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I had crossed from Cambodia into Thailand the previous night and had cycled until it got dark before finding somewhere to sleep. The place that I found had a battered washing machine which they let me use for free. The outside was a bit ropey but the inside was clean, and my washing came out of it smelling much better than they went in. This was the first real wash that they had had in over 2 weeks.

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My routine at the end of each day is to wash the clothes that I have cycled in by hand. This is much easier to do when staying with locals as they will have a washing area somewhere just outside the house. It normally consists of large stone jars full of fresh water and a metal bowl to do your washing in. In hotels, it gets a bit more tricky as the sinks do not normally have plugs so you lose the soap too quickly. Instead, it is easier to use the rubbish bin that is in the room so that your clothes get a good soaking. The high life of a cyclist….

Trat, the nearest large town to the border, was where I was headed the next morning. It was not far, about 70km and the road followed the sea. This part of the coastline is not the white sand beaches and turquoise oceans that you associate with Thailand – it is more a working coastline with lots of fish farms, coconut plantations and ‘wild’ beaches. To be honest, this is more my cup of tea – there really are no tourists and all the paraphernalia which you associate with it – jet skis, loud music and sex tourists – maybe I’m just getting old, but I prefer the simple life and that really is what a bike gives you. You really can get away from the maddening crowds and just pitch your tent in a coconut plantation. Plus, the beaches are not too shabby:

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All along the road were fish drying tin the sun. I think it must have been last nights catch. As most people do not have refrigerators, or a way of storing the fish, they are dried in the sun. Each 100km stretch of road that I have cycled so far seems to have food and produce associated with it – be it dragon fruit plantations, coconut palms, fish farms, padi fields or salt lakes. You never quite see the transition point but before you know it everywhere you look you find roadside sellers selling whatever that area produces.

My view today was dried fish of which there seemed to be 3 varieties:

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Larger fish, which were similar in texture and taste to mackerel, smaller sprats, which would be added to dishes such as stir fried rice and pad thai, and then a brown fish meal type affair. I’m not sure what this is used for as I have not seen it being sold but I think that it is the smaller sprats minced up into a paste.

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Around lunchtime I pulled off the road and went for a swim with the fishermen.

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The video below explains the scene much better than I can describe it in words so please take a look.

A huge thank you to the man whose property I was effectively trespassing on to get to the beach let me use his shower to get cleaned up afterwards as there is nothing worse than cycling in salty clothes – before you know it parts that shall not be mentioned would be rubbed raw.

When I set out on this trip my plan was to go to one of the islands on route for a bit of beach time. The more I think about it the less attractive this really is. I am sat writing this on a beach in a national park with a whole beach to myself so not sure I would really want to trade this for an island beach where people ‘fight’ for their slice of paradise and often pay through the nose for it

Jesus, I’ve just had the fright of my life. I was literally typing away on my laptop having stopped by the beach when a snake crawled on to the table that I was sat at.

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I will add a video link here once I leave the national park and have some decent wifi to upload it. I’m just glad that he decided to crawl up the table and not my leg. I think that I may zip my tent up tonight.

Now where was I before I got sidetracked, although that does kind of summarise my cycling days – I get lost in different adventures but always end up somewhere at the end of the day which kind of is heading in the direction I want to go.

By nightfall I had reached the nearest town to the border – Trat. It is not really famous for anything just a lovely small town with teak shophouses and genuine small-town living. The first thing I did after spending a week in the Cardamom Mountains was head for the night market to get some food. Every town in Thailand has one of these in some form or another and there was literally food as far as I could see. The hardest bit was actually choosing what to eat:

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Just so that you can appreciate the vast variety of food on offer take a look at this video:

The other thing that you have in Thailand virtually every 1km or so is a 7 – 11 which means you can always buy the basics – pot noodle, milk, tea bags etc.

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The prices that they charge are a few baht more than the local shops but the benefit is that they have everthig you need and this can save a considerable amount of time when you are on the road as you pull over and 2 minutes later are back pedaling. On days when I am cycling +100 km I will use the 7-11’s as my pit stops. On more leisurely cycling days I tend to use the local shops more.

I had not had a day the bike for over a week and after walking around the town I decided that it had a lovely feel to it and decided that I would spend the next day here. There was also a famous Wat (pagoda) that I wanted to go to which was about 5km outside the town which would be a lovely walk. I knew that Fraser and Trinh were about a day behind me and this would probably be my last opportunity to see them for a few years and so staying in the town an extra day would be a win-win all round.

The following morning I decided to go and get a trim of everything – my beard, my hair, my ears (ask my wife how hairy my ears get – it is something that she has issues with….). Like most people I normally get a monthly trim on the old bonnet but as I was on the road I decided to get it all cut off as this is so much easier to deal with – no need for shampoo and you can easily ‘freshen up’ with sea water. It is also much cooler at night time.

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The pagoda that I wanted to visit was called Wat Bupharam which is the oldest temple in Trat, established around 500 years ago. It is famed to have the oldest wooden wihaan in Thailand. All of the buildings were locked but when I was there a group of Thai people turned up in a fancy 4 wheel drive and were being shown around by one of the monks. Never one to miss an opportunity I too joined them as they were shown around. The insides of the wihaan’s were simply stunning:

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The top of the wall and ceilings in each of the buildings was beautifully decorated with hand painted figures. I am not sure what each of these images represent but they were stunning.

One of the weirdest things here was the concrete animals and statues sitting around depicting scenes of drinking and smoking with empty beer and wine bottles at their feet:

I asked one of the monks about this and I think that what he was trying to tell me was that the scenes are supposed to teach you that if you take part in such practices then you are no better than dogs, although this translation may not be correct as even though I must have visited Thailand more than 20 times my Thai is still woeful.

The whole time that I was at the Wat in the middle of the lawn area I had seen a monk doing something on the ground and so I went across to see what he ws doing and this really amazed me – he was literally weeding the path area by hand, literally picking each blade of grass and weed one at a time:

It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon so peaceful and quiet that I literally lost all track of time and it was dark by the time I had walked the 5km back into town. By this time Fraser and the pocket rocket (as Trinh is now known after her scapades in the Cardamom Mountains) had caught me back up and so I met them for dinner and a few beers.

This literally would be the last time that I would see the pair of them for at least a few years, unless they catch a bus and pass me which I very much doubt, so the following morning there was just time after breakfast to record a little message saying goodbye and good luck.

The road out of Trat took me past Namtok Phliu National Park and as I had been on the bike for a couple of weeks it was time to go and give my feet a bit of spring cleaning.

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Don’t worry if you are not sure what I am talking about as all will be revealed in the video below:

A great way to spend a few hours but I was still about 300 km shy of Bangkok and wanted to get there in a couple of days’ time, and so it was time to get my head down and get on with a couple of long days in the saddle.

My route took me up through the centre away from the coast and there really is not much to see along the way which suited my purposes fine. Each day I would just cycle until without really stopping anywhere en route and when it got dark I would just find a cheap roadside guesthouse. As it is rainy season for the first time this trip I was really starting to see the mosquitos at night time and so it was time to break out the mosquito net:

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As I am now a few weeks into this trip my days are starting to show some resemblance of a pattern. My breakfast routine has become that the first thing I do is pack up and get on the road. I then find somewhere with a nice view to sit and get a brew on and make a pot noodle which keeps the wolf from the door. Then I get back on the road and stop after about an hour of cycling for some carbs to feed the legs, which is normally rice and veggies at a road side shack. This is washed down with an iced coffee.

As I was literally cycling up dual carriageways on my route to Bangkok then finding somewhere with a view was fairly difficult and so I would get a brew and pot noodle on before heading out:

Not quite the beautiful view that I have become used to but when needs must then you just get on with it. The nearer that I got to Bangkok the bigger the roads got. When I was cycling through the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia my only traffic on the roads was a few cows, not here though as I literally was cycling down what can be best described as a motorway:

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Even on roads such as this the over whelming generosity that I have encountered since day 1 on this trip was once again repeated. This guy literally ran down the road shouting at me to stop so that he could give me some water, fruit and a coffee.

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I am not sure what these guys were doing but it seemed to involve flagging down passerby’s to give them free food and drinks.

Even on busy roads such as this my day is full of little sketches that are snapshots of people’s lifes which I am lucky enough to catch on film. The video below is of the final 60km stretch of my cycle into central Bangkok – the roads were fast and busy with bouncing bridges, dancing dragon’s and a spot of Adele – all in a day’s riding.  (The video below may not play in your country due to youtube copyright issues about Adele and I having a sing song.  If it won’t play then click the second video)

The video below does not include the Adele soundtrack:

I had now covered over 300 km in a couple of days and so it was time to let my hair down, if I still had any that is, and enjoy a couple of days off the bike. My host in Bangkok would be the delightful David Nevin who was the parent of a student who I used to teach in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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If you watched the video above you will know that David had cycled out to meet me and guide me to his beautiful home which is near to On Nut MRT station. For those of you following along on my facebook page (if not check out my updates each day here – www.facebook.com/cyclingstew ) will already know that what started as a quiet night with a bite to eat and a cup of tea turned into an evening of drinking and dancing:

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After a heavy night of partying in Bangkok my fantastic host David Nevin took me to a little oasis in the very heart of downtown Bangkok – The British Club. (http://www.britishclubbangkok.org/)

Inside the beautiful clubhouse building you find ‘the Churchill Bar’, the ‘1910’ Balcony bar and it even has a snooker table. Outside are manicured lawns, tennis courts, cricket nets and a 25m pool – a little slice of blighty in downtown Bangkok.

This was the perfect cure for a hangover and we spent the whole day here relaxing, eating, swimming and generally chilling. A brilliant way to spend my day off the bike. In fact, it was so good we spent the evening there too and we were joined for dinner by Nils who is a friend of David.

Thank you David for making my stay in Bangkok so memorable and opening your beautiful home to me.

After a couple of fantastic nights in Bangkok it was time to bid farewell to David and head out on my route down the ‘beach’ coast of Thailand towards Malaysia. What I was most looking forward to on this leg of the journey was really getting away from all of the hustle and bust and hitting the National Parks where I would mainly camp under the stars. As my encounter with the snake as I was writing this post shows the coast south of Bangkok soon gets ‘wild’ very quickly.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading and watching about my cycle ride towards Bangkok, and if so then drop me a line to say hi every now and again.

Cheers

Stewart

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Sawadee Kap Thailand (Hello Thailand)
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