64 km

We rode over gentle rolling hills all day today, with just a couple of short, steeper climbs. At around 15 km we stopped at a lookout, and ended up chatting with a guy from Malaysia who drove up in his Lotus. He had a huge bunch of small, local bananas that he shared with us and a guy who was traveling on a scooter with his small boy. After we talked for a while, he left the rest of the bananas with us, “You guys need them more than I do!” and then vroomed off in his little car. Less than a kilometer down the hill we came to a waterfall that would probably be spectacular in the rainy season, but which was pretty and sounded cool and refreshing (though we didn’t take a dip).

About a kilometer before Kraburi on the right side of the road we saw a couple of places to check out, one signed as “Bungalows” and another resort, though I can’t remember the name. We checked out the resort first, and saw very cute bungalows with fans for 350 baht. They were built and decorated in all kinds of materials like broken tiles of different colors, bottles, rocks. These were really cute. But, as is our habit, we had to check out at least the other place we’d seen, just about 50 meters back. This place also had nice little bungalows, though not as cute and not quite as new, but for only 250 baht. For us, they were really the same functionally, and because we’re trying to travel at least another year without going back to work full time, we take the cheaper one.

We rode into town, just over a kilometer, and found a great dinner of pad thai and some yummy desserts on a corner with several food stalls. Cheap and yummy!

OK, this slimy dessert was maybe not so yummy. It was sweet and very salty, and reminded me too much of something one generally expels rather than ingests.

We got back to the bungalow ready to shower and relax for the evening. I was getting in the shower when we heard girls outside, giggling, saying, “Hello, excuse me!” We didn’t know who they were talking to, but they sounded like they were outside our door. Finally, they knocked. Dave answered, wearing only his bike shorts as he was soon headed to the shower himself, and they asked him if we were going to have breakfast. He said, “Well, what do you have?” and they giggled and ran off. Dave decided he better put a shirt on. A minute later a woman comes up to the door and asked him if he remembered her. He knew he recognized her, but couldn’t place her right away. She said, “You don’t remember me. I remember you but you don’t remember me. I saw you in Ranong a few days ago on your bikes.” And then he remembered.

Just as we were heading into Ranong we took a wrong turn and were stopped at a light trying to figure out which way to go. This woman pulls up and starts talking excitedly to us from a pickup truck, saying something about wanting to tell us all about her resort somewhere else and some other things, but we couldn’t really understand or hear her well, with all the trucks and everything, and we really just wanted to get oriented so we could find our way downtown. So finally we asked her where a certain bank was which was on our little guidebook map, and she pointed straight ahead and then the light turned green and the driver went on. That turned out to be completely wrong. We did get ourselves oriented without too much trouble, but that didn’t help any.

So here this woman is, speaking to Dave in a deep, agitated voice, and she asks Dave why we didn’t stay at the other bungalow. Dave said, “Well, it was 350 baht and this was 250 so we chose this one,” and the woman says something about how “No, you didn’t understand. She said it was discounted to 250. Ours are nicer and newer than these.” But Dave and I both know the woman who showed us the other bungalows clearly said 350 for fan, 500 for air-con.

The woman at the door then wants to know if we want breakfast in the morning. Dave said, “Where? Here or over there?” and she said she’d deliver. Then he asked what she had, and she said coffee, toast and fried egg for 90 baht each. Western style breakfasts are typically overpriced and too small for our cycling appetites. But it’s not just that, this woman is weirding us out and we have no desire to spend any more time with her. Dave pokes his head in and asks if we want breakfast delivered, and I said, (just loud enough for her to overhear through the window) “No, we have plenty of food right here, we don’t need breakfast.” And Dave let her know we were not interested. She left in a huff.