April 1, 2017

Another relaxing day in Bangkok. We are so relaxed we couldn’t remember what day it was today. We headed out for breakfast and planned the day – do nothing!

I read a book and Ralf downloaded maps for Korea. We sat by the pool for a couple of hours and then went to pick up the bikes, stopping by the French bakery for a snack!

The hotel has two roof top pools, a very nice garden area downstairs with a large koi pond. The koi are huge.

I am looking forward to getting back on the bikes in Korea, although it is going to be a lot cooler.  Apparently, there was a light snow fall in Barrie, I am guessing my snow drops will be covered with snow again.

March 31, 2017

Well we spent more on our breakfast at the French café than we did for a full cooked breakfast but it was definitely worth it. The coffee was really good and the croissants and choco-pain were so flaky and rich, we could have stayed there all day and eaten our way through the whole selection of croissants, brioche, tarts, and breads.

However, we had to go to the bike shop and give them some of the packing materials for the bikes. Surprise, surprise it was before 10:00 and they were not open! C’est la vie.

We took a taxi to the MBK shopping mall. The MBK mall is huge it covers seven floors and has hundreds of retailers.

There is one floor devoted to electronics and phones and everything you could possibly want for your phone or not want for your phone.

Now we are not ones that usually enjoy shopping malls, we were actually looking to buy a phone. With Ralf’s garmin going pear-shaped, we decided to get a new phone and use that in Korea for maps. When we get back to Canada I will have a new phone to use, I have been using the one we bought in Australia on the first trip. I had done some research and knew which phones Virgin Canada carried so that is what I was looking for. I think we got a good deal on an unlocked Samsung J5 Prime.

As we were leaving the MBK Centre we noticed an area set up for grafitti artists.  Wow the smell of spray paint was over-powering.  There is going to be a Hip Hop competition this week-end in this area.

We had to find a way across the road to get to the Jim Thompson house.  Unfortunately, the road was blocked by elephants.  This area had a two-lane highway, a Sky train and a raised road, we were able to find a set of stairs and a pedestrian walk-way to get across this mess of road systems.

After the shopping trip, we headed to the Jim Thompson House Museum. Jim Thompson was an American who fell in love with Thailand after the war and promoted Thai silk in North America and Europe. He was reportedly a spy for the American government. He disappeared in 1967 in Malaysia, no trace was found of him and his disappearance remains a mystery.

He built a house in Bangkok that was a collection of traditional Thai houses but also combining the American values he liked. For example he had the stairs inside the house, most traditional Thai houses have the stairs outside. He also had a dining room, Thai tradition is that you sit on the floor to eat, which is why you take your shoes off when you enter a Thai house.

A guide takes you around the inside of the house and the gardens, giving you information about the various rooms and collections. However, once you have taken part in the tour – about 30 minutes – you can then wander around the grounds at your own speed.  At each entrance to a room there is a usually a step up and a step down with a raised border to step over.  I asked if there was any significance.  Our guide told us that it had two benefits, the first was to stop babies crawling out of the room and the second was to stop the evil spirits from entering a room.  Evil spirits can only travel in one direction – not up and down – they cannot climb over the raised entrance ways.

After the tour we watched two ladies dancing and a man spinning silk in the courtyard. 

The cocoons are unraveled and then the cocoons  are boiled while spinning the thread.  Ralf was surprised to feel how thick the thread was, there are usually ten threads spun into one thicker strand.

While we were looking for a taxi to take us back to the hotel we noticed these two rather odd paintings on the walls nearby the MBK Centre and Jim Thompson House.

We took a taxi back to the hotel or at least to Khao San Road, it was easier to tell the taxi driver to take us to Khao San Road than to try and tell them we wanted to go to Rambuttri Road one block away. When we got into the taxi the driver told us it would be 200 baht. I told him to turn on the meter – 200 baht it only cost us 80 baht to get to the shopping centre. Another scam to be aware of – sometimes the taxi driver does not turn the meter on and then charges you twice as much as it should be. The silly thing is the taxi had a list of charges on a sheet in the back of the taxi. The metered trip was 85 baht.

We stopped for a quick snack of Pad Thai before heading back to the hotel. Ralf went to the bike shop with the extra packing material while I went back to the hotel to read the instructions on the phone! Already downloaded maps.me and it works.

Ralf spotted this very interesting creature in the canal on his way back to the hotel. A very large lizard, about 8 feet including the length of the tail.

After our dinner of a lovely Indian meal, we headed back to the hotel and spotted two touring bikes in the lane-way. The owners of the bikes were sitting have a beer with their lively three year old.

They have been travelling for seven years and their oldest child was born in Cambodia, the 10 month old, who was asleep in the trailer was born in the Czech Republic on their way back to Germany. They wanted him to be born in Germany because of the hassle of registering the oldest boy in Cambodia.

The area around the hotel is well policed, we spotted four policemen on bicycles this evening.  I bet the illegal vendors hate these guys, because they cannot spot them as easily as when they arrive by car.

March 30, 2017

Another good breakfast, before heading out on our bicycles to find bike shops. We struck out again at 12:30 all the bike shops we found were closed!

We headed back to Velo Thailand. The women we spoke to yesterday, that spoke really good English was there. We asked her if she could pack the bicycles ready for the flight. Her concern was that she didn’t have boxes and she wasn’t keen on the idea of cutting the boxes she had. If the bikes get damaged because of the cut boxes, she didn’t want us to complain about the damage. Eventually she agreed that she would do \”surgery\” on her boxes if necessary.

We were limited with our options and if we had to pack them ourselves without proper bike boxes the bikes may get damaged anyway. Ralf would have to cut cardboard to make a box. Same, same.

She agreed to try and find boxes and if necessary to use the boxes she had. Ralf offered to pay for the service today – like I said she spoke really good English. She said “I have your bikes, I don’t think you are going anywhere, you will be back for them”

We headed back to our hotel and passed a bakery. We went into pick up something for lunch. A French lady who was eating in the café told us this was the best place in Bangkok. She lives in Bangkok and this is the best place. The owner was trained by a Frenchman and is Japanese, what a combination Japanese French bakery in Thailand. OMG the choco-pain were to die for. We will be visiting there again.

We haven\’t seen very much graffiti on this trip.  Of course we are now in a big city and we have spotted this, is it graffiti or art?

We got back to the hotel sweaty and tired. I was feeling very lethargic today, Ralf suggested we relax for the day. We did, I updated the blog and we relaxed all afternoon.

We also found the hotel had a small used book library. I picked up the only English book and intend to have a nice time reading it over the next couple of days.

March 29, 2017

The hotel we are staying offers a buffet breakfast for 250 baht per person (almost $10.00). We knew we could get a cheaper breakfast close by and got a full breakfast for 240 for the two of us.

Today\’s task was to find bike boxes so that we can pack the bikes ready for the flight to Seoul, Korea on Monday. There are supposed to be dozens of bike shops. We found three within 4 kms of the hotel and headed out after breakfast to find them.

The first bike shop Velo Thailand had a lady who spoke very good English. The shop was more of a rental and repair bike shop. She explained that most of their boxes had been taken in the first half of the month and they didn’t have any left. They only had a couple of wider boxes, which may be an issue on the plane. She suggested we continue looking and offered to take our name and email if she did find a couple of boxes for us.

We thanked her for her help and headed out to the next store. We found a book shop and we were able to buy a Bangkok map. This helped us find the other bike shops. We found the store but it was closed. Apparently, a lot of the bike shops do not open until the afternoon and stay open until 9:00 p.m.

We were getting hot and frustrated. The temperatures are unbearable in the high 30’s with a “real feel” of 40 degrees. We become sweaty blobs as soon as we leave our air-conditioned room.

As we were looking for the third bike shop and looking at our map, an older fella came up to us. He explained that there was some kind of Buddhist holiday and a lot of places were closed. There is a scam where tuk tuk drivers will tell you that the place you want to go to is closed and will take you somewhere else where they are open, they get a kick-back for taking you there. We tried to explain to the man that we were looking for a bike shop. He told us it would be open at 2:00 p.m. but we could take a boat ride for free today, because of this “holiday”.

A tuk tuk driver arrived and said he would take us to this Tourist Information centre and the ferry dock for 10 baht (0.38 cents). It was a hard sell. We eventually gave up and took the tuk tuk but told him to take us to the hotel about 3kms and then back to the boat ferry another 4 kms. I think we were being scammed, but because we told the tuk tuk driver to take us to the hotel, wait for us and then to the ferry. I think we won. The whole trip cost us 20 baht and Ralf gave the tuk tuk driver a tip.

The tuk tuk driver took us to a ferry dock where a man was waiting he said the ferry would cost us 2000 baht ($77.50)! Special price! We walked away, 200 hundred metres down the road was the proper ferry dock where we could buy tickets on the Tourist boat a “get on and off” boat for 150 baht ($5.18) or a one-way trip for 40 baht ($1.55)!

We could also have taken a Thai boat which was cheaper but didn’t have the English speaking person on board announcing what you were seeing along the water. We were going to spend a day on the river taking in the sights, this was a cheap way to do that.

We abandoned looking for bike boxes, and headed to Chinatown on the 40 baht boat. We spent about two hours wandering down the narrow alleyways of Chinatown.

We haven\’t seen this site very often in South East Asia, a drunken man asleep on the sidewalk.

The river is a very busy waterway with every conceivable water craft you could imagine, from big barges to touristy boats to fast \”dragon\’ boats all zipping up down and across the waterway.

We took the Tourist Boat back up the river and got off about 500 metres from the street where our hotel is located.  As we went up the river, the announcer told us what Wat we were passing and any other interesting information.  We may visit a couple of the Wats, but we have seen alot of Wats, we will see how much time we have left.

Dinner tonight was street food, in Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a popular tourist place for street food, restaurants and street vendors.  Occasionally you will see a street vendor taking off down a side street when they spot the police coming down the street.

I had my favorite papaya salad and stir-fried tofu with rice, Ralf had Massaman Curry.  We could have had bugs!  We opted to take a photo for 10 baht.  I think she was making more money from the photos than from anyone actually eating the bugs!

Rambuttri Road is also a popular area, a little less commercial – no McDonalds on Rambuttri Road. 

However, they have these cool VW vans that are decked out as a bar.  This one has a large screen TV in the back.

Tomorrow we are going back to Velo Thailand we are going to ask them if they can use the boxes they have and tape them to make a decent box for packing. Velo Thailand also do a packing service, so we are going to ask them to pack the bikes for us.

March 28, 2017

The alarm was set for 5:00 a.m. which would give us lots of time to shower, have breakfast in the room and pack everything to be able to catch the 7:15 a.m. train to Bangkok.

We got to the train station early and were told that we couldn’t buy tickets until 30 minutes before the train, about a 15 minute wait. We chatted to the other tourists while we waited for the train, a South African married to a Brit and another Canadian from Winnipeg. Then the train arrived, very similar to the one that was waiting at the station.

We knew we would have to lift the bikes up the stairs from the platform. We were helped by the station staff, but Ralf’s bike would not fit through the narrow door into the carriage. No problem they would go through the window! Ralf’s went first then mine and then the bags. The Brit gave us a hand getting Ralf’s bike through the window. We did a quick count of the bags and we were on the way. About five minutes which means we may have delayed the train by three minutes.

It was a three hour trip to Bangkok, we had cycled most of the same route out to Kanchanaburi.  

We had cycled through Nong Pladuk but did not know that this was the start of the Thai-Burma Railway (the Death Railway).  The lady in white is a Buddhist Nun. 

At Nong Pladuk the on-board food service arrived. About a dozen people got on board and sold everything from drinks to food.

They got of the train a couple of stops later, and headed back down to Nong Pladuk on another train.

The conductor on the train mopped the carriage after each stop.  It seemed to be a pointless task.

There were a couple of times that we had to wait for other trains to go by. We were on the slow train.

Just in case the train is really busy, there was a sign to tell people not to sit on the roof.  It should have also warned not to stick your head out of the window.

As we came into the outskirts of Bangkok we were amazed at the “housing” close to the tracks. I guess they don’t have side yard setbacks in this country.

We got the iPad out to check the route to the hotel. If we could find the ferry crossing it would only be a couple of kilometres to the hotel, if not it would be 7 kms.

We found the ferry crossing, the boat arrived everyone crowded on, there was no gangplank, we had to lift/roll our bikes onto the boat while it moved up and down with the swell on the river. We headed across the busy river and docked again we had to maneuver the bikes over the gap and then headed to our hotel.

We were surprised to see a bike lane. Of course, as with all bike lanes there were some problems with the concept. The bonus was that the bike lane actually had a divider to stop cars using it. However, scooters would use it and tuk tuks would be parking between the dividers.

Of course, the other problem is with the buses. They have to stop but cannot get close to the curb because of the dividers, the passengers have to cross the bike lane to get on the bus. At one bus stop, we waited while the passengers got on and off the bus, one man kept saying thank-you, thank-you. I guess he had a few close calls in the past.

The hotel was easy to find as we began to cycle towards the reception area, a security guard told us we couldn’t ride down that way. We ignored him and told him we were staying at the hotel. We were concerned that we would have to leave our bikes in the street and not in the hotel. The bikes couldn’t come into our room, but was close enough to the reception we were o.k. with leaving them in the open. We locked them with both locks just to be on the safe side.  We have a nice room for the next few days.  The hotel (the Rambuttri Village and Hotel) has a pool and is close to Kah San Road a busy tourist area.

Today is the anniversary of when we met in Israel. Way back then Ralf took me for a Chinese meal. Today we spotted an Israeli restaurant (Shoshana). Tonight we ate middle-eastern food and were surrounded by Chinese.

Love you millions Ralf.

March 27, 2017

We had decided to get up early and cycle to the Wats. Unfortunately, the rain and thunderstorm were still moving around the area and I woke up with a bit of a headache.

We went for breakfast, and I began to feel a little better. While we were sitting at the cafe Ralf suggested that because the weather was unpredictable maybe we should rent a scooter and ride out to the Wats. What a great idea, we rented a scooter for 150 Baht $5.84 we had to have it back by 8:00 p.m.

We were given two helmets that made us look incredibly goofy. I would have been better of wearing my bike helmet.

It started to rain a little as we set of, we stopped and put on our rain jackets and headed out to the Wat Hum Sua and Wat Ban Tham.

We decided to take the funicular (cable car), which was rather scary to the temples and walk back down. The angle that the “car” was at was well over 75%. It was a short but very steep ride to the top. I was glad that we got to the top safe and sound.

We were able to go in a Wat with a tower and were able to climb all the stairs to the top.

Each level had different displays from historical stories to pictures of each King. At the top were the bells.

We spent about two hours investigating the whole area. 

Ralf went into one of the buildings where a monk was giving some blessings, we often forget that these are active places of worship.  I believe Ralf and I are very respectful in these area, however, other tourists aren\’t.  Busloads of tourists visit this temple area.

I went one way and Ralf went another and we met up in the middle.  There was some construction and painting, the garbage was left at the back of the building.

We headed down the steep steps back to the scooter.

Where Ralf took this \”self-portrait\”.

After that we headed to the Wat Ban Tham (Dragon Wat).  This Wat was referred to as the Temple of Caves Village. 

It was built in the u-thong period around the 12 – 15^th century. As you walk past the small temples at the bottom of the hill you do not expect to come face-to-face with a large dragon snaking its way down the hill.  It is quite stunning.

 It was a tough climb – 720 steps to the very top and getting hotter and more humid as we got to the top.

Halfway up the stairs, there was a large cavern which had a large Buddha.

The view from the top was amazing, even with the misty cloud cover.  These buddhists have to be fit to go up and down these mountains to the Wats at the top.

On the way down I spotted a small opening into a cavern.  Ralf went to explore.

There were some interesting paintings in the stair way up to the first cave.

While Ralf took a few more photos I tried to hitch a ride, but no-one else would pick me up.

We made one last stop at a small Chinese temple.  These are very colourful.

We spotted this lady, with her dog.  The little thing balanced on the back of her scooter.  I hope she didn\’t hit a bump and the poor little thing bounced off.  We didn\’t see it down the road so it must have survived.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I had a migraine. I went to bed for the afternoon.

Later in the evening my migraine had eased off a little allowing me to pack up my bags ready for the early start tomorrow morning.  Checking my email, my neighbour Charity, who is keeping an eye on our place for us, had sent me a photo of the snowdrops I had planted – Spring is coming to Barrie Ontario. 

March 26, 2017

Why did we choose to cycle to Kanchanaburi? We needed to go somewhere after our week in Rayong as we still had ten days before our flight and didn’t want to spend 10 days in Bangkok. Why Kanchanaburi? well it is where the Bridge Over the River Kwai is located. There are other things to see in the area and it is only 145 kms from Bangkok. The other added bonus is that there is a train station and we were hoping to get the train to Bangkok.

We had a lazy start to the day with a full-cooked breakfast at a little place near the guesthouse. We walked the 700 metres to the train station to ask if the bikes could go on the train. The lady at the counter said yes they could. Yeah, finally we can put the bikes on the train, we don’t have to cycle in the mayhem of Bangkok and we can go back to the Wats that we passed on the way to Kanchanaburi, and take an extra rest day here.

After we got the good news about the bikes, we headed out on our discovery of the history of the Bridge Over the Kwai and the “Death Railway”. We first visited the war cemetery.

The Japanese used prisoners of war and civilian labour to build a military supply rail line from Burma to Thailand. Fifteen thousand prisoners of war and 100,000 civilians died as a result of sickness, malnutrition, exhaustion and mistreatment. More than 5,000 commonwealth and 1,800 Dutch are commemorated in this cemetery.

The names of 300 men were commemorated on a wall, these were men that had been cremated due to disease and their ashes were placed in a mass grave.

The initial cemetery had white crosses, now they have small plaques with name, rank and age and on some of them a message from a relative.

The cemetery is very well maintained with small flowers or shrubs around each grave marker. A lot of these soldiers were over the age of 30 and were posted to Malaysia or the Far East as it was referred to back then.

I took this photo as my Dad’s middle name is Shelton (his Mum’s maiden name) and Dad also served in the Royal Artillery.

We then did a very foolish thing. We walked to the Bridge. It was hot, the high 30’s and we walked over 3kms to the bridge. We thought it was only 1.5 ks from the cemetery. It wasn’t and we were both a little grumpy by the time we got to the bridge.

However, once we cooled down a little, with an iced tea, we enjoyed walking over the bridge.

The odd thing is the bridge was not built over the River Kwai, it was built over the Mae Klong River. However, after the movie came out the savvy Thai’s changed the name of the Mae Klong River to the Kwai Yai River. The bridge hadn’t moved, the name of the river changed!

The bridge is still an active railroad. There are signs on the bridge warning you to get out of the way if a train is coming. There were areas where you could stand. Fortunately, there are only a couple of trains a day so the risk of being run over by a train was slight.

The middle spans of the bridge were destroyed by allied bombers. The middle two spans were rebuilt with square spans, the rest of the bridge had curved spans.

There were a lot of tourists visiting the area, it was very busy with lots of food stands and souvenir stands, floating restaurants and a small vege market.

We were off the bridge when the train came.

Near the bridge was a Chinese Wat, it was very colourful and peaceful. I think we were the only westerners in the area. Most of the other tourists wandered half-way across the bridge and didn’t investigate the Wat.

There was a small tribute to the Chinese soldiers who lost their lives building the railway as well. China Expeditionary Force Memorial Monument.

Ralf spotted a bee hive. Of course, he had to go and investigate. My daft hubby who is allergic to bee stings, gets close up and personal with a hive. Fortunately it was dormant!

As we headed back over the bridge we listened to this little busker. On her sign it said for education. Ralf gave her some money, the change in his pocket about 15 Baht (about 60 cents). He should have given her more than that to keep her in school she had a dreadful voice, but she sang with gusto.

There is a museum near the bridge which we visited. Not worth spending the 40 baht for that museum. It was a little higgledy piggledy with no real rhyme or reason to the displays. Some had displays of the various heads of states during the second world war and a history of each one, then there was another display of Thai leaders dating back to 1590. It needed some organization and cleaning.

In the courtyard there was some jade jewelry being sold and this soap carver was working. He did some lovely work, but I didn’t get the significance a soap carver and a war museum.

We took a tuk tuk back to the guesthouse, where we enjoyed a cold beer before going back to the vegetarian restaurant for a good meal.

When we booked this place we had the choice of staying in the rooms on the river or the room near the reception.

I am glad we choose the room near the lobby as when the thunder storm started around 9:30 p.m. the rain would have been very loud on the tin roof.

March 25, 2017

 A lovely ride today. Ralf had planned the route and added points at each Wat so that maps.me saved the route and we were able to follow the route better.  It was a little longer following the scenic route as opposed to the straight lines of the highway, but it was much more enjoyable.

We headed away from route 323 towards Ban Pong. Ban Pong is a large town that is clean and very nice.

We cycled through rural countryside and along the Mae Klong River for about 30 kilometres. We had to join the highway for about 1.5 kms and we were able to get back onto rural routes again.

What a day for Wats.

We came upon this very old Wat, dating back to 711. The “newer” Wat was 100 years old. As we were investigating the area, a fella on a motorbike came up to me and asked where we were from. He used google translate to “talk” to me. I asked him a lot of questions about the Wat and he was able to answer them with the translator on his phone!!

It seems as if there is no money to put into old Wats, they let them just decay, but lots of money to put into new Wats.

He showed us different eras of grave stones as we walked towards the river. I almost jumped out of my skin when the firecrackers started to go off. Apparently the fireworks are to honour the dead. His family were at one of the family grave sites honouring the ancestors. As were making our way back out to the main Wat, the family gave us some fruit – papaya, oranges and apricots. They directed us to the right road and we were off again.

While we were at the Wat we chatted to a Dutch man who told us about two other Wats that were close to Kanchanaburi that was well worth going to see when we were in the area.

Little did we know that we would be cycling right by them. We stopped to take some photos and decided that if we can get a train to Bangkok we will spend another day in Kanchanburi and cycle back to these Wats. The temperature was getting hotter and we wanted to get into Kanchanaburi and our air-conditioned room. The temperature today topped out at 40 degrees, the average temperature was 33.5!

We came across an Ancient Monument site, Pong Tuk is believed to be the location of an ancient site during the Dvaravati period in the 11^th Buddhist Century. The rocks were used as Buddhist gongs so I banged on them.

 The guest house we are staying at is indoor camping again, basic room and a bucket to flush the toilet. There are a lot of restaurants in the neighbourhood where we can eat, at least we are not eating noodles.

While Ralf was showering, I headed out to buy a couple of beers. Dam too early, back to not being able to buy alcohol between 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. After we showered  we headed out to a bar for beer and something to eat. Apparently you can buy beer at a bar but not at a supermarket. We found a bar called “Aussie Rules” bar which had Aussie Rules Football on the Television. Here we are in Thailand drinking beer in an Aussie bar watching Aussie Rules football, listening to Australian accents, very weird.

We relaxed for a couple of hours and then wandered down the street and had a light meal at a Vegetarian restaurant, it was really good and we will eat there again.

We have decided to take the train into Bangkok, if we can get our bikes on the train and we know how lucky we have been doing that. If not we will take the bus or a private taxi. We booked our hotel for Bangkok. Dear god I hope it is not indoor camping, it looks nice but photos do lie!!

March 24, 2017

We were up early and said our thanks and farewells to Chay and Mae.

We made the U-turn and headed up the 3310. Normally any road that has 4-digits should be a quieter road, but not in this area of Thailand. We made it past the very large Mahidol university and headed on to quieter roads.

The roads that we followed today were the ones suggested by the guy yesterday. It was a nice rural route.  We had to stop a few times to check the iPad for the route. We did really well and only managed to take two wrong turns. Ralf is really frustrated about his Garmin not working. I must admit when it is working it makes life so much easier. We only have a couple of days left of cycling in Thailand, I think we will have to put up with stopping and checking the iPad.

Although it was a nice quiet route, Ralf only took a few photos.

Now I have to ask a question regarding wind-mill spotting – Do you think this is fair? Ralf is cycling behind me and obviously can see over my head, I am looking at a flower display and he calls a wind-mill. This is what he spotted!! Do you see the windmill, because I certainly didn’t until I saw it from this direction!

It is no wonder he has spotted 36 windmills to my 21. I am catching up with him, but when he sneakily spots wind-mills like this one, I don’t know what I can do!!

We are indoor camping again. The room isn’t too bad, but we are eating noodles and tuna fro dinner as there is nothing else in the area. We bought a tin of tuna that had peppers and basil as a sauce. My god, it was spicy!

An early night tonight, as we are heading on quieter roads again tomorrow to Kanchanaburi. We are taking the scenic route which adds about 10 kms to the trip. We think it will be worth it over riding on the 325 a busy two-lane highway.

March 23, 2017

After a good nights sleep we headed out on another day of cycling. The first 20 kms were in busy rush hour traffic and I lost it. For some unknown reason, I just couldn’t cope with the traffic today. Too many cars travelling at speed, motorbikes all over the place and the “truck” taxis not taking any notice of what was in front of them, along side them or behind them. A truck taxi is a pick-up truck that has bench seats and a tarp cover on top. They stop to pick-up fares from whoever flags them down. They were an absolute nightmare. We made a wrong turn and I had a minor melt-down, at that point I was ready to turn the bikes around and go to the airport and find a plane out of here.

Ralf found us a relatively quiet route around Bangkok which involved crossing a river on a ferry.

At one point we took a trail which lead us along a raised concrete path next to a canal. We decided to walk the 1.5 kms along this path as motorbikes and scooters were also using the path. It was very narrow and no guard rail. It made a change from riding along a highway.

The path finished  at a lovely Wat.

Neither of us enjoyed the ride today. Ralf’s Garmin gave up the ghost and wasn’t any help at all in finding our route or a hotel for the night. We had to keep stopping and checking the IPad and maps.me to ensure that we were on the right route.

Eventually we got to the busy Highway 4 and stopped at a 7Eleven for a cold drink. Our first \”Road Angel\” came over to ask us if we needed any help.  He saw us checking the iPad again for the route.  He was a cyclist who had recently cycled to Kanchanaburi and gave us a route for tomorrow that would keep us off the Highway, it may add a few miles but I think it will be worth it. He wished us luck with our trip.

We found a bicycle shop and asked if they knew where there was a motel/hotel for us to stay. They directed us to the AP Apartments. I checked out two rooms, both of them had dirty bathrooms and although we were both hot and tired I didn’t want to “indoor camp” again. Ralf was ready to suck it up, but I said no, especially when he told me the bikes would be left outside.  We cycled back towards a hotel we had passed. A couple in a car with a baby waved at us, we waved back and continued our search for a hotel.

I checked out another hotel In-Trend Hotel, I think this was a “love” motel. Each of the rooms had a theme to them. It was clean but we had one more to check out. As we left the premises of the hotel, the couple with the baby were standing there.   Although we were both hot and tired I knew they wanted to chat, I stopped and said hello.

These were our second Road Angels – and these were real angels. Mae asked if we were looking for a hotel. We said yes. She offered for us to stay at her house. “My husband owns a bike shop and is the authorized dealer for Arkel panniers in Thailand, we noticed you have Arkel panniers and wanted to talk to you”.

I didn’t give Ralf an option I said we would love to stay. Thank-you. She told her husband to take a motor-bike taxi to show us the way to the house and she would drive the car. Three kilometres of riding down Highway 4 on the wrong side of the road, into traffic!! I thought this is the day I am going to die! The motor-bike taxi was in front “blocking” the traffic.

We arrived at the bike shop, Chay specializes in providing gear for touring cyclists – he has Arkel panniers, Brooks saddles and Keen sandals. A great little shop. We headed to their house where we were welcomed by their little boy Wolf and Mae’s Mom. She showed us the room, turned on the air-conditioning in the room and showed us the shower. She let us do laundry and after we had spent some time finding a hotel for tomorrow night we went out to a famous Pad Thai restaurant in the area. She wouldn’t let us pay, so Ralf bought dessert to bring back to the house.

Mae is a Pharmacist and Chay is an architect. He opened the bike shop as a hobby, but it is taking more time. They have two children a boy (Wolf) 2 years old and a little girl (her name means Moon) 8 months old. The little girl was fascinated by Ralf’s beard.

The little boy was interested in the colour of my hair.  He already knows colours in English, but couldn\’t quite decide what colour my hair was.  If I only knew what colour my hair is I would have told him, but it is very light at the moment and add the grey – it is an interesting colour.

Just when we needed it – the kindness of strangers happens again.