It’s Monday today and Thailand was recovering from the lifting of an alcohol curfew and an election. I was recovering from four consecutive days of riding at the start of a big trip. Regardless, we were certainly in some impatient Monday morning traffic when leaving Phimai.
The day had started with the chance meeting with Frank van Rijn, a Dutchman who seems to have ridden everywhere. He’s written 17 books about his travels, so he’s definitely been to a few places. It’s a pity we hadn’t met him earlier as he has a few stories to tell – including riding the Gunbarrel highway in remote Australia. I can’t believe anyone would do that, especially in summer. And yes, he wrote a book about his time in Aus.
We got underway and in the excitement of meeting Frank and our hosts providing drinking water for us, I forgot to return the room key. They messaged me but we were 30kms down the road. I’d later post it back.
Ok, we left Phimai, waggled around a bit then got onto a road that for the next 20kms was gunbarrel straight. There … I’ve used gunbarrel twice, ok three times, in the same blog post. A world first ?
We tried to avoid the traffic by riding on the small road on the other side of the canal a few times, but each time, it deteriorated into a goat track. So we’d go back to the main road at the next bridge, then get bored with it and so on …
We eventually sat at a petrol station and had a can of latte each, thinking this was the only coffee we’d get in this town. Riding around the corner, we discovered a couple of coffee shops.
After this, our roads became the winding, flat, crumbling concrete roads that you expect in this part of the world – relaxing, if a little bumpy.
Lunch was a Kuay Teow / noodle soup which was nice, but not up to the standard of previous lunches.
The highlight of the day was Miles buying a hat. There’s not much need of a helmet on these quiet roads, so it was like fashions in the field as we set off. I took out my surf hat and it worked very well. Tied down, no flapping …
We soon arrived in the bustling and nice town of Phutthaisong, found the hotel and cleaned up. When the day started to cool, we went back to town to get dinner and breakfast goodies, then ate in the outdoor area at the hotel.