73 km

Today we tried again to follow the beach as closely as possible, trying to avoid Highway 4 because it’s a freeway in this area. We did pretty well starting out, but soon, somewhere before Bo Nok on our map, the road turned to packed dirt and gravel. It looked well made and well used so we continued. The stretch of riding on this road was some of our favorite along this coast: it was beautiful, quiet, with a good wind off the sea, and interestingly dry with several kinds of cacti and succulents.

It did not, however, take us where we wanted to go. After a relaxing twenty minutes, the road ended in a huge dead zone of abandoned shrimp farms. Shrimp farms are everywhere in this area. The dirt is dug out in large rectangles, with the dirt being built up into berms on all sides. Sometimes they’re lined with black plastic, but often not. The working ones have loud engines hooked to paddles that churn up the water, probably to oxygenate and circulate it. We imagine the shrimp farms must be abandoned when they build up too much salt and minerals from evaporation, leaving an ugly scarred area of land upon which hardly anything grows.

We turned around and headed back, riding through a spontaneous brush fire near a pineapple field that left us with ash stuck to our sweaty, sun-screened skin. We took a turn away from the ocean to find a road that would continue north. This road took us right to highway 4, but we only had to deal with the noise and busyness of 4 for a few kilometers before we took a road (unmarked on our map) back to follow the coast.

We entered Khao Sam Roi Yot (or Yod, depending on the sign) National Park on the southern end, ate an early dinner at the restaurant near the park checkpoint and headed straight for Sam Phraya Beach to set up camp. It was a quiet place with only a handful of other people. We set up the tent right on the edge of the trees next to the water, then headed out to explore the rocky headland and stranded fishing boats. The tide was out so far we could hardly see the water. It was a really shallow bay. We showered and got in the tent early since the mosquitos were vicious. A great breeze off the ocean made for great sleeping.