time:2h13
total:10706km
time: 5h19
total:10798km
I started to cycle at 6.30am and after 35km and an easy military checkpoint, I went through the Thai border! Nothing easier than that. I arrived they took me to a little office and like in an airport they check arrival card that I just filled in, took a photo of my face, and checked my fingerprints and that was it. 1 month stay allowed! If you plan to enter Thailand from Malaysia, the border checkpoint I went through was Padang Besar. it is open 24h non stop. be sure to know an address in Thailand beforehand. I just found a hotel in the first city near the border and wrote it down. They asked me how long I wanted to stay, I said three weeks and I had my fake flight ticket ready but they didn’t even bothered me with it. So, it was super easy, super fast, and free!
time: 6h03
total: 10906km
My alarm went off at 6am. I heard the noise of the heavy rain on the roof and felt asleep again. I needed it. While it was raining, I put my new bar tapes because my old ones went off and my hands started to be very rough on it. it’s sooo comfortable now. a little thing can change everything. I started to cycle from 10am and kept going until 7pm, the humidity in the air is way better than the last 3 countries I crossed which makes the ride way better!! I’ve been camping almost all the time in New Zealand and Australia but in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia almost never. it was too crowded and I needed a shower every night to remove liters of sweat. In addition, the price of the hostels was very low all over South East Asia.
I guess when you don’t practice anymore some things that you were comfortable with, your comfort zone retracts. It’s like a muscle that you must train all the time to keep it strong. I decided to train it again in Thailand, it should be easy as I heard that you can stop in any temple. Well, I tried a temple right by the water and they told me to go somewhere behind a wall. I’ll have a roof over my head and will sleep in my tent with the sounds of the sea as a background.
currently there is an alert about heavy rain on southern Thailand with a lot of floodings everywhere.
I loved to be sleeping outside again. It’s some time with myself and without internet to distract me. I can find my routine from the Australian desert.
time:4h45
total dist:10995km
time:5h12
total dist:11238kmtwo nights ago I met Ann and Tomasz in Surat Thani. We spent the evening together and recorded a podcast. then we wanted to exchange some tips about China for me and Australia for her but it was already midnight. We took a day off on the 8th of April and took the time to exchange all of our respective informations about the countries we each crossed. This morning we agreed that we gonna start at 9am. That’s what made me realised that after 6 days in Thailand I was on the wrong time. It was one hour earlier than I had it setup on my phone. No sim card means no automatic update for the phone.
So we started at 8am to take some photographs together to illustrate the podcast and for Instagram as well. then we decided to go to have a coffee and breakfast before to split.
I started to cycle at around 9am real time this time and today was a great day! first, it didn’t rain at all it was even sunny, but the best thing ever… even after a week of rain and now some sun, the air didn’t feel that humid. is it because I’m on a narrow part or is the humidity behind me? I prefer to believe the second option but I think it is more likely to be the first one…
the ride was good even under the sun, even with 36.4°C. I really enjoyed the ride today even though I had head wind all the time.
After 70km I checked a beach where I could have stayed but it was still just 3pm and Instead I decided to keep going until the sunset. Then, I saw a sign for a hot spring… this reminded me what Alex from Belarus told me. there is hot springs and a temple nearby, and it seems that it was the one. I came to the temple, a lot of dogs came to me barking, then a monk. I asked if I could sleep there for the night. as the monk didn’t speak in english I showed him a letter I translated to Thai explaining my project and asking if I could stay here for the night. he asked to his “superior” and it was ok. I asked for the hot springs but we didn’t understand each other. so he called another monk who speaks english. He told me they are closed at this time. They showed me where to stay, a room with aircon and I had access to a pipe to take a shower! Luxury! We spoke quite a bit with Charin the monk who spoke english, and actually a little bit of french too. It was a great exchange and he told me that I can go to any temple in Thailand and stay for the night.
A bit later as I was eating my cherry tomatoes he came and asked me if I was hungry. He offered me noodles, a tomato juice box, a water bottle, two bananas and two mangoes. while I was eating we chat again for a good hour. It was really interesting and I learned a bit about monks. I’m feeling bad to not know anything about it. Next time I have internet I will search about it. So he got a 27 years old daughter studying international business in Bangkok. I think I understood that he is a monk since 5 years. His dream in his twenties was to cycle around the world..he never did it and now he thinks he is too old for it but we never really are too old for anything. He showed me pictures of every bike tourers who came and stayed in the temple, then he taught me a bit of Thai so I can speak better 🙂
I love how unexpected is life and now that the weather is dryer I start again to extend my comfort zone by not planning anything where I will sleep at night. just letting the chance working for me. IT’s always whe nI don’t have any plan that I end up in the most amazing places with wonderful people.
I’m now really tired. I will stretch and then sleep tight!
time: 5h18
total: 11332km
time: 2h10
total: 11 373kmWaking up took time this morning even though I opened my eyes at 6.30am, my body didn’t want to work. no problem, I should listen more to my body so I decided to get a day off today. Anyway, I need to make a laundry, fix my pedal which is squeaking a lot, buy some chain lube, find a new charger for my camera as mine doesn’t work anymore, go to a bank to get some cash out and avoid the 200 baht tax on each ATM…
Where I stayed last night wouldn’t be very useful as there is nothing around so I decided to cycle the 40km to Chumphon, a big city. By 3pm everything was done except for the camera charger because there is no camera shop in this city.
for the bike, I came in a shop and today the mechanic was away. So i asked them if I could just use their tools to fix my bike and they gave me access to the tools. I felt like at home.
it’s so hot during the day now that I’m thinking of cycling at night again.
Leave a Reply