Cycle Touring Thailand: Cycling Lang Suan

January 14th Lang Suan - Surat Thani 138km

Still loving the hot5el rooms and cooked breakfast compared to camping. We might not be staying in Hiltons but they are far more comfortable than a 2 man tent and a blow up bed!

My dashboard

View at breakfast

Better for firewood than sunbathing

Today we had the bikes packed and ready to go before breakfast so we ate and left. The directions looked simple to follow however we still managed to ride down 4 wrong roads one after the other, the blackberry wanted to send us through the estuary without a bridge. From here on we had less than a dozen turns to make before Surat Thani with the start of the route following the coast and the remainder on main roads which were surprisingly empty.

Food was an issue today or more to the point lack of it. The blackberry had a little wobble and said we were about to come to a town, we rode through a few buildings with the odd shop deciding to wait for the main town. I noticed after a few minutes it wasn't updating our location so after a bit of button pushing it decided that we had passed the town, bugger.

So the hunt started for a place that wouldn't feed Maria meat, we were armed with a piece of paper stating rice and vegetables written in Thai. 10km passed before we found anything close, noodles, bean sprouts and a few veg. We ordered 2 and Maria crossed the road to buy bananas, then before I could stop her the vendor scooped a large ladle full of manky mystery meat broth onto one of the noodles. Now I can eat almost anything but after separating 2 fork fulls of noodles from the bowl I couldn't eat any more. Maria was fine with the unpolluted noodles!

As we rode on I had to use the dog deterrent twice as we were pursued by some fairly quick dogs who had no trouble running at nearly 30kph. We have 2 dog deterrents, the first is a cap gun that Maria carries with the thinking the noise will scare them off. The downside is it is unreliable with sometimes nothing more than a fizz and a bit of smoke, this obviously happens just when you need it! The second line of defence is an airsoft bb gun shooting little plastic bbs, not enough to cause any damage but stings a little on bare flesh I have tried it! Well I don't think I actually hit either of the mutts I shot at as shooting a moving target whilst riding a bike is tricky but I managed to get close enough to make them stop in their tracks!

Armed and not at all dangerous!

Now came the rain! If I were in a desert for a couple of weeks it would start to pour down I am sure. We got well and truly soaked, at least it was warm. We met a young guy sheltering from the rain, he was cycling in the other direction and had ridden from Bali via Singapore and Malasia.

Lunch was the next food issue, Maria was flagging and needed a feed. This time rice and veg were on the cards but we only got one little bowl of veg, we tried to no avail to get another portion of veg. So steamed rice for me then, Maria was alright though!

We finally passed a 108 store (like a 7/11 but not as good) so a bag of crisps and a pack of Tim Tams gave me energy.

4.30pm and we finally got to the hotel and what a lovely place it is. 770baht a night including breakfast, that's 15.50gbp! Now the location is rubbish on a busy road next to a shopping mall but once inside the hotel you would never know.