A bit of Thailand by bicycle

We aspired to take the train out of Bangkok's main train terminal to Ayutthaya instead of riding directly Southeast out of the city. Our host in Bangkoknoi, Supaporn, had also suggested that the temples at Ayutthaya were worth seeing and that the traffic would be considerably less there as well. After a few hiccoughs and a lot of muddling through Thai train ticketing protocol, we finally had 15 baht tickets for our persons and 95 baht tickets for our bicycles. The tourist information booth staffed by two wonderfully patient ladies was indispensable even though individually we seemed to get different answers to the same questions. After 3 hours of waiting, one ticket re-issuing, a few platform changes, and eventually hoisting our loaded bikes up to chest level and into the baggage car we were off and rolling along in Thai 3rd class.

Bangkok Train station and our arrival in Ayutthaya.

The padded seats and relative roominess is a far cry from Indian style 3rd class where you've got about 25% more people than capacity, unpadded bench style seats, and usually an entire train car focused solely on you. The ride itself was pleasantly slow with lots of stops and lots to see as the suburbs of the city stretched for miles, far into what we'd expected to be ruralized areas. In fact, the entire distance between Bangkok and Ayutthaya saw the populous and commercialized townships only briefly broken up any sort of agriculture or general greenery. We found that this kind of ubiquitous urbanization also dominated a good portion of our route through Thailand, where we had expected rural and lush rolling green scenery we found instead ample opportunity to stop for a cold drink, buy a reproduction of a popular handbag, get a coffee, or even play golf!

I'm getting ahead of myself though, so back to Ayutthaya:

We rolled over the bridge and into the city center a mere 1km from the train station and utilizing one of our many maps we navigated our way easily to a fine travelers establishment called "Tony's Place" where the fan room was clean and nice and the ambiance was terrific with it's rough cut wood tables and chairs, hammocks on the upper veranda, and all around low key bungalow feeling. We unloaded the steel steeds, finding it a welcome change to plop the bags down in a hotel room rather than having to set up our tent, stove, mozzie net, etc. We passed on an A/C room for 600 baht, opting instead for a fan room that ran us just 350 baht. We ate a light lunch of noodles and curry on the patio restaurant and set off in search of these temple ruins we'd heard and read about. The temples are situated conveniently inside the boundaries of town, or rather the town has situated itself around the ruins as they've been there a bit longer
(1351 - 1767) .

We wandered a few temple grounds and rode out to a beautiful reclining Buddha on the outskirts of town.

Coming back into town we spent the last few hours of light adjusting the bikes and lubing up all the dusty and dry parts. While we were making a spectacle of ourselves with our spread of tools and parts strewn about out in front of the hotel we were approached by another cycle tourist couple who happened to arrive in town that day and who happened to be staying at the same hotel. We spent the evening chatting, tracking down some local food for dinner, and sharing plans and stories from the road over beers (for Z.) and ice cream sundaes (for E.). We were bummed to hear that Jo and Nick were heading North but wish them the best for their trip and hope they finally intercept Kat and Mike on their route!

The following morning we set out early for our first real day on the road. We followed the main highways and found the roads better than most we encountered in both New Zealand and Australia! The shoulders are wide and clean of debris and the drivers are courteous and always seemed to give us a wide berth. The terrain is flat flat flat and by the mid afternoon our rear ends were feeling the touch of the saddle again. We stopped for lunch at a small family run shop where we were the only lunch customers and secured a seat closest to the pond at the back of the place. We had a fun time using the tiny bit of Thai we knew and ended up pantomiming most of the order shaking our heads at the prawns and nodding vigorously at the chicken the patrons produced from the refrigerator. The food was excellent! Full and with the afternoon heat and humidity rising in tandem we got ourselves back on the bikes and slowly cycled away. The maps we printed from the CD we bought in Bangkok worked well but we took extra precautions stopping at the major intersections and consulting each other and the map to sort out where we were, making sure we weren't too far off course. We saw tons of the ornate, gilded, and colorfully tiled roofs of the many Buddhist temples that dotted our route with regularity. Ending the first day at just over 110km, we collapsed into our hotel/apartment after reaching Nahkon Nayok and just moments before a pretty good storm rocked and rolled the little riverside town. We watched the water cascade off the roofs of the surrounding buildings forgoing any gutter systems, from our fifth floor vantage point. We could have sworn that the lightning was striking just to the left or right of our rooms view as the thunder literally shook the slight single pane sliding glass doors that separated us from the windy wetness outside.

In the morning the town showed no signs of the nights storms and we enjoyed a papaya and coffee in the lobby of our hotel before setting out around 7:30am. We consulted the maps and decided to head North to check out some of the waterfalls listed on our map. Kat and Mike had recommended seeing some of these when we'd had dinner in Bangkok and this looked to be our only relatively close opportunity on this leg of our Thailand trip. We got off the main highways and got some good, quiet, and relaxed riding in around the foothills. We reached the base camp for the waterfalls just about noon. We were alone up there in the shady canopy of trees and E. took the lead, trudging up the cement stairs and path that were in dire need of vegetation management. We trekked around for a bit until we tired of spider webs in the face and mammoth mosquito's buzzing about us like tiny vultures. We saw a few small pools and the water was indeed running but we missed out on any true waterfalls that might have been there. Regardless, we enjoyed the chance to be out in the jungle alone, able to enjoy our surroundings without the usual distractions that come with a popular tourist spot.

Buddha statue at the waterfalls and the incredible scenery on the way up to the falls

We headed for the Khao Yai National Park (now a World Heritage site) but found the entry fee for foreigners a bit steep and with our daylight waning we turned South and headed for Prachinburi. We enjoyed lovely roads through the low and densely forested hills through the afternoon with occasional temples or resort-type hotels peeking up from the treetops unexpectedly along the way. 5km's outside town a local and avid cycling tourist flagged us down in his truck and struck up a lengthy conversation that included offering to try negotiate a stay for us at the house we happened to be stopped in front of should we be too tired to carry on. We declined the offer saying we'd planned to stay in town and instead accepted his offer to escort us into the city and to our hotel. We were a bit slow, but when we arrived at the intersection our hotel was meant to be on, there he was waving to us from his grey Toyota Tacoma and pointing in the direction of the street we'd mentioned. Z. shouted a thanks and then he was off, no doubt back to whatever business he'd been up to before he stopped to chat with us. The hotel we had chosen from the map was no longer and after cruising around town we settled on the only place we could find after being helped by a local fellow who spoke as much English as we spoke Thai. We managed to communicate surprisingly well and didn't find ourselves having to use the silly hand puppet motions we'd been relying so heavily on since leaving Bangkok. The room we ended up with was a bit of a hovel but we made it through unscathed and even found a few English language channels on our tiny t.v. while we basked in the strong current of A/C piping into the tiny room.

We were both awake before the alarm went off and out the door with our bikes packed up ahead of most of the shops opening. The lovely ladies at Bread Cafe down the block made us coffee while they were still P.J. clad and rubbing sleep out of their eyes. A quick breakfast of bread, bananas and black liquid fuel and we were back on the road. 110km to Sa Kaeo was surprisingly uneventful and by 4pm we were through riding and checked into a hotel for the night. We collected a bunch of street vendor food from a market down the road and whiled away the evening hours stuffing ourselves to uncomfortable fullness with the goodies we had amassed. On the way out of town the next day we happened on a monument of King Naresuan the Great which was chock full of rooster statues and completely devoid of visitors. We arrived in the border town of Aranyahpareth in the early afternoon and perused the little streets before heading out for dinner and picking up our professionally cleaned laundry!!! Our underwear came back in a separate smaller bag and we wondered after the fact if it was uncouth to ask your laundress to wash your underwear in Thailand?

We'll cross our first international border by bicycle tomorrow from Thailand into Cambodia; you can be sure we'll be taking tons of photos to commemorate the event!