March 10, 2017

An uneventful days ride. We left Sa Keao at 8:15 a.m., a little late because we were waiting for breakfast. A baked egg concoction with bacon and some beige coloured mystery meat, it was quite nice and kept me going for about 40 kms. This hotel had a nice Buddha shrine situated on the property. 

Most Thai\’s are buddhists and are very calm.  I told Ralf that he is not to show that he is annoyed at something as he loses \”face\”.  However, yesterday we saw two separate incidents where the Thai\’s were getting very angry with each other.

We were following the 359 for about 50 kms and then had to head north to connect with the 304 where our hotel for the night was located. We are finding it a little difficult to find hotels on-line, as google maps and maps.me are not showing the towns we are cycling through.

I thought the 359 would be a quieter road,  and it was compared to the 331. However, it was a two-lane divided highway with a large shoulder. As most highways are, it was a little boring.

Then we spotted our first giant Buddha in Thailand.

We cycled down the lane to the Buddha and realized that the concrete structure that was covered with scaffolding was going to be a new Stupa. No safety harnesses for the workers, as they were leaning out and grabbing the next piece of bamboo scaffolding!

At the 50 km point we made our right turn to head towards Si Maha Phot. We spotted a 7-11 and decided to see what they had for lunch. All sorts of microwave meals and sandwiches and chocolate milk – lovely. We both had a sandwich which they microwaved for us and we drank our chocolate milk. We will definitely be keeping our eyes open for 7-11.

As we made the turn I noticed a cycle path, Ralf had cycled past the entrance. I headed down the path, then realized what Ralf had spotted. A very large mound of dirt leading from the road to a new construction area. The cycle-path went out of the small town for about 2 kilometres to the school, then the cycle path stopped and we had to join the road. Maybe a dedicated cycle path encourages the kids to cycle to school, or maybe it was too dangerous for the kids to ride on the road.  The shoulder wasn\’t very wide.  In Vietnam they cycle two abreast on the AH1!

This road was a more rural route, which had an ancient monument somewhere along the road. We obviously missed the turn. Most of the road signs for the smaller roads are only in Thai script, on the major highways and at the major intersections they are in both English and Thai script.

As we came to the main intersection with the 331, I spotted a couple of fruit stands. I have been craving fruit the past few days. I stopped and bought half a kilo of grapes, dragon fruit and two oranges. I made a nice fruit salad for dessert and we will have the rest on the muesli tomorrow for breakfast. We also had two papaya that the owner of the hotel gave to us.  No idea what this fruit is hanging from the trees.  Maybe we can try this sometime in the future.

The hotel used to be a resort, with a swimming pool, climbing wall, play area for children and nice bungalows. It is very run-down, there is no water in the pool and the grounds need a good gardener to spruce things up.

We are not sure why the hotel is a little run-down, maybe it cannot attract people to stay here for a week when they are only about 50 kms from a beach resort, which they can easily access by two or three good highways. Maybe the industry grew up around the resort and it is no longer a popular place to stay.

This Town is quite large with a lot of industry, but it isn’t named on google maps. Fortunately while we were at the supermarket yesterday we bought a paper map which shows a lot of the Towns along our route. We are able to type in the name of a town and ask if there are any hotels nearby.

Tomorrow we are “winging” it for a hotel. There is supposed to be a motel at 68 kms, fingers crossed there is, otherwise we might be sleeping at a temple. The temples are supposed to give travellers somewhere to sleep if they show up in need. A donation is always welcomed. The only problem with that idea is we don’t have sleeping mats only sheets and a mosquito net!

We are heading south to the coast for a week on a beach.