Day two in Thailand

#thailand #travel #cycling

Well what can I say, today has been a long, hot, humid, ride. Another early start and 92km covered by bike alone. The landscape today was amazing, the further we travel away from Bangkok, the better the scenery seems to get. We passed water buffalo this morning, shortly after leaving the hotel and that seemed to set the tone for the day. We also travelled down one highway that had plant nurseries either side of it and I was desperate to get out the van and go and look, but alas, no time for that.

The temperature topped out at 34 degrees and we started off with a fairly decent headwind. This actually worked out ok as we had to work as a team and engage in some serious slipstreaming. Tour de Thailand on a charge! Toot Toot, here comes the train!! We have been very fortunate and our group are a lovely bunch, 18 of us in total, consisting of mainly brits, with a couple of Aussies, a German and a Puerto Rican lady called Wanda, who is a brilliant. Her accent alone makes me smile – it is beautiful. Our first stop today was in a Buddhist temple. It was so hot again today that I even gave up on the baggies and resorted to just lycras, something I have never done before. Sshhh……don’t tell anyone!

(orange is the new black :Bloke)

One thing that has become very apparent, stopping for photos is hard work! You can easily slip off the back of the pack and then you have to work like buggery to catch them up. The views are stunning, today we had hills in the distance and lush greenery along side us but stopping for photos became incomprehensible when the pelaton is charging along at full steam. We passed latex (rubber), Casava and sugar cane plantations. We stopped several times for refreshments almond the way, one of those being in the middle of a latex plantation.

Rubber plantation

We then charged on for 8km of rolling hills, normally these would be fairly easy going but in the heat of the day, with that kind oh humidity, they were quite tough but we were rewarded with beautiful views and more temples than you can shake a stick at.

The shrines are something else

The next rest stop took us to the middle of a village where as we have become a custom to, the children wave and shout hello and the adults go about their daily business, in this case, making steamer baskets.

Our last rest stop of the day was at the most ostentatious roadside temple we’ve seen so far. A very smug looking Buddha awaited us, and a plethora of animals roaming free. I was warned that the dogs would be rabid and most probably chase us on our bikes, so far they have all been overweight and too hot to even bother moving around much. The ones we came across here were the most lively yet. The Thai people seem very keen to feed the feral dogs and you often see them throwing biscuits or putting bags of rice down for them.

super smug Buddha

We eventually reached our hotel, by bike, at around 6pm, as it was getting dark. The local wildlife doesn’t stop outside either, we were greeted by a cute little Gecko and a not so cute cockroach in our room tonight. Another long day ahead of us tomorrow, so it was shower, dinner, beer and bed again tonight.