94 km

Winding our way up a small pass on road 4, we met a German coming down on a folding bike. We stopped and talked with him, and he urged us to continue on this road down to Phang-nga, where he was staying. He’d left his panniers there so he could do a loop in the mountains unloaded, and said it was a great town. But it was only about 11:30 and Phang-nga was about 15 minutes away to the South. We were in the groove and wanted to continue going North to Thung Kha Ngok at least, so we continued on.

I had wanted to take it easy on my knees today, build mileage back up gradually after taking time off to dive back at Ao Nang. I’d looked at the map and picked a couple of places we should aim for, thinking one of them would feel like the right distance and have a guest house.

When we got to the first town, Thung Kha Ngok, it was too small for a guest house. We looked anyway, and then decided to move on. No big deal, Kapong is just down the road a while.

At Kapong, a major dot on the map, we headed off the highway feeling confident we could end the day here. I was tired after climbing a little today and not yet used to being back on the bike after enjoying the weightlessness of diving. But we asked about a guest house, bungalow, or hotel–you’ve got to use all the buzzwords or you’ll get a no when there is accommodation nearby–and people kept saying no and shooing us down the road to Takuapa. “How many kilometers?” we asked, and got various answers. Our map was proving to be quite random on distance for these back roads.

Just past town we saw a Police Box. Yes, you read that right. We’d been seeing these one-room little buildings by the side of the road in small towns. They’ve got Thai signs, but always in English, nice and big, they’re labeled POLICE BOX. We stopped to ask one last time, even using the phrase book and asking about camping. The uniformed policeman didn’t speak a word of English, and was rolling on and on in Thai and making gestures in all directions. We got the idea that there was no accommodation anywhere nearby, including camping, and that we should continue 30 more kilometers to Takuapa. 30? But the thing I noticed, as he was furiously drawing us a map in my notebook (we thought he might be saying something about camping in response to our phrase book efforts) was that he was drunk. 4:30 in the afternoon and the Police Box officer on duty was drunk. This was one hand-drawn map we would not be using.

We decided we better book it if we were to have enough daylight to make it because we didn’t know how hilly it would be and we’d been slow today. As we got to the highway again a sign confirmed, “Takuapa 32 km.” Later, another sign said 13 km.

A few kilometers further there was a turn and a sign for Takuapa. Dave stopped to check his map to make sure we weren’t taking some random back road. As we were stopped, a smiling local rolled up to us on his scooter and asked where we were headed. When we said Takuapa, he nodded confidently and said, “Oh, just maybe seven kilometers,” and pointed down the turn-off. He also confirmed that there was a hotel in the town. And seven kilometers later, we slid into Takuapa.

What I had planned as a 50-60 km day turned into over 90. That’s not exactly an epic day, but it was more than we planned. What made it a little worse is that Dave and I are both fighting colds that we picked up while diving, and Dave’s was turning into a sinus infection.

The lesson learned today was this: don’t pass up easy accommodation unless you’re prepared to bike a lot longer than you want in order to find it again.