58 km

We started the day with body surfing, then ate a big Thai lunch and got on the bikes. Early on we are faced with dogs that set our nerves on edge, so right away we decide we need sticks. YES! Beware, dogs, we shall defend ourselves, and you will run in fear before you even get close enough! We each find good sticks that are just the right size, about 3 feet long and an inch around, and secure them under the bungee cords that hold our camelbacks on the rear rack. They are ready to draw when needed. We set off with new confidence.

We get to practice our stick weilding several times throughout the day, and sometimes even ride side by side, with Dave on the left and me on the right, each using our dominant hands to whack our way through when there are several dogs at once. It sounds worse than it is, but it still gets our adrenaline up. However, we have found a new way to pacify some of the dogs that are on the fence about being vicious: we make fake motorcycle noise as we ride by, sounding like a space car on the Jetsons. That seems to make some of them assured that we are not alien life forms, just another couple on scooters. Honestly, I think it works for all but the meanest.

Having passed up a great beach camp spot yesterday, we planned to be prepared today. We decided the best possibility is just south of Hat Ban Krud on the same long beach. We passed a big port with a steel mill nearby and a village, then the huts and houses thinned out to nothing. We were again on a quiet road with little traffic and an empty beach to our right just on the other side of a line of feathery pines. We choose a spot with a big shady tree and take our bikes down the hill to the beach. We have just enough beach to camp on above the high tide line, right under that shady tree. It’s perfect! We set up camp and go swimming. No body surfing today, as the ocean was too calm. But it was a long, refreshing swim after a very hot day. We didn’t have much of a sea breeze so it was fairly warm, but our tent was comfy and the rhythm of the waves was soothing.

64 km

We started the day with dragon fruit. That makes all the difference!

We stayed close to the coast again today and enjoyed a breeze off the sea whenever we were near it. We followed quiet roads that wound up and around rocky headlands with gold-topped Buddhist wats, then opened to views of turquois water and clean white sandy beaches and limestone cliff islands.

We saw a quiet fishing village that probably rarely sees tourists and the province of Chumphon’s “Most Distinct Sand Dune”, which was, well, a nice sand dune anyway. The beach around the sand dune was so beautiful, clean, and completely deserted that we were sad we didn’t have enough water and food with us to camp. For those planning a trip through this area: please plan to camp here!

The smaller villages are so fun and interesting to ride through; we get to see people about the business of regular life, like spreading squid on screens to dry or collecting fat grass to make into thatched roof panels. People in smaller villages spread great smiles across their faces and shout hellos to us, taking their toddler’s arms and waving them at us. These are warm and welcoming people, always a nice change from larger, tourist-oriented places.

The one concession we make by enjoying smaller back roads is a great increase in the number of dogs we have jetting out to chase us. Some of them give a half-hearted attempt, but many others are a real menace. Dave has a handy pocket in his shirt where he started keeping rocks to throw at them. This works pretty well, but I still get nervous every time we see a dog.

We stop at Hat Bang Boet. It’s a very small, sort of scruffy looking beach town in a quiet little bay, so we are surprised that almost all rooms and bungalows are air condition only, starting at 800 baht. We are used to paying an average of 3-400 baht for a nice but basic room, often including the a/c. So. We hunt around a bit more, and as we pass a restaurant (Krua Khantong) a man calls out, asking if we are looking for a room. He tells us he has a couple of the only non-a/c rooms in town, for 400 baht. He shows us a clean, fairly new room behind the restaurant. We take it. We quickly change and head to the beach for a swim.

Then I did something I’ve never done before but instantly loved: body surfing! I hadn’t understood Dave’s giddy excitement at seeing the waves crashing out there. I thought it looked too rough for swimming. But after we got out there and Dave explained the technique, we waited for the waves, and, ta-da! It worked! Riding the waves like a surf board is hilariously fun, and we were laughing and anxiously waiting for the next wave and the next and the next. It’s awesome, and I completely tired myself out. After a late dinner, I headed straight back to bed while Dave worked on some engineering work on the computer.

88 km

Today’s ride was easy and flat, though hot and sticky. Along the way we’d planned to ride off the highway to check out Khong Nakha Wildlife Sanctuary. Maybe we could see some wild(ish) animals!

We started seeing signs to the sanctuary & national park several kilometers ahead. When we got to the turn we hoped it wouldn’t be too far off the road, as they never really gave that info and the map can never be trusted.

We rolled through a lovely manicured forest for maybe a couple of kilometers before seeing the entrance. There was no one at the entrance so we rolled on by. There were several neat buildings to the left and to the right, all signed in Thai, but no one was around any of them. Then we saw a building marked in English as well, “Tour Center”. But it, too, was empty–both of people and anything else. Huh. We slowed and looked all around, only seeing one guy at a table under the shade of a maintenance shack or something. He didn’t offer any help, didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing. So we did as anyone else would do in our situation: stop and eat. It makes everything better. After lunch we decided to just ride a bit further, see if we could find the nature trail mentioned on one of the signs on the main road. But at the end of the road there was only a trail that looked like we might need a machete to whack our way through the jungle. There were a couple of bungalows there, probably for people working there. We heard a TV and saw three scooters parked outside, but even with our confused wandering and talking, no one came out to help us. So we left.

We knew to head past Kapoe to Hat Bang Ben near Laem Son National Park this afternoon because of the Dutch woman we met a couple of days ago on the road. She had heard of it because lots of Dutch people stay there, especially cyclists, and it’s run by a Dutch/Thai couple. This is another bit of heaven for cyclists, or anyone, who enjoys nice bungalows in a very friendly environment. It’s quiet here, even though it is high tourist season. This beach is still not “on the map” yet and I guess most people just pass it by. There are only two guest houses here.

After unloading our gear, we cycled out to the jetty. This was one of the areas hit hard by the 2004 Tsunami, and we kept seeing signs warning us that we’re in a Tsunami Hazard Zone, and other signs showing the way to the Tsunami Evacuation Route. Wow. We kept looking at this beautiful place and wondering what it must have been like.

Hat Bang Ben, from the road to the jetty.

We rode back and ate dinner at the resort, a delicious vegetable and seafood curry and an Indonesian vegetarian dish. Later, we looked through the photo album showing the devastating effects and the rebuilding process that our guest house owner had in the restaurant. Evidently, the native trees protected by the near by national park kept this entire village from being completely wiped out.

We started thinking about taking a rest day here tomorrow.

We slept in and got up late, then packed our things and made our way to the Laughing Gecko down near the next beach. They had a bungalow available for us so we stashed our stuff, changed into our swim suits, and headed down to the beach with our books and some snacks.

We went to the beach near our guest house first. It appeared to be the locals’ beach, and we were the only non-Thais sitting down in the shade of the trees. Just after we settled with our bikes and things, a Thai woman walks right up to us with a digital camera held out. It took me a minute to figure out that she was there to take pictures of US. But it took her a long time, she was standing there for what seemed like several minutes, positioning and repositioning the camera right at us. We continued doing what we were doing, which was applying sunscreen. I looked at her and said, “We look pretty darn funny, eh?” and she only smiled and nodded, probably not knowing what we were saying. Who knows. Finally she took her picture and walked away. I was wondering if they disliked having tourists invade their beach or something, but we didn’t want to be down at the busy beach.

We spent the morning reading our diving course book in the shade and swimming. When we were hungry for lunch, we packed up our stuff and found food, then went to the main tourist beach at Ao Nang and did the same thing there, but without the weird picture incident.

We are successful in this tourist town finding great Thai food! This is Pad Thai.

Red Curry (looks yellow, but don’t believe the color).

And the usual condiments for fixing up your dish, including more than one way to make it even hotter than it already is.

It was a nice, relaxing day. We came back to the Laughing Gecko for dinner. The food was incredibly good and there we spent the entire evening talking with a friendly and interesting German couple.

103 km

We’re seeing more women without full head coverings, fewer mosques, and more Buddhist temples. We are definitely seeing changes as we work our way North of the Malaysia/Thailand border. We even saw a couple of Christian churches today, one in session with the doors wide open. There is definitely more diversity here. Other drastic changes include seeing dogs. In Malaysia the only animals we saw around houses or restaurants were cats and chickens. Now there are very few cats and plenty of dogs. We had our first dog chase us today, though it didn’t put in all that much effort and never caught up to us, but if it were a cattle dog like the ones we saw in New Mexico on the Great Divide trail we would have been toast.

Passing through one of the towns, we stop at a Buddhist temple to
take a look. This friendly monk wanted to be in the picture.

Another site we saw many times throughout the day as we passed through towns in the palm & rubber plantation countryside was people on motorcycles and scooters holding cages with birds in them. Nice, big, ornate cages, sometimes covered and sometimes not. We could not figure out why so many people were transporting birds around. They were not all on the move, there were many houses and shops with one to several cages of birds hanging out in the yard or from the open front overhang. Birds were chirping left and right on the road through these towns.

Later in the afternoon we overtook a couple of cyclists coming back on the road from a noodle stand. Wow! Cyclists! Day after day in Malaysia we were the only alien beings on the road, and so far in Thailand we’ve seen three pairs of cyclists: an older couple getting on to the ferry we had just taken to get to Satun, they were going the other direction; another couple passed us going towards the ferry several kilometers into the ride from Satun; and now these two men ahead of us. We rode along with them and chatted for a while. They’re both Thai, touring for 10 days from Satun up the West Coast. After talking with them for a while, Dave asked them if they knew anything about the birds everyone was carrying around. Evidently they hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed?

Just a little while later, Dave and I were having a cold soda at a roadside stand and saw THREE MORE CYCLISTS! They were from New Zealand, heading the opposite direction as us. One was traveling for a year, his sister had recently joined him for a month, and another friend had just joined them for ten days of riding. They stopped to chat, and we talked with them for about twenty minutes. We got all kinds of great information about the roads ahead, from Thailand to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. We’ll definitely be taking that information into consideration as we plan the weeks ahead.

We got to Trang late in the afternoon and tried to find the Yamawa Hotel, which was listed in our Lonely Planet guide and sounded pretty nice. But Trang was just too big to randomly look for a particular hotel, nobody recognized the name and we didn’t understand directions to the street it was on. The Thai people so far speak little to no English in general and we don’t speak any Thai, and using the phrase book so far is not working well because we’re not saying the Thai words well enough for people to recognize them. We’re probably not getting the tones right or something. Anyway. Dave finally saw a sign for tourist info, and he went in there and got a copy of a simple street map with a few places marked on it, including our hotel.

The Yamawa is barely like the description in LP, more expensive, and ended up having some kind of bed bugs, so we can’t recommend it. However, the girl who worked there spoke just enough English that, with our phrase book, she was able to write down and help us pronounce a few key words with which to find food. It’s not easy being vegetarian in SE Asia, but Dave is also very allergic to MSG, which is in everything here in Thailand in great quantities. His stomach is already in great distress. So I will give the Yamawa good marks for helpfulness, but I’d still say to just look around for a reasonably priced guest house.

My Calling: A Diplomat?

We worked on the website this morning with free wireless in the SD Guest House. I also spent a good bit of time chatting with Mr. Teh, the daytime manager. He sits at the front all day, reading the papers and sometimes smoking out at one of the tables in the front. He is the best feature of this guest house and I have a great time talking with him about the U.S. election, the economies of our countries and others, bicycle touring (he calls our bikes the babies: are we taking the babies out today? are we letting the babies rest today?) horse racing, and, oh yeah, my future. First he says I need to go to China and teach English, my “English very good,” he says. He’s a Chinese-Malaysian, and he’s very interested in the Chinese economy and markets. Next he says I should go back to America, forget the small town, and move to a big city to become someone great. He says I can do great things in America. And then after that, he says I should be a U.S. diplomat or ambassador because I’m very good with people. Then it’s back to talking about current affairs around the world. I think he reads every paper he can get his hands on. He’s retired from the shipping industry in Singapore and has this guest house gig so his kids won’t worry about him and he’ll have something to do. He’s perfect for this. His kids are both Malaysian but work in Singapore, one in finance and one in shipping. Seems he wants all the young to be great.

Food Talk

Georgetown, Penang has a Little India just a few short blocks away, so of course we seek out some Indian food. We went to lunch at Shusi Banana Leaf Restaurant. You walk in and sit down and they plop a huge piece of banana leaf down in front of you for a plate. Someone comes with rice, another with dahl and other sauces including vegetables. Another brings crispy things like fried tortillas, and someone comes back again with sauce for your rice. We say right off “vegetarian” and they bring the vegetarian sauce instead of meat or chicken. One reason we love Indian food is there are always veg options because many Indians are vegetarians. This lunch was absolutely fantastic. All the sauces were delicious and full of flavor, spicy but without overpowering the meal. The vegetable today was eggplant. I have never in my life tasted such a mild and buttery eggplant, and the spices complemented the vegetable incredibly well. We ate until we were full, as this kind of “set” meal is usually all-you-can-eat. Too bad we weren’t riding today, or we’d really get our money’s worth. Two set meals came to 7 RM, or US$2.16. We highly recommend this place for their set lunch!

Banana Leaf set lunch and my stretched out head.

Being Tourists

In the afternoon, we visited the Penang Museum, which offers a very well presented history of Penang including the different cultures that have co-existed peacefully for many generations. The three main cultures on this island, (and much of the West coast of the peninsula) are the Malay people, Chinese, and Indians. We spent a couple of hours going through this beautiful museum and we both really enjoyed it. We also appreciated the air conditioning as the day was extremely hot! The admission is only 1RM per person (30 U.S. cents). The sign stated they closed at 5:00, but at 4:45 they started ushering us to the door, even more forcefully at 4:50. I wondered if they were this prompt in opening in the morning.

Next we walked a few blocks over to Fort Cornwallis, where Captain Light first established the town and encouraged settlement. There’s not that much to see, but there is a very old cannon, a “magazine” that housed the artillary, a small chapel, a statue of Light, and a few jail cells converted to house a few pictures and explanations of Light’s role in the history of Georgetown. Once again, about thirteen minutes before closing I was ushered out of one of the museum cells with the lights turned out and an impatient man holding a watch. Then over the loudspeakers we heard five cannon booms and someone saying Fort Cornwallis is closing in five minutes. This repeated, obnoxiously, three or four times. We surrendered and headed out the front gate. This was all pretty funny, as the place is not all that big and they make such a big to-do about it. Even so, it was interesting to see and worth the inexpensive entry fee.

Buddha’s Ashes Grow

After dinner this evening we walked back by a Buddhist temple and there were a lot of people gathering to listen to a monk speak. As we were looking in, a man came out and invited us in to take a look. He ushered us right past the gathering of people and the monk who was being photographed before speaking, and we went right to the back where they keep their relics. When you visit old cathedrals in Europe you get to see bits and pieces of saints sometimes, and I guess the Buddhists do this as well. We were shown the ashes of the third Buddha, and while our guide’s accent was very thick, we understand that this Buddha’s ashes were not grey like yours or mine would be, but red. Not only that, but they grow in volume infinitely! The red ashes we saw had multiplied many times over after being put into the glass holder. We were told story after story of the miracles of the Buddhas. Once again we were the audience for someone who had a LOT to say and intended to get it all out while we were his audience. This happens to us all the time. Everywhere we go. We finally got out of there some time later, after the man wrote down for us his special chant for becoming Buddha in one lifetime only (not the usual seven) and after Dave was encouraged to take pictures to show all of America the miracles of the Buddha.

67 km

Another day of climbing, but also some long and fun descending too! The mountains, once we got up a ways, are cooler and breezier than the lowlands, and we enjoy the sounds of more birds and insects. We are seeing signs for elephants on the highway (like cow signs in the U.S.) and we’ve even seen elephant dung right on the side of the road, but no elephants yet! We’d LOVE to see one or two run across the road, but with all this traffic I just can’t imagine it. They probably wait to cross at night.

We do see or hear monkeys every now and then swinging through the trees. They don’t vocalize much, but they sure can make a crashing noise when they’re really moving.

We were told we’d find a resort on Pulau Banding, a very small island in the middle of Lake Temengor, but when we got there late in the afternoon, sweaty and so tired from the hills, we found that it was closed for renovations until March. So, we rode back and forth and around looking for a place to stay or camp, and ended up finding a good spot on the East side of the lake, just before the bridge that leads to Pulau Banding. There’s a small road that goes down to a flooded dock (built too low on this man-made reservoir?) and also splits off to go to a cleared area that was either a quarry or a logged area.

We had a quiet camp there. We went down to the floating restaurant at the flooded dock for dinner. We crossed to the other side of the bridge from that dock where we found steps that went down to the water. There we took a swim and rinsed out our clothes. Camping after a long hot day is OK when you can get a bath! The lake was cool and refreshing.

View of Lake Temengor from our campsite.

While lying in the tent this evening we both thought we heard an elephant trumpet somewhere in the dark distance. Later, we heard a grunting/growling noise not too far outside the tent. Monkeys. Don’t know why they were making that noise, but I didn’t like it too much!

First Challenge is Breakfast

Breakfast attempt #1: No food left, just kopi (Malaysian coffee).

Breakfast attempt #2: A roti joint, fresh out of roti!

Breakfast attempt #3: We are welcomed to the cafe and sit down to order. No nasi lemak left (rice & egg, one of our usual breakfasts), they don’t make roti here, but they do have rice and chicken curry or meat curry. That’s it. We say we don’t eat chicken or meat, vegetarians. We get some kopi and chat a bit with the friendly locals, including a teacher. (Kopi is a mix of coffee and herbs and doesn’t taste great if you’re expecting real coffee, but it’s good once you get used to it. I order kopi, which means it comes with condensed milk and sugar. Dave gets kopi-o, which is just with sugar.) After a few minutes, the teacher, who speaks English pretty well, asks if we want rice and an egg, a hard-boiled egg. We say yes! We sit and drink our coffee a few more minutes, and out comes a dish with three hard-boiled eggs. Only when I go to crack the shell it gives easily and egg spills out. It is BARELY COOKED. In fact, only the edges are barely cooked, the middle is raw. Ugh.

We look at each other and start scraping out the cooked part of the egg with the wee spoons they’ve given us. Oh my. But soon they deliver plates with some rice. We mix the egg with the rice and force it down, trying to smile a little because we’re being watched. As soon as we manage to finish we get out of there. We want to quickly put that behind us and move on quickly.

Breakfast attempt #4: Success! We find a roadside cafe with a cheerful woman who lets us point to food and order exactly what we want. We order plain rice (nasi), FRIED eggs (telur GORENG), chili sauces (sambal and also plain chili), and cucumber. We finally felt full.

Rice, fried egg, chili sauce = nasi lemak. This one served up on a banana leaf.

The Hard Hilly Ride

Today we start climbing. And we climb, and climb. At first it’s rolling hills that we tackle, but then we just keep going up.

It was a hot day, and with breakfast #3 to get it started, well, I had problems. My stomach at first was just a little queasy, then in the afternoon it was downright nauseous. The grade was so steep that I was pushing at a pretty high intensity just to keep moving, and with the heat and everything, I just felt like puking. (Hey Kat, do you remember how we’d almost puke in the weight room sometimes while doing squats? Now THAT was fun, right?)

We had not tackled real climbing yet on this trip, so that was also a factor. And it was so hot and humid that I sometimes had to take off my sunglasses because they were too fogged up and the sweat was just dripping off of me. Seriously, I was not having fun. But you have to be prepared for the not-fun times if you want to experience the great fun of bike touring. So we pedal on. But, yes, I was grumpy.

All we needed to be able to stop for the day was water, enough to filter for drinking. We finally found it – a stream rushing down the side of the mountain. There was a sort of rest stop there, with bathrooms and a couple of picnic tables. I sat in the shade with my feet in the cool water while Dave scouted out a place to camp. He found a great spot just back a half kilometer or so, up a logging road to a cleared area, up that stream a ways. We had the privacy to bathe in the stream, then we washed out our clothes and filtered water.

Wild Animal!

We then went for a sunset walk up another branch of the logging road and enjoyed the evening sounds of birds and insects. While we were walking back we came around a corner and saw an animal walking up the road that came from the highway. It looked up for a half second before turning and galloping back down the road. I first thought “German shepherd” when I saw it, because it was dark, with what looked like a long snout and big ears, but it was too tall and big, and it didn’t run like a dog. We went down to look at the tracks (and Dave got a picture the next morning) and they were of a hoofed animal. Dave’s best guess is a tapir, but we’re just not sure after looking it up in the net. It was pretty exciting to see a large animal in the jungle, even if we don’t know what it was.

Today we took the Jungle Trek to the other side of the island. We saw two kinds of monkeys, crazy huge ants, birds with very complex calls, monitor lizards, and lots of fish and coral while swimming. We trekked and swam, trekked more and swam again. It felt good to get some hiking in, and of course the swimming is amazing when there’s coral and so many fish, and so refreshing after working up a sweat.

On the way back we saw a new kind of monkey hanging out near a government building. We stopped to look at them and say hi, but when we did they hissed and one charged me, showing his fangs. I have to say, it was darn scary! I will give these monkeys their space next time. Yow.

Nice monkey!

Mean monkey!

Tonight we’re eating dinner (right now!) at the posh Perhentian Resort, a good walk along an up-and-down wooden walkway around the point. We heard there’s free wireless, and it’s true. So, after many days without a post, tonight is the night.

Tomorrow we will take the speed boat back to the coast at Kuala Besut. From there we will head west for three or four days maybe, up and over the middle part of the peninsula through the jungle and mountains to Pulau Pinang, another island. We will get to see how different the West coast is from the East, and visit a region many have told us we must not miss. The food is supposed to be terrific, and it is not the monsoon season there. I guess we should prepare for more heat from there on.

97 km

After we left the internet cafe we made a quick stop at a grocery. I went in to buy bread for the next day and Dave waited outside with the bikes. When I came back out, of course he was eating. He’s a rather large fan of eating when we’re on tour, never seems to get full. So anyway, Dave was sitting down in front of this little cart eating, with an excited Malaysian man chattering away with him. The man was all excited and light on his feet, sort of dancing around while talking. I came up to them and Dave handed me a puffy bread thing, saying to take a bite. It was a puffy little bite of heaven! It’s called Pau Pau Lai Lai, and it’s steamed bread with filling, either sweet or savory. Dave had bought a sardine one and a coconut one. Then the guy started bringing out more for us to try, saying he was giving them to us for free. He really wanted us to know about this yummy treat, because he said we’d be seeing it all throughout our trip. I guess he and Dave had quite a chat while I was roaming the entire grocery store looking for the elusive bread.

After talking with him some more, Dave asked if he could take his picture and he proudly posed by his cart. He has seven kids and a wife, so he works from 7:00 am to 3:00 am selling the bread while his wife bakes them at home. That’s seven in the morning, through the day and night, to three in the morning. When he spoke of his family and his desire to work and support them he got very serious. Then soon enough he was laughing and talking again, and wishing us the best of travels. He asked if we would send him a post card from the U.S. when we returned, so he wrote his address for us and we will.

(Updated to add: Dave lost a week’s worth of pictures on a flash card that went bad and this was on it. We’re so sad we can’t show you this guys joyous face.)