Beautiful Roads, (“beautiful” now means fewer dogs), and resort-ing it in the City of Sing Buri.

The “beauty” of our days are directly proportionate to presence/absence of aggressive dogs, while either cycling or making our way on foot. They are everywhere and it’s a real deterrent to exploring as much as we’d like. We make road and route choices hoping to minimize encounters. They seem more prevalent on city streets. However….yesterday there weren’t many. We enjoyed long stretches of country roads with pretty scenery. After several days of heat and fairly long distances we decided to stay two nights in our resort in Sing Buri in order to enjoy the pool, and our beautiful surroundings.

Our resort is a beautifully manicured place, with a restaurant, a pool. We noticed that there are only 4 rooms that we can see, and there is not one other couple here. We had the pool entirely to ourselves today.

City streets are busy and are always buzzing with activity. There are vendors selling everything from roasted corn on the cob, to watermelons, to bbq fish. Cats and dogs wander in and out of traffic, and motorcycles carry entire families here and there (usually without helmets). They just throw Little Baby in front, balanced between Mom and the handlebars and off they go! Curiously, we’ve also noticed how locals cover up from head to toe with full face masks, hoodies, long pants etc. Obviously not a sun-worshipping society. We sweat just looking at them! 35C here and people don’t seem to notice.

We really feel for those in the tourism industry here. So few tourists, plenty of minimally occupied resorts, and mostly just us and a few visible Europeans when we go to restaurants.

Unfortunately, the only real part of Sing Buri we’ve seen is our hotel and a coffee house a kilometre away. Just too many dogs….

One fall off the bike, one snake on the road, lots of highway riding today and pizza, Thai-style

We got off to a slow start. About 6k into the ride we were presented with a dirt road to tuen onto. We’re not falling for that again, we told ourselves. The bikes get filthy, we get grimy with all the red dirt, and there’s almost always dogs. So, we backtracked and ride back to the beginning to start over. Once on the main highway (yeah, sometimes we gotta take those!) we pulled over to the side to consult the map and somehow, some way, I managed to fall off my bike again, and injure my wrist again. Twice in as many weeks! Fortunately the lady we’d been talking to was able to provide ice for my throbbing wrist. We had been talking to her for a while. She’d seen us at the roadside looking at our map and walked over with a baby to meet us. We are quite a novelty here, apparently. She wanted to get a picture with us. We’ve had a number of people wanting to get their pictures taken with us. We feel a bit celebrity-ish!

It was a rather uneventful next 90km during which we saw very loooooong stretches of flat roadway, banana groves, rice fields, mango trees, and a variety of small modest villages. We rode through some countryside and nearly ran over a rather large, menacing looking snake. It was curled up on the roadway but looked quite alive, and we didn’t want to stick around to snap a picture.

Sometimes we take highways. Not itty bitty ones like highway 2, but big ones with big trucks exceeding 100k per hour, like the 401. But at least here inThailand there are a lot of road users with scooters and small motorcycles so there is always a very wide shoulder provided where most of the two-wheeled traffic makes its way. So we actually feel relatively safe riding the main highways. They are however, noisy and there’s not much in the way of interesting things to see. Only one nasty dog encounter today!

We were starving by the time we checked into our hotel. It’s easy enough to locate hotels with maps.me, but in practical terms it becomes a challenge actually locating it in person. There’s rarely English on a sign, and that applies to resorts. Tonight’s accommodation took a very long time to locate and we’d been standing right on the street in front of a laneway that led to the hotel and we didn’t even know it because the sign was in Thai.

After checking in, we went for pizza (it was a stroke of luck to find that place!). Not sure what to expect when they took our order and asked if we wanted cheese on it. (Really? Cheese is an option?) then they asked if we wanted sauce (again, really?). In any case, it arrived and by “sauce” we discovered they meant ketchup which nicely decorated the top in a pretty swirl pattern. But it was tasty, we were starving, and it went down fast!

And now we are in a city called Uthai Thani (usually unable to remember city names, we just kept referring to it as Uma Thurman all day) about 200km from Bangkok. Not sure where we’re headed next, but every day is a new adventure.

Big giant Buddha, 7-Elevens & Amazon Cafe’s are our friends, and being foreigners at the CK Resort. A great day!

There’s a Wat in every town. Gorgeous gold, red, ornately decorated beautiful Buddhist temples and we just never seem to tire of seeing them! They just crop up roadside near any given town. We typically see about 3-5 a day. Today we saw one with a giant sized Buddha. It makes you wonder….where do they make these gigantic figures? Is there a Buddha manufacturing company somewhere? In any case, they are are stunning, and as tall as Randy is, he was a shrimp next to this one!

The ride was great today. Not a single free-range dog lunged at us, and we noticed more greenery, leading us to think the drought hasn’t impacted this area as much as more north of here. We have almost left Northern Thailand and entered Central Thailand. Don’t ask where we are, because we can’t figure it out! The names of the towns all sound similar “Ban this” “Kao that” “thing thong” and here we are! We made good time today, mostly due to the flatness of the route. Flat like a pancake! We did deal with headwinds but they served to cool us in what feels like a big outdoors convection oven.

Simple pleasures make for a great day! When it’s stinking hot and you happen across a 7-Eleven its like striking gold. We filled water bottles with ice, got toasted ham & cheese sandwiches and pineapple turnovers, then guzzled lemonade. We also came across an Amazon Cafe. It similar to our Starbucks, with a variety of interesting offerings. Instead of the Crunchy Love Pinky Milky Frappe, or the Perfect Match Iced Pinky Butterfly Pea (who comes up with these names?) we just ordered simple coffees. And we were happy enough.

We checked into a little roadside “resort” called CK Resort. We found it with Maps.me and it is a cute little motel style place with individual car-ports for each room. The young man “Sam” was very happy and pleased to see us. His English was very good. (He previously worked on a cruise ship). We learned that foreigners rarely stop there, and we are the first foreigners in at least a year! We walked about 500m down the road to find an establishment serving dinner and stopped in at a “night spot”. Several smiling happy people all came to happily serve us. Big smiles all around. More excellent, tasty food!

Another happy day in Thailand.

Tourists! That was us today. Meeting George. And those gosh darn dogs!

We made like tourists—shopping at the market, avoiding the sun (we get enough of that!), and enjoying tales from the road with another cycle tourist we met from the Netherlands. “George” as he told us to call him, has been on the road for 5 months. He’s the one and only cycle tourist we have seen in our time here so far. We stopped in the road to talk and then we headed into the nearby restaurant for some Pad Thai. We were happy to be exchanging like-minded conversation about where we’ve been, and our common experiences. We picked up some good tips from George about how to deal with ongoing issue of aggressive dogs. He carries a few sticks on his bike, both front and back and exhibits an attitude toward them when they pounce. So far he’s been successful.

We sure could have used some sticks tonight when we walked down the street again to our hotel. We dealt with a group of three dogs that came out barking and ready to give chase. Earlier we avoided a few pit bulls with muzzles (fortunately) who vocalized their desire to do battle, and at one point a very large and fat bulldog fell off the steps and into the bushes as he lunged at us. We applied the “stare them down” method and it appeared to work. After a while we just decided to walk along the median that divided the road, figuring dogs would need to battle the cars to get to us. Not a bad strategy.

Shopping is an extravaganza that needs to be seen with your own bare eyes to be believed. We can barely contemplate such a concentration of consumer goods, industrious individuals making things, food stalls, produce piled 6 feet high, stores with deep and narrow aisles with merchandise layered floor to ceiling, cars & motorcycles and pedestrians all sharing the spaces, and utterly endless rows of stalls selling everything imaginable as far as the eye could see—it’s like a confluence of Dollarama on steroids, and frenzied farmers markets all hyper-concentrated in the steaming heat of the city.

My only purchase (due to an overwhelming array of choice that made me simply unable to choose much at all), was a simple white shirt for 100 bhat ($4) from a location that sold only white shirts….thousands of styles to choose from. Right beside the “white shirt stall” was a one offering an absolute mountain of socks & underwear and the other side sold phone cases with thousands of styles to choose from.

We left, thoroughly impressed by the magnitude and impact of the market, but equally appreciating the simplicity and neatness of Cobourg’s Farmers Market.

Riding on the left, surviving the relentless sun & heat, we tested fate — fate won, our Pink Room and the incredible Festival, omg!

We are riding in the left hand side of the road like we’re pro’s! We ride right on into busy cities along with silly traffic and just move with the flow. It does seem to make sense….we do most things, directionally, from left to right, so why not? Honestly, we agreed that the drivers here allow us a little more space and consideration than do our Canadian counterparts. Perhaps it’s because there are so many scooters and motorcycles on the road. Drivers expect and accommodate them/us everywhere. We even roll on down multi lane highways comfortably now! And it must be said—our previous CanBike Safety Training has been absolutely invaluable. We feel safer, more confident and we make darn sure we are visible and predictable.

Today was hot. There’s never a cloud in the sky it seems, and we can feel the heat radiating upward from the road and downward from the sun. As long as we keep moving we do all right. We have little tricks for making the heat bearable—stop every 10k and wait till we drip sweat. Once we are underway again the evaporation has a cooling effect. We seek out cold drinks constantly. The water in our bottles gets hot quickly. We pour cold water on our heads and that works wonders. we probably drink about 5L a day and still finish the day thirsty. Today we spotted some gorgeous lime & orange popsicle-like treats at a gas station and it was like heaven. If the weather wasn’t hot enough, we biked alongside a farmers field that was burning. This is common at this time of the year as farmers want to burn off all the debris that remains on the ground. Everywhere we go we see blackened fields.

Whenever we stop, people want to know where we are from, where we are going, and how long we are here. They eye up our bikes and give us gigantic smiles and thumbs up. Today a woman named “Penn” made conversation with us despite neither of us knowing a word of the others language. Charades is a fun game in every culture and always makes people laugh. I could tell she was trying to tell us about something big happening in the town we were going to, but we had no idea what she said. We’d have to wait and see….

This morning our pump broke. Not a cheapy pump either. It is a good quality one that should do the job,but broke while topping up our tires this morning. The nearest place to buy a new one was 22km back the way we came yesterday. We took a gamble that today wont be the day we get a flat. Our destination was 82k away. We stopped just a few kms short of our final destination to locate a bike shop on Google Maps to but a new pump. With address in hand and just a few kms to go, we leave our roadside rest spot and wouldn’t you know it…a flat! Big bummer. No pump. We notice some people at a school across the street and decide to ask about where we can call a taxi. These wonderful Thai people all came to our rescue—a young teacher translated our situation to a nearby kind and generous man who offered to take the bicycle wheel himself on his motorcycle down the road to a place to get it filled with air. Everyone there was so kind and thoughtful as they all tried to help. Thank you, thank-you, to the wonderful teacher “who sometimes teaches English”, and thank-you to the 72 year old man who transported the bicycle wheel to and from the shop. You are all so lovely and kind!

We found a hotel to check into. Our little cottage is a cute little Pink doll house that just exudes happiness. It’s actually Barbie pink both inside and out. Ugh I k it was 500 Thai Bhats. That’s a whole $21 and our breakfast is included. 😁

Coming into town we saw there’s a HUGE festival underway. It looks like a carnival extravaganza, with endless rows of super inexpensive clothing, toys, plants, shoes, and weird foods to try. Trust me when I tell you….we will not eat fried up giant cockroaches! Supergross! However, the other 99% of the food looked intriguing, smelled amazing and looked tantalizing.

We may stick around an extra night here, but aren’t committing to anything. We won’t know till we wake up and see what strikes our fancy!

Easy riding, new friends Doug and Tippy, food markets, ancient ruins and, as always, more great food! But hey, where are all the tourists?

Finally some easy riding days! Just 58km yesterday and 34 today. All flat! It was a Buddhist holiday in Thailand yesterday, Magha Puja. Most establishments were closed while people partake in “merit making” activities. (It’s a good thing!)

Yesterday we met up and stayed with new friends Doug and Tippy who we’d been in touch with via email prior to travelling here, but had not met yet. Doug rode his bicycle out to meet up with us at the 7-Eleven in Ban Rai then we rode together to his and Tippy’s home in Si Samrong. Doug is a wonderfully insightful Canadian national and Tippy is a beautiful, warm & friendly Thai national who have re-located from Canada to live here in Thailand where Tippy has family. We had a yummy dinner in a local restaurant where we shared stories and laughs. In the morning Tippy served up some traditional Thai rice porridge that her own mother made, which was delicious. Thank you Doug and Tippy!

Last night Doug took us to the nearby outdoor market. Now that’s an experience. The sights and sounds are all so irresistible and it leaves us thinking that if we lived here we would never ever cook anything! Randy is pretty adventurous, (me, less so), but there’s no way any crispy fried grubs, crickets, chicken feet, frogs, will find their way into our bags for late-night snacking. There were lots of BBQ fish-on-sticks, savoury looking crabs, chicken this & that, veggies prepared in every imaginable way, sweet things, soups, and spices. It’s a busy, busy place!

Today we left and rode a fairly short (34k) to the historic city of Sukhothai which was founded almost in 1238, making it 680 years old and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. The ruins here are amazing! There’s a real feeling of peaceful serenity when you wander the monuments, imagining the workmanship that went into these things! Simply amazing and a visual feast for the eyes. It feels old, looks grand, and inspires. Which makes us wonder:

Where are all the tourists? Wherever we go we marvel at how few people appear to be travelling. We have stayed at more than one place where we sense our aloneness. Restaurants are frequently empty. Doug explained that a terrible drought has affected the economy for locals who rely heavily on agriculture in some regions. They aren’t dining out. The coronavirus is keeping Chinese and other nationals, who would normally be plentiful, away. We haven’t met a single other Canadian. We haven’t seen a single other bicycle tourist. In any case, there is always a vacancy at any given accommodation and nothing seems to be crowded. Today we are at a resort with a pool—a fabulous resort. There were four of us at the pool. No shortage of lounge chairs!

Waking up at dawn, piggies on the mountain, mystery lunch, cute little Villages and warm Hellos everywhere.

After a great day of rest and rehydration we woke before the sun came up and got our bums on the road during the cool of morning. We wanted to get the big climb up and over the mountain top over with before the intense heat hits us.

The mountain was quite reasonable and we can’t tell you enough how relieved we were! Thrilled, actually! Even more so when we reached the top and there was a whole group of pigs (boars, more accurately) behind a fence. Big giant scruffy ones with tusks, curious medium sized Mama ones and some itty bitty cuties! As we approached the fence, more kept emerging from the brush. So much fun!

Outdoor roadside restaurants are everywhere and anywhere. Most proprietors speak no English so we just point to the menu and they are good at figuring it out. We are usually pretty grim looking when we stop and are all sweaty and grubby but they are always so happy to serve us. Today the lady saw us and right away brought over three bottles: Coke, water, and orange juice to see what we’d like. We just smiled and said “we’ll take them all!” (It’s that hot here!). We pointed to something in the menu and waits to see what we get. Noodles! Soft ones & crispy ones, surrounded by yummy broth and some chicken chunks. Delicious! Total bill was about $4 (including 5 drinks!)

You can’t help but feel happy riding through villages. Almost everyone who sees us—whether they are working on hydro lines, riding a motorcycle, or sitting in their yards behind fences—breaks into a big giant enthusiastic smile and they holler helloooooo!! as we ride by. Honestly, it makes us feel like celebrities! And when we holler helloooooo!! it appears as though we’ve made them feel special too!

Today is a special Buddhist holiday, Māgha Puja we learned. Many establishments were closed today so for dinner we dined at the 7-Eleven. They are everywhere, and they have a great food selection!

Lots of nice scenery to be seen today!

Fortitude! That’s all I can say….

Its the only thing that got us here to Thoen yesterday. The day began all lovely and smiley as we made good time on great roads. We knew there would be a mountain pass through the wilderness and our mapping tool showed us a dotted line that we could cycle through—excellent! Keeps us off the parallel multi-lane Super Highway. 😁

38c. It was hot & sunny but as long as we kept moving we created our own breeze. At the last village before the start of the un-paved road we made sure we had enough water for what appeared to be about 12-20k of wilderness ahead of us. A few adorable smiles came from some locals (as always) who were just sitting on a bench. One fellow seemed to be inquiring where we were headed (no English here), and we let him know we were from Canada and headed generally toward Bangkok. He pointed in the opposite direction, and we heard something about Super Highway but of course we couldn’t understand the rest of what he was saying. We wave 👋, smile, and carry on toward the unpaved road.

Fine, powdery, red dirt and rocks. We got this! We pedal on. Bigger rocks and single track, not a single human to be seen. Oh well, it is rural after all. We got this! A few stiff inclines and washed away trail, spiky tree branches. Okay, so maybe things get better ahead. Blazing sun feels hotter than ever and we slow to a snail pace and agree that mountain bikes are a requirement. We still got this? I dunno… Painfully slow and horribly hot, we were praying we were at the end because it was brutal and our water running low. No turning back now, we have come too far. We cross a mini-bridge made of sticks. How come we haven’t seen a single soul? We encounter a dried up river bed, kinda steep but we struggle down the embankment and up the other side. We want outta here! It’s hot, sticky, and brutal here…

Then we come to a crevice. A big one. We need a zip line to get across. There is no bridge over the River Wang. We must turn back. Probably 60 or 70% of the way there and we had to backtrack. Try not to cry.

We turned around—went back. No choice. Emerging from the wilderness, we found a kind adorable Thai man in the village who let us know the next hotel was 50 km away. Randy downed a beer, I guzzled a Pepsi, we stashed some water on our bikes and off we went. That kindly Thai man accompanied us on his bicycle all the way to the Super Highway, where we then parted ways. We arrived at our destination in the black of night, grateful for the amazing lights on our bikes that lit up the whole shoulder and made us super-visible.

We decided on a day off to regroup, rehydrate, and prepare for tomorrow. We are enjoying an air-conditioned room, loafing around in the shade of the surrounding tall bamboo.

It’s hot hot hot out there! Do people actually ride bikes in that heat?

Lampang River Lodge. It was gorgeous!

 

Here is the link to our route map on Strava.

Not all hills are created equal. And what’s with those dogs?

We plotted a map today and the elevation chart looked flat-ish with a few bumps. Well, those bumps were mountains and the grades were mostly around 15-17% with crazy switchbacks. Unfit for any type of cycling really, never mind pushing fully loaded touring bikes up them in +30c temperatures. Ironically, it appears that there must have been a sale on “8% grade” signs because every single sign said 8%. We can attest to the fact they were much, much steeper.

We pushed those bikes. Hard. Darn near killed us. Heart rates pounding in the heat….often just 20ft at a time, sometimes 10. We’d have to stand still, squeezing those brakes hard just to prevent rolling backwards. It was hard to really enjoy the surrounding jungle-ish scenery which was actually quite spectacular. At one point we heard loud rustling in the dense brush and the only wildlife we can think of is wild boars, which are apparently plentiful here. Khun Tan National Park. Beautiful, but not recommended to cycle through it! Demoralizing. However….there were birds chirping all the way!

When the mountain passes ended and we were depleted and worn , we hoped for some easier riding. Not so. There’s only one road out, and there were dogs. Not pet dogs. We’re talking feral dogs in packs of five or six. Ratty looking mangy things who come out of the ditches to bare teeth at us, bark nastily and threaten to give us heart attacks. (Which makes me grateful we got rabies shots before coming here). Every homestead for about 20kms seemed to have multiple unrestrained unfriendly dogs waiting to take a piece of us. All said, we probably had about 30-40 dogs come at us overall. Relentless.

Ok, so it wasn’t all bad today. The last 5km was ok (despite the “road” being more like dusty dirty single-track). There were fresh green rice paddies to be seen. We rolled into a resort around 5pm and it was stunning! Gorgeous! Pool, restaurant, tropical plants & trees, waterfall ponds, and it felt like paradise. We are at a place called Lampang River Lodge. Highly recommend it! Most expensive place so far at $47. (Thinking it would be $300+ a night in Canada). Too bad we are so exhausted….we flopped into bed around 8pm.

View our route map on Strava!

Smiling Thai people, gorgeous temples everywhere, and $2 Roadside Thai Curry.

We slathered on the sunscreen and got our pasty pink selves out of Chiang Mai. Frantic traffic eventually gave way and the FunFactor took hold as we became more comfortable with riding in the left side of the road.

Everywhere we ride, whenever we make eye contact with someone we get big warm & fuzzy smiles. Thai people are adorable! Oh, and there’s no shortage of temples to oooh and awe over.

We stopped at a roadside food stall (which seem to dot the road like lemonade stands). The street was majestically lined with Yang Na trees and created a wonderfully shaded experience. The woman at the Curry stand conveyed to us they are the largest trees that grow in Thailand. We let her know we were from Canada and her face lit up! With her very limited English vocabulary she was able to let us know that she reallllly liked watching The Murdoch Mysteries. A few minutes later we were enjoying delicious Green Curry with Chicken & Coconut Milk, and also a dish of Red Curry with Chicken. Randy also ordered up some sausage in some type of mysterious but tasty sauce. Totally awesome! Including my Pepsi the bill came to $4.

We pedalled past a national forest area where it was just trees and distant mountains as far as the eye could see. Mostly flat, little traffic, and one really steep hill.

After about 70kms we decided around 4:30 to roll into a tiny little village in search of a room for the night. We used an app called Agoda which is something like booking.com. Fascinating! To get to our room we passed rice paddies, tiny villages where dogs just lay on the road, and more smiling Thai people everywhere. It was hard to imagine that our home stay room was actually going to materialize but it did. And here we are! In a beautiful little spot hidden away from everything. What a gem!

It was a great day here in Thailand!

Gorgeous accommodations! Though if Randy were just a little shorter, he’d fit through the bathroom door! Checking the navigation…it seemed as though we were being guided into the wilderness.

Roadside lunch. We just point to what looks yummy and take our chances. It did not disappoint!

Wat Phra Singh, the Night Market and the Food….omg, the food!

Wat Phra Singh. We just sort of stumbled upon it. It’s the first one we’ve visited and it’s hard to imagine just how old these structures are, and how beautiful.

The streets. Narrow and busy but oh so interesting. You’ve got to keep your eyeballs in front and also at the back of your head because there is no “flat” sidewalk type terrain on which to walk. Cars drive within a few feet of us leaving little room for comfort. What itty bitty sidewalk there is is shared with trees, hydro poles, parked vehicles of all descriptions. We established a strategy for crossing the road—look for a gap and run like heck!

All roads lead to food. Food! It’s literally on every corner—deliciously yummy Khao soi (a northern Thai noodle dish), fermented sausage, padthai, curries that look and smell scrumptious.

The Night Market. It’s truly amazing and you’d better prepare to shop (and eat). This is where you see Thai silk, sample deep fried scorpions, watch some young Thai men dressed in drag, find singing bowls….and eat more food.

Enough words. Pictures are better

The looooooong flight(s), sharing the “wrong” side of the road, Jet. Lag—Bring on Chiang Mai! What shall we do with our six weeks?

20 hours in-flight wears a little thin but EVA Air was great (highly recommended!). Our flight booking included a “Seafood” meal option which of course we chose. Good choice! Shrimp & scallop pasta, seafood quiche, and lovely salmon salad sandwiches. We ate well. We felt like we scored big when the third seat went unoccupied for the 15 hour flight from Toronto to Taipei. We departed in the middle of the night and never saw daylight till Taipei. When the plane landed we curiously noted an absence of that standard “applause” for a safe-landing—which we’ve never understood anyways—a smooth safe landing is kind of an expectation of ours rather than an applause-worthy bonus.

Our first night accommodation is in the Old City part of Chiang Mai and just 4km from the airport so we decided to unbox and reassemble our bikes then negotiate the traffic on our own, skipping the whole taxi biz. With our tired, fuzzy-brains (no brains!), we rolled out two hours later, riding on the left side of the road here in Thailand and it’s a hairy situation for our right-brained selves. There is no 1m rule here, there’s no bike lane, and there’s a lot of traffic. Crosswalks? Ha! They mean nothing.

We somehow made it to our AirBnB in one piece. Our grand plans to nap then go out for an evening explore have been overridden by intense jet lag. We are exactly 12 hours time difference here—8am at home means 8pm here. Hoping to recalibrate our body clocks in the next two days, we will then pedal out for six weeks of unknowns—no reservations, no route maps, no expectations. Just a general direction toward Trat and some islands near Cambodia then Bangkok. We have no idea what each day will bring, it’s just part of the adventure!