Simply cycling around
Today for the first time since Malaysia, we reached the east coast and the gulf of Thailand. The beaches here are not as touristy than the one in the south west, at least, not yet. We had to come back on the highway for a little while but we took the opportunity to stop at a petrol station, get some water, clean some clothes, have an extra shower and work in a cafe. The new deal now is to find the “Amazon Cafe” which have Wifi and plugs to charge all we need. Very easy life :-)
Good day today. We keep finding little roads away from the highway. The food is cheap and tasty except when we don’t get what we order… I thought I would be travelling in Thailand during the rainy season. Since then, this is the first time we get regular rain through the day. Fortunately, every time we made a break, the rain started :-) The luck is coming back!
Today we managed to stay off the highway during the whole day, thanks to google maps. Since we got to Thailand we have seen lots of cyclist on the road. The funny thing is that lots of them have a mountain bike, very clean, very new because they seem to ride only on the road. At least they look more sporty than Indonesian or Malaysian. At a certain time, we ended cycling on tiny roads, passing through small villages with cute little train station and other large forest of rubber and palm oil trees. BIG news today, my hammock got fixed! I hope it will last!
I did not go very far today because I expected to find a place where to fix my hammock. This is my second attempt. Yesterday it did not work at all and today I was not lucky too. People here don’t want to help. I don’t understand why.I will have to sleep on the ground again for few more day as long as I don’t find any better solution. Later this afternoon I met Stephane again. He came back from the lake and said it was wonderful. Maybe I should have visit the place but I was to angry to visit anything.
Normally, we would have been cycling to Ratchapraha lake together which is apparently a very nice place but I’m not in the mood to visit anything today. The only thing I’m thinking about right now is how I’m going to fix this hammock. If I cannot I will try myself. If that doesn’t work, I will be very sad and depressed. The weather is not very good today. That’s good because I can keep cycling between 11am and 4pm and reach Surat Thani today. Surat Thani is a bigger city so I hope I will find a tailor that is able to repair this specific material.
Not very much happened today. We cycled for 90% of the time on the same road as we did few days ago when we came to Phuket. That’s only during the last 10 kilometres that we got on a different road. Mostly we cycled against the wind. It was not so strong but annoying enough. Around 6pm we looked for a temple where to sleep. The only one we’ve found seemed to be a school. We did not see anybody to speak to so we carried on.
I’ve talked several times about them now. I met them the first time in Australia, Darwin. Then we met again in Singapore. Finally we see each other again for the third time in Thailand, Phuket. Yes, they are Nicole, José and Jean-Louis :-) (Jean Louis is not here today but he will be back tomorrow). Since the last 7 months, we bump to each other at different places. They are sailing, I’m pedalling around the world. This time we take a different route. They continue west but I’m going north-east. We never know, maybe one day, we will see each other again :-) I’m very happy to have seen you again. Bon voyage!