66 km

We said goodbye to the friends we’d made at the Laughing Gecko last night and this morning, including Swedish Kirk (I think I’ve got it right), who does both sea kayak and bike tours and has a wonderful joyful laugh, to Sven, an avid mountain biker German who spends his winters traveling, to a German couple, Rinatta and Clemons, who were such a delight to spend some of the evenings visiting with and with whom we shared a concern for the environment and a hope for its future. These were priceless days on the quiet end of Ao Nang, away from the scuttle of the tourists and their sun-fried bellies.

Clemons took a picture of us in front of our Laughing Gecko bungalow. Anyone notice anything missing on Dave’s face? He had to shave his beard to get his diving mask to work properly.

We headed out via some back roads that Dave found on the Krabi Province tourist map. It showed great detail. We enjoyed the quiet jungle and plantation setting as we rolled over the small hills. As often happens when we near an intersection, a local called out, pointing the way we were heading and making the Thai motion for, variously, no/bad/can’t/don’t/isn’t. That is, he held out his hand, thumb-side up and twisted his wrist back and forth, a motion American’s might make for so-so if they kept their hand horizontal. So, we stopped and heard him out, in all his Thai politeness but not understanding a word he said. We smiled. We nodded. Dave pointed to our location on the map, which of course did nothing, as usual. He kept repeating things with bits of English dropped in, like “No boxing, no boxing!” We had no clue. So, after we smiled and nodded some more, and shrugged our shoulders, and waited for him to leave, we continued on our way. We’d been really enjoying these lovely back roads. We’d been told by locals before not to go this way or that, simply because they were quiet roads and, what if something happened? No one there to help! We’ve gotten used to ignoring certain warnings.

About 500 meters down the road we saw a huge sign in English: “DEAD END.”

But we still have no idea what “no boxing” means.

After getting a room at the PN Guest House, we unloaded our bikes and hopped back on to ride 2 km to Than Bok Khorani National Park. It’s got to be one of the smallest of Thailand’s 100+ national parks. But the jungle-covered limestone cliff harbored a waterfall, Buddha’s Footprint Cave, travertine pools, and paths wandering through native bushes, vines and trees–plenty for us to enjoy in the hour and a half we had before closing time. We saw only a handful of other people, and it felt as if we were miles from the road.

We returned to town and ate at a restaurant called “79”, where for 79 baht you get a buffet with seafood, meats, and all kinds of vegetables and sauces which you then put in the hot pot or grill sitting on your table. It’s the perfect choice for a language-challenged vegetarian with MSG allergies. And I liked it too.