Just a short blog entry today, to let you know I’m still alive and well. Nicola joined me at Bangkok airport, and after a few days taking part in the Khao San circus, we moved on south. Traffic in Bangkok is considerate, but heavy, so I thought it better for us to get a train, rather than Nic having to deal with it all first up. Turned out to take all day on the train – I could have ridden to Phetchaburi in 5 hours. But no matter.
After looking at the monkeys in Phetchaburi – and again later in Prachuap Khiri Khan – we headed south. The roads are smooth, the shoulder is wide, and there are great services stops every 10km. Just a bit too much traffic, but it could be a lot worse. We went down via various beach places, with the highlight being Bang Saphan. Archetypal beach bungalows and bars, almost no-one there. Fantastic. The riding highlight was when Nicola rode over a 5 foot snake, gave a big scream, and rode off faster than I thought possible. The snake was already dead, but she wasn’t looking back to see that. I was just too busy laughing.
We then came over to Ko Tao, an island with great diving all around. In a weird moment, I met a Swiss girl whom I last met in Uzbekistan in June, at Bahodir’s in Samarkand. We looked at each other for a minute, then both said “Aren’t you…?” Small world. We had a great day today on a boat cruise around the island, stopping off at various points to go snorkelling. The first stop had a bunch of reef sharks swimming around. Pretty cool. Good thing that none of them were too big though.
We’ll probably head back to the mainland tomorrow, and keep meandering down south, to meet Dave, Nic’s husband, for more riding down into Malaysia. I should get organised and upload some photos, but…I think I’ll head back to the beach bar now.