10/3/25
It was a stupidly delicious sleep. We had lulled ourselves into complete relaxation the day before and didn’t even wake up for the sunrise like we usually do. Immediately we felt disappointed to be leaving, like another day would solve all problems. We came to the conclusion that we would probably always want one more day here. The charms of Ko Phayam are not in its specialness but rather in the complete lack of anything to do. Such that even busy people relent and feel peaceful.
We still had until 11am before we had to leave our room. So we enjoyed it. Lying in the hammock. A quick dip in the ocean. Some coffee and then some overnight oats. Alas it was soon time to leave. It took all of 30 minutes and we were tidied away and strolling the bikes round to the reception. We were going to stay there until it was time to get the boat at 3pm. It was no surprise to Paul and his family. We played some pool and researched the next part of our journey.
At around 1pm we thought we’d make our way to the pier. Rather than the annoyingly steep main road we’d arrived on,we found there was a decent track that would take us past the temple and deliver us to the pier. We were surprised how quickly we made it. The temple looked interesting, half up some stairs to our right, half on the end of a boardwalk out to see. We felt torn but decided against exploring it fully. Potentially an error of judgement but we weren’t in the mood.
Instead we used the time to grab some food. Crazily, we went to a place that sold sushi. A complete change of cuisine. We ordered two small dishes, once we’d confirmed that we could remove the mayonnaise to make them vegan. They actually made it to order. It was a deliciously simple meal that we could have eaten ten of.
By now it was 2:30pm and we rolled back to the ferry and up the concrete pier. There were people already on board and they were loading bits and bobs. The woman in charge asked us to wait, but we didn’t know why. After watching a lot more motorcycles and scooters being rolled on, we approached the woman again, anxious that we were the only ones being asked to hang back.
It was easier to get the bikes on this time. The water was at the perfect height so the boat was level with the pier. When we had got off, the boat had been a good 1.5m higher, and it had been a mammoth task – also impossible to photograph – due to the frenetic activity. The sea was far more choppy too and we immediately felt our sea legs kicking in as we tried to secure the bikes without stacking it.
We took our seats in the blue pews, and watched one of the workers tie all the motorbikes to a car engine lying in the middle of the deck. It didn’t seem like a particularly useful strategy but what do we know? The journey was even more tiring now it was happening in the afternoon. There was no good day to leave Ko Phayam on the slow boat, it only ever departs at 3pm. Perhaps they’d fixed the engine and it would be a little faster though.
It felt faster and it was faster. The boat slowly dragged itself through the water and back to the mainland. A splattering of rain hit us in the side and face, spurred on by the wind. It was really refreshing, especially once we remembered it would evaporate very quickly. It was easy to roll the bikes off the 4th time. We quickly changed into our bib shorts and hit the road.
It was about an hour till sunset as we tried to make haste along the dual carriageway back from the pier into town. It was about 5 kilometres. There were a pleasing number of bicycles now cruising around. We hadn’t seen so many before. Young people, old people. We assumed they were cycling around now that it was cool. As we passed a large market we longed to stop and peruse but knew it would take our journey beyond the remaining light.
Our ambition was to get outside Ranong so we could get away easily and early to start the climbing that would take us towards Chumphon. It was about 130km in total, so we would split it over 2 days. The city was really busy. A lot of traffic moving around at this time of day. We weren’t used to it, but everyone drove really sensibly and gave us plenty of room.
Once we had met the 4 again and checked where we could get a couple of bits for dinner we relaxed. We found a lady selling mangos then at a little shop we bought some rice noodles, coconut milk and peanuts. Opposite a really prominent temple we bought some little Thai bananas from a woman whose sons sat next to her fanning the meat to keep the flies away.
The resort we’d pinpointed for the night was next to the river. A comfortable room, with air conditioning and some hot water available 100m away. It felt like a really odd day. The juxtaposition of the start and end made us feel like we didn’t know what we were doing. We ate our noodles with some of the mushroom soy sauce we still had knocking around, and some peanuts and coconut milk.
Afterwards we had mango with rice noodles and coconut milk. We’d realised earlier on that we’d forgotten to watch the amazingness that is the apprentice. So we watched that and ate some more peanuts and raisins. It felt a little weird to know that we’d be back in the saddle again soon.
Surly They Won't Make It 