18/3/25
We still woke up at 5:45am but didn’t leave as early. It took a bit longer to get going this morning. Firstly, we hadn’t planned a route on the garmin for the day, that was top priority. We weren’t quite sure how far we were gonna make it. We already felt quite tired, and a bit rundown. Then Frankie had some terrible news about her family dog, Mindy. She’d sadly passed away the day before.
By the time we got going it was 7:15am. We had to head back the way we came. Bang Pu was a dead end. Immediately we were taken aback by how warm the air was so early. We presumed the radiation of heat from the desolated fishing lake area was to blame. The 4020 was a potentially quiet single carriageway but it was unsurprisingly undergoing extensive roadworks. Either side every road was being widened. It was happening on every viable road. There were nice karsts on each side. It was funny how quickly we’d become accustomed to their presence. They were tremendous formations of prominent limestone.
We entered an urbanised area. The ability of the bird calls to rise above the scooters and cars was impressive. We soon turned off this now busier road towards the beach. We weren’t following an innovative new route. This part of Thailand is very well beaten and there were plenty of examples of routes to find. Coming up fast behind us was a couple of Finnish leisure cyclists.
Tanya and her partner Renio lived here half the year. We rode with them for a few kilometres. They kept us pacing a bit faster. It was nice to get some miles under the belt while engaged in conversation. They ran a business which allowed them to spend Finnish winter in Thailand. They were full of suggestions for nice places to visit, both in Hua Hin and Bangkok.
We’d been riding along the beachfront. We left our new friends at the corner, their daily ride ended here. The road swung to the left around the base of a promontory karst. We climbed a small but steep hill. As we were dropping down the other side we bumped into another new friend, Brian.
Brian was an American who had been living in Chang Mai for the last three years. He was a fascinating guy. At 76 years old, he’d become addicted to cycle touring after he’d been unable to swim due to shoulder joint replacement surgery. He had also lived in so many different places around the world Including Brazil and Iran. He was also a maths teacher.
We had a wonderful exchange over the course of 20 minutes or so. It was often tough to get the balance right between meeting fellow cyclists going the other way and maintaining a good pace. We felt like the timings were organically right with Brian. It was 9am and getting fairly warm. We were thankful for the slight breeze in our faces. Brian had told us that this area was populated by many cyclists. He wasn’t wrong, we saw dozens as time went on.
Beach Road continued for miles and miles. Incidentally it was on the edge of perfect beach. Out to sea looked hazy. Otherworldly. Like the water just dropped off a huge waterfall without so much of a droplet spraying. In places we passed mounds of hounds. Luckily, none of them were interested in us. At the end of this section of beach road, we met a Thai couple who asked us about our journey. They were completely flummoxed by what we were doing but spoke great English.
We’d hoped to stop for some food but every stall had been fish. The road left the beach and went past a temple with large pretty statues of garudas. Then it slalomed past a karst before we slalomed past some hounds.
There continued to be many, many resorts. Tens of them. Some of them looked extremely fancy. We’d noticed there were more Thai people and this tallied with what Tanya and Renio had told us: now was the Thai summer holidays. Our peaceful journey was interrupted by a western-looking road cyclist saying ‘morning’ like he was passing us on Box Hill.
This incredibly touristy place didn’t feel like it had the nice Thai vibe. It felt more curated. We turned off the now monotonous beach road early and bought a watermelon. Stopped under the shelter of a tree, in front of a closed motorcycle garage, Frankie had a couple of slices. Jonathan ate the rest of it. We popped into a 7-Eleven for some cold water. Frankie spotted some pancakes over the road. A mix of toppings was availed to us, chives, sweetcorn, coconut and both orange and purple sweet potato. What a treat.
We left the town and were back on what was fondly known as the scenic route. This meant there was a cycle lane. But it was just the same hard shoulder with a painted cyclist in it. The 2021 wasn’t scenic enough to have any shade. We started pushing uphill over the highest point of the day, a mere 40m or so.
Once down again we found ourselves crossing the railway on yet another gigantic U-shaped concrete structure. We were about to finally succumb to the necessity of highway four when a lovely cyclepath appeared alongside it. Inevitably it had signs that said ‘Bike only’, but there were scooters. We actually don’t mind. If they didn’t scoot, it would be covered in crap. The guy with the sidecar was taking the mick though.
We briefly stopped at a petrol station to use the toilet and book a hotel, out of the hundreds available, in Hua Hin. The Sun was already intense again by 11:30am. We couldn’t help but hope that the trial by heat would be over soon. The quest to avoid highway 4 took us down a possibly worse road. It was narrow and busy. A lot of junctions and movements to stay vigilant for. There was a temple perched on a hill above us. It looked like it would be a mighty climb in the hot Sun, but it wasn’t even within a cave, so we obviously didn’t stop.
Eventually we were crammed on the, now infamous, highway 4. It was chaotic to say the least. The organised kind. Well, kind of. We had to remain extremely focused for 3.8km. All the while there were innumerable things happening in every direction. This included a huge television advertisement board. Mainly with unrealistically pale skinned Thai people. The road seemed to get quieter the further we went. Eventually we turned off, and were then subjected to yet another concrete u-shaped railway crossing.
The road we joined on the east side of the tracks was an oddly curvy dual carriageway. We quickly realised there was a quieter single width road on the other side of the drainage channel. There seemed to be regular bridges of varying quality. We were just about to visit a 7-eleven for some water, when we spied a drinking water machine. We’d only started seeing them far more frequently in the past day or so. We felt stupid not having found them earlier. 1baht a litre instead of 9.
The hotel was a couple of junctions away. It looked a little grander and nicer than we were expecting. It felt like an odd place to have a hotel. We felt like we’d almost left the city. It even had a security guard. Checking in was almost like an interview. Not just because the receptionists thought the were insane. They had a table for us to sit at while they copied our passports and we paid them 600 baht.
The room was smart and clean. We ordered some food on ‘foodpanda’ for the first time. We don’t even order takeout at home. But there was a vegan Thai restaurant several kilometres away. Then we went to the pool where we immediately met an English man from Worcester. Nice chap. He seemed eager to find the will to stop drinking and be healthier. We don’t enjoy making people feel bad about themselves.
The food soon arrived on a scooter. Two big bags of it. We may have over ordered. We said goodbye to our new friend and went to our room. It even had a little ‘kitchen’ on the balcony that was being cooked by the air conditioning unit. Microwave and all. Encouraged about our capacity to eat in the room we enjoyed a little feast. And left enough for a second feast later.
We felt it would be amiss of us not to enjoy the swimming pool some more. The Sun had almost vanished behind the hotel so it was rather pleasant. We ruminated on whether to stay an extra night. The price and comfortability was right. In the end we realised we wouldn’t be thinking about it so much if we weren’t desperate for a rest.
There was nothing marked on google but our English pal had told us there was a shop that ‘did everything’ round the corner. From beer to haircuts. It seemed to do just that. But we sufficed with some snacks. We also visited the fruit stall we’d seen at the bottom of the road for some mangos.
When we got back we ate another feast. The television even let us sign with our Thai Netflix account. So we started watching Knight and Day, as well as Young Sheldon. The extra rice we’d ordered was consumed as mango sticky rice. We would try to do nothing tomorrow.
