Bangkok—According to the World Meteorological Organization, Bangkok is the world’s hottest city. By day it is a mega-city And at night it’s a steamy, intensely turbo-charged sensory extreme overload—and it’s magnificent. Having never been to Bangkok, Deana didn’t know what to expect. I knew one thing—we will not be bored!

We left Surat Thani on Thursday for the final destination of our six-week exploration of Thailand. Bangkok. We had it all organized—bike panniers and other baggage all bundled up for the one hour Thai VietJet flight. We had some bargain tickets, around $85 each including the bikes. We arrived at the little airport, tossed all our bags on the weigh scale, and that’s when we got the Big Shock—everything except the bikes was considered “excess baggage” and was exorbitantly pricey. That’s all we’ve got to say about that….we just had to suck it up and carry on.

Our first hotel looked great on booking.com. The Palace Prince Hotel was considerably less than great—it was downright disappointing. Our new rule: no matter how good it looks online, no matter how good the reviews, never book more than one night. Grimly committed for one night, we pulled up stakes first thing in the morning and went to a newly built hotel, the Lilit Bang Lumphu Hotel and it’s fantastic.

We took a canal boat several kilometres to capture scenery from a watery perspective. Homes butt right up against the canal edge and their contents spill out of their confines. Laundry and other personal wares hang out to dry suspended over the water. Honestly, if a big windstorm comes along there are gonna be a number of naked Thai people looking for their clothes downriver! Plants grow in pots along skinny strips of concrete edging, along with pots & pans and other instruments of daily living. Families sit together eating & socializing perched on the skinny edge of the canal. Riding the canal boat allows us to peer briefly into lives that we can only imagine.

We took the canal boat to the end of the line (we think) and exited to see whatever we might see. Being Canadian and from a small town we are entertained easily, so perhaps there’s that…. But we found the Pratunam Night Market. It was a chaotic jam-packed swirling mix of street vendors, food, clothing, shoes, massages, scooters & cars squeezing through tight narrow spaces that were crammed with people.

There are just some experiences that can only be fully understood by being there in person to witness it all. Bangkok is just that.

Back on the mainland—and oh, so happy!

Van, Ferry, Bus, TukTuk—we took them all (in that order too!) and with no pre-arranged bookings cuz that’s how we roll! It all fell in place as transportation does here in Thailand. 4.5 hours and 320 bhats later (about $24) we were in our new hotel in real Thailand (on the mainland), swimming in the big pool.

We took a TukTuk ride to the bike shop downtown. While sitting at a red light in a very busy intersection the driver gestured diagonally down the road toward the bike shop that was around the corner. We didn’t understand, and what we interpreted was “You farangs! Get out right here, right now! Quick!” So we scrambled to collect bags and Randy ejected himself lickety split straight out the back of the TukTuk in between lanes of busy city traffic. Suddenly Tuktuk-driver-lady spots Randy scrambling in between the moving traffic as the light turned green. She’s gesturing wildly to “get back innnnnnn!!!”, but by this time Randy’s hopped skipped & lept over to the safety of the sidewalk while Deana and I reflexively remained on the TukTuk. What TukTuk lady had really been requesting was confirmation it was that bike shop we wanted to go to. Forced to move with the traffic we had to abandon Randy, all of us laughing. Bye bye Randy!! Poor Randy…

And now there’s the 2023 Surat Thani Food Fair. We saw it advertised last week before going to Samui. Since Thailand is a virtual food fest extravaganza every day, we tried to reconcile in our minds what might actually happen at an actual food fair! Tonight we ventured down crooked misaligned sidewalks to answer that very question.

Food! Music! More food! Enough food to feed a million Thais (or half a million Canadians). Food as far as the eye can see. Squids on sticks, crabs of every size & color, prawns big enough to scare small children, fish rotisserating around charcoal grills, and even buckets with live eels squirming ‘round and turtles trying to escape their buckets….we hate to think they are being sold as anything but pets, but we didn’t really want to know. It’s a seaside city, so no surprise about the quantity and variety of seafood. There were also twisty foreign looking pork parts that might have been their innards—again, we will leave that question unanswered and also un-tasted.

We’ll let the pictures do the talking!

Bye bye Randy! Sorry ‘bout the traffic, lol!

The wonderful lady who boxed up our bicycles at Racing World in Surat Thani

Paris Hilton sunglasses, inch long gel nails, false eyelashes, designer shoes & hats with 12” ruffled brims, and snorkelers in Speedos and thong bikinis. it’s everything we are not! But we made the most of the day and took a day trip to Ang Thong National Marine Park by high-speed powerboat.

They packed us into that speedboat much like an airplane. Rows of seats with minimal legroom. No windows at eye level to see out of. First stop was snorkeling. Randy and Deana both snorkelled while I chose to just float merrily above water. They each reported a lot of colourful little fish, but the reef didn’t appear to be too terribly healthy. It’s surprising there were any fish at all, given four or five high speed boats dropped off about  a hundred and fifty sunscreen-slathered people into the water to see the sea’s offerings. Repeat daily, every day of the year and it’s no wonder it wasn’t more “alive”.

Next stop…another island where you can climb steps steep enough to qualify as ladders up to see the Blue Lagoon, followed by yet another island stop for more view-seeking climbs. Randy and I chose to skip the hike to the mountain top, opting instead for the beautiful glorious powdery white sandy beach. We plunged into the waves and made like bobble heads, up and down & bouncing around the whole time, happy happy!! It was among the most beautiful swimming spots we’ve ever experienced.

We noticed a few camera snappers on the shoreline making a fuss about a tree. It was incumbent upon us to extract ourselves from the water and wander over too, camera in hand. Right in front of our eyeballs was a harem of Dusky Leaf Monkeys feeding on leaves in the trees. They were un-disturbed by our proximity just 12ft away and they just went about their biz. If you don’t see the video below, click on this link, Dusky the monkey in Ang Thong

The boat ride back to shore was, to say the least, a turbulent choppy bumpity bump blast across the big sea water waves. Surprisingly, we all survived and we didn’t lose a single person overboard. Not convinced the speedboat could have sustained all the crashing up & down without damage….

On another note, it was Deanas birthday today. At breakfast she was relaying stories about her visit to the elephant sanctuary yesterday when the resort staff produced a cake and sang Happy Birthday to her in their sweet Thai voices.

Tomorrow we escape Samui!

Our plan was to use the week for sun, surf, and other watery explorations of Thailand which we are now doing. Our adventurous spirit was divided and apprehensive about coming to Koh Samui, the country’s second largest island and a most popular touristy destination in the Gulf of Thailand. Although we free-range explore we don’t do it without researching beforehand. Academically we knew what to expect but somehow the lure of an island experience overrode our better judgement and we capitulated.

So here we are—at the moment we miss “Thailand”—because, after two two trips (2020 and now 2023) and about 4,000 kilometres of really connecting with Thailand by bicycle we feel qualified to say that this, Koh Samui, is not the Thailand we have come to know and love.

We booked our first night and landed at a hotel that turned out to have a small beach that was pretty, but had some rocks that made the beach rather unswimmable, at least for the wave bouncing escapades that we hoped for.

There’s a saying—a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. We should have stayed put but we set out for “greener pastures” the following morning. We looked for a TukTuk that would take us 30km to our new even more expensive beach resort on the other side of the island. We’ve grown accustomed to 50-100bhat fares and experienced reality shock to discover it’s not happening for any less than 800bhats (about $32). Ok, whatever—just get us to our new retreat so we can leap into the waves, goshdarnit!

Our new fancypants hotel has no beach. It’s on the beach, and we can look at the lovely blue water but there’s a big retaining wall where our mind, body and spirit anticipated a sandy beach. Beach loungers overlook it, but we ain’t swimming in that beach. The hotel booking is non-refundable (and three times what better judgement would have prevented us from paying) It feels like a cruel joke, really.

Determined to make the best of the situation in our own ways, Deana chose an excursion to visit an elephant sanctuary and Randy & I decided to do whatever it takes to make that beach experience happen. It took an hour of walking the shoreline to find the three essentials—shade, seating, and waves. We finally found some beach loungers for rent—$16. ($15.40 more than we paid for the day in Prachuap Khirikan) But—there were waves! Big white-capped rollers! That’s what want, oh yeahhhhhh! We handed over the extortion money then planted our bums happily. Nevermind the red flags protruding from the sand everywhere warning people not to go into the water because the seas are too dangerous. At this point we refuse to accept any more disappointment. Big splashy waves, and sweet salty fun—we finally found a tiny drop of heaven and we are not going to just look at it. We bounced, leaped, twisted and cavorted in those big rolly waves all afternoon—defiantly and gleefully.

We are here, we can say we’ve seen it—now let us off the island!

West coast to East coast. We travelled far today!

Absolutely stunning! It rates up there with our all-time most beautiful places to have visited. Our cameras were clicking non-stop.

Before hopping into a van to the Cheow Lan Lake long tail boat trip we talked with the family we’d met the previous day from Coburg, Germany. (How cool is that!) Sebastian and Isabell are also travelling with their daughter Hannah. They gave us some tips about getting to our destination. It was about an hour long ride through some breathtaking scenery that we managed to capture from our backseat truck window. We couldn’t even imagine what was in store for us when we got to the lake. Super excited, but we felt momentary angst when we saw the throngs of organized-tour-tourists that had arrived. We envisioned crammed boats! But we had a plan (thanks to Sebastian). We fast tracked over to hire a small boat just for the three of us. Luxury!!! We had the whole loooongboat to ourselves. We could stretch out and enjoy.

Omg. Jaw dropping stunning turquoise blue water and beautifully shaped limestone mountains. The boat operator’s name was “Eeeen” (or so that’s what it sounded like to us) and he took us to all the beautiful spots. The pictures can only capture a tiny glimpse of this paradise!

Afterward we decided it was time to blast out of the Park and head back to the east coast. Found a comfy cozy van that we hired just for the three of us. Three hours later we had fast-tracked to the ferry to Koh Samui. For 180 bhats we are sailing and by 6:00 we should be Islanders. It’s not a pretty ferry by any means but hey, we rode our bicycles throughout Thailand, stayed in some $16 hotel rooms, and ate dinner in 7-Elevens all grungy & sweaty (hoping we’d never run into anyone we knew). This is a cruise ship to us!

Again, no bookings, no tickets, no reservations. We just fly by the seat of our pants and await the adventure!

Sitting on the bus watching the world go by at a much faster speed, we looked out the windows. Roads zip by our field of view at what seems like the speed of light. Not sure how we feel about that….Let me out! It’s hot on the bus! Wait, I wanted to see that! Yep, it was different on the bikes. Better, I think. I think we have Bike Separation Anxiety. (Perhaps I speak only for myself) I resisted the urge to stick my arm out the window to yell “Helloooo!!” We are now mere spectators in this land. Celebrity status—over.

We met another cycle tourist the other day. He rolled into the same resort as us, increasing its occupancy rate by 33%. There’s an instant connection with others we meet while touring by bicycle, seeing the world in the same way. We can’t pronounce his name because he was Dutch and it had a whole bunch of rolling Rrrrrrrrrs. But we did enjoy a great dinner & conversation with him. He’s heading northbound to Chiang Mai after having begun in Malaysia. We wish him safe travels!

Riding a scooter here is a way of life. Whole families are transported on them. And if you have a little sidecar, you can run a little passenger shuttle business. Put some barriers up the sides you can operate a mobile-bbq joint. Most people wear no helmets. Young children who have just learned to walk ride with their Moms, no seat belts, car seats or safety devices of any kind. From our speeding-bus window we saw woman riding her scooter, a young boy holding onto the back and a baby asleep in her arms while she drove. Personally, I fear for many of those young lives…

Let’s talk Khaosok National Park! Our first day bikeless we decided on communing with nature and have come to the oldest evergreen rainforest in the world. The ticket agent, the shuttle driver and other bystanders were all shocked that we were headed to Khaosok without a reservation. (Reservations? What reservations?). When we arrived we negotiated a ride in the back of a rambling old pickup truck with home-made wooden seats in the truck bed. Good enough for the likes of us! We headed to a hotel down the road and just like that, we have a room!

We also have a rainforest to explore! We headed out for a late afternoon walk into the oldest evergreen rainforest in the world. Everything you imagine a rainforest to be, it was. Steamy, drippy, hot, buzzing, hoots, whistles, and squacky tropical noises surrounded us. Towering, massive bamboo, and rustling in the trees above. Macaques! Monkeys bouncing to and fro in the tree tops. We felt pretty comfortable in our steamy surroundings till we saw…The Hole. Just a little ole hole in the side of the eroded soil. Kinda harmless. Till we overheard a nearby guide tell a couple of people it was a tarantula hole. So that’s where they live! Not sticking around to confirm that. Onward! Next hole was even bigger, maybe 6” in diameter. A black scorpion hole. Okay, so there are a lot of things living in the rainforest and we are okay with knowing it, but not necessarily seeing it. It was a rainforest—hot, sticky, steamy, and sweaty. Hair flopping, Dripping sweat—but ever so fascinating when you know you are no longer at the top of the food chain!

Tarantula hole

Black scorpion hole

Route: Chaiya to Surat Thani
Distance: 74km

Our legs are strong but our bodies are tired. We have cycled 1,937km and we think we can stop now.

We have travelled farther south than we had originally planned and it’s time to switch things up. Today is Bicycle Liberation Day. For the next two weeks we will explore Khao Sok National Park, possibly skip over to a beachy resort somewhere, then Bangkok—all without bicycles. Our bikes are in the hands of a bicycle shop here in Surat Thani, where they will disassemble and box them up for us.

As we were getting ready to leave the resort this morning, Crazy Dog went for round two on the potted plant. He was not giving up. We tried exercising discipline but he has some behavioural issues. When the plant didn’t work out for him he started gnawing on a discarded work glove he found. All on our door step. As we rolled out Crazy Dog followed us—running through the resort, around the corner and down the road alongside our wheels. In the heat! (it was hot today—are you surprised?) We thought he’d give up, but Crazy Dog just ran faster as we sped up. It got to the point where we were concerned about how far he was from his homeless home that we decided we need to accelerate and outrun him. He finally figured it out—he’s not coming with us.

Back to Liberation Day. After the final drop-off we all stood there looking at our bikes with mixed feelings. We felt like we were saying goodbye to a friend and we wanted to hug the bikes one last time. We also felt liberated and free. We felt appreciative. They have taken us almost two thousand kilometres with no significant mechanical failures. We have had zero flat tires (rather a miracle!). Much credit goes to Randy who diligently checks our bicycle’s well-being daily and makes minor adjustments along the way. These bikes are more than a mode of transportation. They are two-wheeled portals into seeing the world in ways that cannot be replicated.

After we left the bike shop we returned to our hotel with a big giant pool (we made sure of that). We swam our little faces off then went to the night market. Oh, the Night Market….where we can graze on delicious foods to our hearts content (guilt-free, cuz we rode almost 2,000km to get here). Fresh pineapple, strawberries, egg roti with condensed milk, fresh squeezed orange juice, pineapple juice, spiral potato-on-sticks, Chinese donuts, chicken shawarma wrap, fried flat pancakes, and lots of things that we just bought and ate cuz they looked interesting—that’s reason enough!

I think we shall sleep well tonight

Route: Chumphon to Lang Suon District
Distance: 101km

Yesterday was a day off and we made good use of the big saltwater pool at the hotel. Floating, sunning, napping, eating. All the things one should do on a day off!

Today we rode all along the coastline that reminded us of the Waterfront Trail at home—we know we are near it because the signs say so, but we didn’t actually see it much. We did however, see a lot of lush green tropical growth. Often there was thick growth of palm trees on one side of us and rubber trees plantations on the other. The heat, as usual, was unrelentingly hot & humid but at least there was occasional shade from trees. And at one point it clouded over and we felt half a micro-drop of rain—or maybe it wasn’t even rain, maybe a bug spit on us or something.

We stopped at a scenic viewpoint today to overlook the seashore from the top of a fairly big climb. A Thai family also arrived around the same time. They couldn’t speak a word of English but as soon as the man saw us he gestured to us that he hoped for a picture with us. He wanted one with himself sandwiched between Deana and a I, another together with his family, and yet another with all three of us and his wife—every possible configuration! Is this what it feels like to be famous? The family was absolutely over-the-moon to get those pictures with us farangs (Farang: A foreigner in Thailand who is of Western ancestry) Gosh it made us feel wonderful!

Even though we have been here for weeks, we are still amazed every single day at how friendly people of Thailand are. We are never-ending recipients of big enthusiastic “Hellooooooo’s” that come from workers who stop what they are doing, individuals on scooters on opposite sides of 4-lane divided highways, shopkeepers, farmers—everyone. We frequently hear them before we even see them (sometimes we don’t even see them). We too are now enthusiastic at delivering greetings to all—when we see people working far away on a coconut plantation we throw our hands up in the air and give a rousing “Sawadeee-kah!!!!” It always elicits big happy smiles, often appreciative laughs, and we feel part of the wonderful human experience here in Thailand.

Each day we depart in the morning never knowing where we will lay our head that night. Reservations? Ha! We scoff at reservations—cuts down on spontaneity. Usually around 3 or 4 we sit or bums down somewhere in some shade and start zooming in on Google Maps, booking.com and Agoda to figure it all out and it usually works out. Tonight we landed in a cute little resort surrounded by tropical flora and a deafening sound of cicadas buzzing in the trees. Coconuts, mangos, bananas—we love it all!

Ordering from Thai restaurants continues to be an experiment. We try to use Google Translate to interpret the menu, but as you can see in the resulting photo below, it doesn’t do a very good job. We did however manage to choose some unidentified but delicious dinner

Living the dream every day here in Thailand!

Route: Bang Saphan to Chumphon
Distance: 120km
Daytime temperature: absolutely stinkin hot

It’s a holiday weekend here in Thailand. Māgha Pūjā is the second most important Buddhist Festival after Vesak, and is celebrated on the full moon day of the third lunar month.

We actually were aware of this holiday and marked it on our calendars because most business will shut down. We’ve been living an alternate reality—and forgot what holiday weekends really mean. We only planned on riding about 70-80km. Late afternoon we started looking for a room and were shocked to discover they were all full! We moved along to the next little beach town that was bustling with activity. Oh how naïve we were, thinking we could just pick a cute little ocean front resort. We started out picky, then became decidedly unpicky. Then reality slapped us across the forehead—the holiday weekend meant all Thai families were headed to beach resorts for sun sand and swimming. All of them! Sunset was looming and we had no options. We had to summon up strength, guzzle water, install our headlights and ready ourselves to ride in the dark to the next city—to any hotel we could find. Yet another 20km away

So here we are! In Chumphon. We headed to a big fancy hotel and hoped for the best. And here we are. Beside the big fancy hotel. They too had no vacancy, so we are in the itty bitty not-so-grand-but-half-the-price place next door wishing we too had a gorgeous saltwater pool. At least we have a roof over our heads and are grateful.

Earlier in the day (before reality slapped us silly) we sought shade at a highway rest stop with no human to be found (appeared abandoned). From a distance a soi dog noticed Deana open her handlebar bag and came running to see what’s going on. (Soi dogs are “ownerless” dogs. They just live in the streets) Minutes later more soi dogs got the memo and also came. The message spread like wildfire and a whole litter of puppies came bouncing across the empty parking lot too, their tiny tails-a-waggin. We had nothing to share with them—guilt hit us hard—we had to just move along, promising ourselves we’ll pickup some doggy biscuits for future encounters with soi dogs.

Given the intense heat of todays ride, how many buckets of sweat we lost, and the gorgeous pool next door, we have already reserved a room in that resort for tomorrow night. We’ll roll out in the morning for the 50 metre ride down this driveway and up the next. Big day—we better rest up well for it.

Route: Prachuap Khiri Khan to Bang Saphan
Distance: 103km

Miles and miles of deserted beach. Endless. We spent the majority of the day following the coast line, much of that time all by ourselves, not a car or human in sight. We could have just stopped pedalling anywhere and sat on the beach all day alone in paradise!

Dogs and chickens roam free here. We have seen occasional cows lingering in fields. But today we came across a group of cows who had self-organized into a their own little walking group and were making their way down the road. They looked as though they had a route in mind and were quite confident crossing the road to their destination. Cocky cows they were, as we needed to stop pedalling to allow them passage. Suddenly out of nowhere a motorcycle came buzzing up the road behind us—a man was scolding those wayward cows. Well! Those cows reacted like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar. They pivoted hard and became discombobulated as they quickly turned around to scurry back to their home. We couldn’t help but be amused and laugh.

After completing a particularly long stretch of very isolated beach we noticed a group of younger children playing at the roadside in a tree. They were so excited to see us, they were all laughing and wanted high fives. They scrambled down from the tree and meet us roadside. Cutest little things they were! They were so enthusiastic about being in a photo. Big giant smiles all ‘round!

Today the ride was wonderful. Surrounded by coconut palms, swishing ocean waves and a salty breeze. What more could we want?

We had the most fantastic non-cycling day ever! Business first, we dropped off the bikes at a bike shop to get our drive-trains cleaned. We didn’t want Randy to miss out on beach time so we insisted on the help of a bike shop.

We headed to the beach within walking distance of our hotel and got ourselves massages on the beach. AMAZING! Oweeeee…awwwwww…ooohhhh… didn’t know how much we needed those (wanted those, actually)! All limbered up, we were ready for the plunge into the sea & salt water. Jellyfish shmellyfish, we’re not giving up a single ocean moment due to some little round globular-with-no-brain. There were no beach chairs to be found so we just lay our belongings on the shoreline edge. We were quite literally the only people swimming as far as the eye could see. We floated up & down with the gentle waves thinking nothing could be better!

Better happened! It happened when we decided on a TukTuk ride 6km to another beach, Ao Ma Nao near the air force base. Beach chairs! Beautiful outcroppings of rock (mini mountains)! Beer for Randy! The whole beach scene was there. We couldn’t get our bums into that water fast enough. Pure bliss! Soft sand, little miniature crabs building sand-homes on the sandy beach, and the water was luxuriously warm! We just lay there floating on the salty water’s surface thinking we are in paradise. (Hua Hin…..forget about it! THIS is the place to be!) It was so lovely we couldn’t stop frolicking long enough to even re-apply sunscreen. Randy was so enamoured he totally forgot sunscreen. We all got burned…some worse than others.

At one point while floating, a group of young men all waded & jumped into the sea nearby. One struck up a conversation and we learned they were from the military base. He was super interested in hearing about where we were from (as most Thais seem to be). Then he went off to play with his buddies. We noticed them doing what all young men do with their beach buddies—bury one of their mates alive in the sand. They encased him in sand with some “special features”—like boys tend to do. I’ll leave it at that….(it was funny, we admit—you’ll have to zoom in on the photo for more information)

Burnt & freckled, with salty sticky hair and nothing but happiness glowing all around us, we finally had to extract ourselves from the ocean and nab a TukTuk ride to retrieve our bikes at 5:00. The driver was a real hoot! Despite the language barrier all of us (including her) were laughing our heads off by the time we reached our destination. Laughter is a truly universal language, and we loved that ride! We’ll remember it forever.

We wanted to climb the big humongous stairway to the top of the hill to visit Wat Khao Chong Krachok. Well, two of us anyways….Randy had no interest in sweating buckets to climb high into the sky for a good view. Deana and I however….we were going up! There were monkeys all around the base of the stairs and all the way up—all 397 stairs (estimated, of course). We’d heard we shouldn’t carry any loose items, that they might try to snatch them. So we made ourselves look like we had purpose in our movements and walked right by those monkeys.

We saw the sunset from way up high in the sky, then returned to ground level where Deana got another $4 neck & shoulder massage, and Randy and I foraged for yummy things to eat at the night market.

Trying to decide if we should extend our stay in paradise another day, we decided that despite it being a real treasure, by sticking around we might just miss the next treasure down the unknown road ahead…. We’ll roll out tomorrow.

Route: Hua Hin to Prachuap Khiri Khan
Distance: 133km
Daytime high: 40ish C

We left Hua Hin not knowing how far we might go. Turns out when there’s a tailwind and the scenery is ever-changing gorgeous, we go 133km! Deana’s bike computer registered 40+C but the breeze helped. So did gallons of water and some Coca Cola.

The most popular word today was Woww!!! After blasting out of Hua Hin we couldn’t believe how little traffic there was. In fact, many times it felt like we were in a post-apocalyptic world with no tourists and very few cars. Resort after resort, empty. Beaches were deserted for miles and miles. Restaurants and cafe’s open with workers lingering about hoping to fill empty seats. Much of the time we had the entire road to ourselves. COVID appears to have decimated the tourism industry from our observations.

We passed mountains in epic landscapes, lush green palm forests, unique rocky formations and and pineapple crops. Out in the middle of nowhere we passed a monkey on the road—just waiting for nothing. Of all the areas we have seen in Thailand, this is the most beautiful so far! At the entranceway to a national park we saw an official worker who seemed to be asking something of us. We thought maybe he wanted to see our passports. We asked him to repeat a few times. That sweet man was asking for was permission to take a selfie picture with us! It never ceases to amaze us how the Thais want pictures with us as much as we want pictures with them.

We arrived in Prachuap Khiri Khan. It has a much different vibe than Hua Hin, and more to our liking. We set out to find a lovely little sit-down ocean-front restaurant. We couldn’t resist the Night Market with its street food offerings (which, by the way are always a food grazing extravaganza). By the time we’d reached the other side we’d already nibbled our way to appetite satiation and abandoned the restaurant plan.

Along the sidewalk was a row of chairs all set up for passersby looking for massages. After the big long day we just had, we figured we deserved one. Leg massages, neck & shoulders—we are so in! We planted our smoothie-sipping sore-legged butts down at the waterfront massage service. These massages aren’t piddly little wimpy ones. They are deep-down find your sore spots heavy workout type! One full hour, 30 minutes each leg. A nearby worker noticed a mosquito on my leg (I hadn’t noticed!) and she leaped into action spraying each of our precious legs with some pleasant-smelling repellent. They are such sweet people! The total cost was $4 each for the full hour. $4!!

We have reached our originally planned southern-most destination but have time to spare! So, we will add more distance and venture beyond. We are always wanting to see what lays just beyond the next bend in the road. Such is the nature of bicycle touring.