Tuesday and Wednesday 😊

The last two days have been quite an exhausting adventure😊. After leaving Surat I headed north towards the base of the isthmus of Thailand. Lots of climbing but actually pleasant enough as the clouds kept the temperature down to manageable levels. Found a great place to eat and clocked on my map I had 32k to go. Easy. 🤣🤣🤣. About a K after lunch well the road er…,disappeared…literally! From tarmac to red, sticky mud for k after k. Been here before I thought….seen this movie before says I! And then something weird happened – a bloody great animated kangaroo statue! I kid you not. Feck….not only am I time travelling I’m also space travelling too….there I was thinking I was in Thailand when all along I was still in Aus!! See the pictures yourself if ya don’t believe me! Wet myself laughing (though I’m not sure I could really tell as I was wringing wet with sweat!). Anyway, the non road stubbornly remained a non road for around 11k. The bike almost fell apart Chitty Chitty Bangbang style! Gee was I happy when it decided to return to a ‘road’! I pulled in to my nights lodgings late but it was a great little place right on the beach front. I was wrecked! Of course, there was feck all to eat and the ‘resort’ (gotta love their optimism) only had one dish – fried rice and chicken – so I had three of them!!

Of course, this morning…no food! And wet cycling gear – the humidity is so high that my cycling Knicks were still wet despite 12hours of ‘drying’. I think that set the tone for the day! I set off on an empty stomach until I found a shop which had buns and coke….breakfast a’la Thailand! Then I got lost. Then I broke my phone charger cable. Then I got chased soooo many times by bored dogs. Then the road disappeared…again! This time it was red slush. The wheels clogged up, everything was covered in the stuff, gee it was hard just staying upright. At around 5kph I moved slowly forward like that till I realised I was lost and had to go back through the shite all over again 🤣🤣. Wasn’t funny at the time…..I think I said something like ‘oh dear oh dear, this is rather tricky but, hey-ho’….or something like that 🤣. Actually, I just got on with it…I was where I was, in the mess I was in (literally) and just refused to get overwhelmed by it. There were a few expletives but more for cathartic purposes than anything else. Nothing like a good ‘F&@k it’ every now and then! Eventually I got myself out of it, and with little phone charge and no charger I headed for the main dual carriageway and smashed out the final 30k on a road I knew I wasn’t going to get lost on! Arrived at Chumphon, and the rest is the usual routine!
Amidst all the chaos of these last few days I’ve had so much time to reflect – I’m enjoying the process as things start to reveal themselves. I’ll share in another blog!

Thanks for reading! Time for a rest 😊