends.

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This is a shame because they gave us a huge amount of food and I don’t really feel like eating. My stomach is very painful. Later on the “english” monk came back with more food and the noodles. Few! I cannot eat anymore…

We packed the rest of what they gave us in our bags because the dogs turned around a bit too closely. That’s only less than an hour later that I could not contain myself anymore. I rushed to the toilets on time and emptied myself for the first time. I came back around a table and tried to explain my problem to a monk. “This is not about your food. I was sick before”. Well, the body language helped a lot. Straight away one of them came back to me with some natural medicine. It had a disgusting taste but the monk show me that it would be good for me. I don’t know if it worked but that night I did not sleep… I rushed out of my sleeping bag nearly ten times, every 20 to 30 minutes. I’ve set up my hammock but did not use it. I would be too slow in case I have to rush.

What a night…

I kept drinking water to have something to reject. Suddenly I could taste the fish that I ate 2 days ago in that temple with the nice community! That’s the one which gives me so much trouble now. It’s sticked on the bottom of my stomach and doesn’t want to come out. Bloody fried fish, I’m sure this is all your fault!

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