March 20, 2017

A lovely ride today. We were up early and away at around 7:30, no-one was around at the hotel so we left without paying!! Not really, they had charged the credit card.

It was a nice hotel/condo, but it did have problems with staff. Apparently, the assistant manager that used to be at the hotel was moved to the other hotel 7 kms away and the only person who had any responsibility was the senior cleaning lady and she was well out of her comfort zone dealing with customers. There was no bar staff, no kitchen staff (that we could see) and only three cleaning staff. Although the pool guy and the gardener did a good job. It is a shame really as I can see this hotel going the way of some of the other hotels in the area.

We took the back route all the way to Rayong and found a nice quiet road that kept us off Hwy 3 for 30 kms.  We really enjoyed the neighbourhoods we cycled through.

There was one street that paralleled Hwy 3, the buildings were traditional Thai buildings with the business on the bottom and the living space on the top.

There is obviously some very wealthy people living in the area.  We have been amazed at the security in some of the areas we have cycled past.  Not only at the hotels, but at these new subdivisions.  We have never felt threatened or been intimidated, we have no idea why there should be so much security.

After about 30 kms we had to join Highway 3, it wasn’t too bad. There were some busy intersections when we came in to a Town or City that were easily managed. There were several army/naval bases along this stretch and an airport. One of the naval bases had a small museum, but we opted not to visit, as it was getting hot – 33 degrees.

We haven’t mentioned the garbage in Thailand because it hasn’t been as bad as Vietnam and Cambodia but it is still there. However, today we noticed this gutter full of trashed shrines. These weren’t shrines that had been vandalized, these were shrines that are no long used and have been dumped in this area. New ones were in place above the ones in the gutter.

We passed a few Wat\’s today, most of them were on the opposite side of the road.  There was one really nice Buddha, but there were too many electrical lines in front of it, Ralf couldn\’t get a good photo.  However, this fat Buddha was on our side of the road and he was very fat.

When we arrived in Sattahip we stopped at a major intersection to see if we could see a hotel on Garmin or the iPad. I spotted one across the road called Green Villas, we made the U-turn and cycled in, it looked rather posh. We asked if they had a room – yep $1,800 Baht – ($70.00), ouch. I asked if she knew of another place that was less expensive and clean. She very kindly directed us to the Saunpai Resort at 500 bht ($19.00). It is clean and not a brothel (jackpot).

We arrived here at about 12:30 and Ralf spent some time on the internet finding us a place tomorrow in SiRacha about 60 kms up the road. It gets so hot now, we only like to ride for about 60 kms before we melt.

I know you are all waiting with baited breath about our windmill count. I cannot believe how many windmills we have spotted – Ralf is at 23 and I have spotted 15. There were a few more, but we had a truce on one day, because of the traffic and Ralf was ahead of me and I couldn’t see in front of him. I think Ralf would have been closer to 30, if not for the truce.

There is a pizza place down the road, I think we might call a pizza for dinner tonight.

We decided to walk to the pizza place. As we got there several street food vendors were setting up in the area. We looked at a few of them, but opted for the pizza. On the way back to our hotel I saw what looked like crepes being made. That was my dessert, very fattening – it wasn’t a crepe batter it was more of a thin dough which she fried on a flattish wok, she added bananas mixed with some egg batter and then folded it and then kept flipping it until it was all cooked. Her sous chef (hubby), added condensed milk and sugar then folded it again and sliced it into squares, popped it in a cardboard container with a fork and I was in heaven.

Ralf decided to have some spring rolls, with hot sauce!

Back to the room with a couple of beers and we are set for the night.