Simply cycling around
I could have had a nice sleep last night… Bloody dogs! This morning I’ve started a bit earlier than normally to make sure nobody would see me so this night was even shorter. I was only 10km away from my next stop so the morning ride was really short as well. Later this afternoon, I’ve done more than 50km as I was going mainly downhill. I arrived at Kaeng Khoi and found a spot in a large bare field where people organise a market.
Today, I’m finally reached on of these unavoidable highway that lead to the capital. Fortunately I know it’s only temporary. I’m not going to cycle straight to Bangkok but will kind of slalom. I still have 5 days to get there so I can take my time. This morning, I’ve found a detour until the next Café. This evening I covered 40km on the highway before I could get out and search for a quiet spot. Everything worked well until my “4 legs best friends” came in…
Today is the last day I’m cycling on a “quiet” road. It’s not quiet all day, there is still some big trucks but mainly it’s still enjoyable. I’m approaching the highway I left at Khon Kaen by doing a detour. Even before this city, when I was cycling on that same highway, the traffic was very light and the road very wide. There was no really big cities too so I didn’t feel I should absolutely another way. There was a lot of Amazon Café along this road too. But of course I’m getting closer and closer to Bangkok and the traffic density is increasing. It’s like a funnel and I can not really avoid it unless I do a huge detour. Anyway, I’ve got about 80km of highway coming, so in two days I will be able to get out of the traffic. Let’s enjoy this last “quiet” day then :-)
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!
The first word that comes to my mind when I think about today is Wow! I wanted something different and not too easy. I think I found it. On the top of this, the wind was not on my side today which made pedaling harder. And who said Australia is flat? In a year of cycling I had only 3 days of really flat road. Every other roads were hilly! Well I knew that Alice Springs is about 800m high so it’s a looong slope of 2000km each side. But “they” have added more hills between to be sure it’s not too boring. I think… ;-)
Wow! I had a very good night and for once I’m on the right spot regards the sunrise. My clothes have dried overnight and the sun is doing the job on my tent. I would be happy to have a day off here today but I want to cycle two more days before that. Let’s pack everything, charge my stuff again and eat something, then I will be ready to hit the road again.