This area is full of adventurous cyclists. Today we have seen 7 of them! Yes, seven! We did not stop to talk with all of them but we met those two guys, Manon and Eddie from France who have just started from Bangkok. It was just time for lunch so we spent some time together. Then, this afternoon, we kept on going until we reached Pran Buri where we had an appointment with Sebastien, a Stephane’s friend from France who lives in Thailand since more than 10 years. He his a photographer too :-)
Map.
Early this morning, we left the school, had a quick breakfast and reached the bay of Prachuap Khiri Khan.
When we reached the sea, we saw this long pier over the water. Okay, let’s go there to see what pictures we could get.
Nice colors but once again, I feel the weakness of my camera. Photoshop will help but I would prefer to get better original shots!
This one is quite geometrical. Not too bad.
More perspective.
From down here?
Could be better…
Okay the last one for this morning. We must keep going! This is the problem with cycling and photographing. In both case the “best hours” are at the same time: early morning and late afternoon until night time.
Tiny boat in backlight.
That’s the way we go and it’s not that sexy for now… I mean, we go along the beach, not up that hill :-)
About an hour later, as we were cycling on tiny road, something changed suddenly. Where are we now? Australia? That looks like this!
I usually don’t like watermelon too much but in Thailand the fruits are quite sweet. There is lots of shops along the road. Let’s have some :-)
The transition is a bit violente here. I must explain what happened. We were on the road when suddenly, on the other side, we’ve seen two cyclists. “Hello”,”hello”, “hello”, “hello”. Few seconds later everyone stopped. We went back to their side. The guy asked “Are you French?”. The only “hello” was enough for him to recognize where we came from.
Rah! Not far away, there was a tiny village Manon and Eddie just passed so we cycled on that direction. First we had a drink on the beach and then we moved to another place to have some food and that dessert which is piled ice with gelatinous things and some sirop I guess. Strange but it tasted okay.
Finally after few hours spent with Manon and Eddie, we got back on the road, both going on the opposite direction. They told us about the dogs since they started. Both of them have a bamboo stick. We also noticed that the dogs are becoming more and more aggressive around here so we might get a stick soon too!
This couple want to cycle to the south of Thailand, then Malaysia or Indonesia and then fly to Australia to work and save some money for the rest of their trip. Back in France they have a truck and live inside all year round. Eddie never lived in a house because his parents lived in a caravan. That’s very interesting :-) For him, cycling is just the same as his truck but smaller. Eddie did some other bicycle trip in France and South America. For Manon that’s the first time and she loves it! Good on them. Enjoy your trip guys!
Not far away from where we had lunch there is an interesting looking temple. It’s physically the same as any other but the paint they applied is different. They used more like salmon and pale colors. Or maybe it’s simply not finished yet.
The roof is covered with light bulbs which must be cool at night.
That’s the door that attracted us inside. Very impressive.
We continue the road. This special tourist signs are very handy except when it’s time to turn right or left I miss most of the signs. GPS, GPS where are you?
Once again the landscape is changing. It’s very flat here same like the last few days now. But further there, this national park shows us some good relief. Manon and Eddie told us about salt production farms too that are near from where we met. They said “you are like travelling in Camargue, in France”. Really? doesn’t look like this for now. We will see.
Be careful with monkeys!
Shew! That’s nice. This rocky domes are quite impressive and fortunately the road slaloms between them.
It must have few interesting walking tracks in that bush. Apparently, Sebastien, Stephane’s friend, knows this spot quite well for photo purposes.
I’ve heard many times “This is the rainy season in Thailand”. Well, the climate change rifes here too.
Do I have to say more?
Those sort of tiny boats spin those propeller to add oxygen to the water.
That’s for the fish or shrimps. The red lines must be for the birds.
Google Maps showed a shortcut. We are following one edge of a triangle when the road was going along the two other edges. The path at the beginning was quite good but it’s becoming more and more rough.
That was a very bad luck… In fact there was some works on this track. We ended cycling front of a big tractor that was spreading a thick mixture on the ground. We had to go on the side of the track where several plants with huge spikes strewed the ground. The only way to go was walking but even like this the bikes were two heavy and we got several punctures. I got two on my trailer and another one on the back wheel. Stephane got two flat tires too.
Look at this bloody plant!
Even the best tire in the world would never win against these long spikes. No way. We must be on time to meet Sebastien tonight but we still have 30 kilometres to go.
Everything is finally fixed, well, we hope. We must accelerate a bit.
But we cannot avoid to take some pictures when we see something like this :-) Nice construction though.
We reached the entrance of the city. The appointment spot is not far now.
I have no idea of what is happening here but that’s a lot of neon light around here. Chinese new year maybe?
Finally we met Sebastien around 6:30. All good. Stephane never met him because he is a friend of a friend. They have a common point: Photography. So their common friend put them in contact few years earlier and since then they only discussed by email. As I mentioned previously, Seb is now living in Thailand since many years and I think he will never go back in France. He left home at 18 years old, worked in French polynesia for many years. When he would go back to France he would work 14 hours a day to save as much money as he could and realise his goal: living abroad for long term. And he did it! He is now living with his passion: Photography. He brings small groups of people to different spots in Thailand and teach them how to get better in capturing pictures. Once again, an interesting story to listen too. And of course, lots of photography. I did not interrupted them a lot tonight because I was listening, noting useful tips and famous photographers on my phone. More I listen to them more I want to change my camera. Rah! I must resist to the temptation! haha :-) We finally slept not far from the beach with Stephane went Seb went back home. It was 2am… I’m not surprise anymore if I’m tired now :-) See ya!
If you are interested, here few guys I could pick up during their discussion:
Et bien sacrée épopée, et sacrées épines. Gaffe de ne pas planter ton hamac au dessus de ces arbres, parce que là, je pense qu’il rendrait l’âme !
Belles rencontres photographiques, et te connaissant j’imagine que la tentation est grande de changer de “camera” !
Fantastic details in your blog and some really memorable times for you..