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Published: February 21st 2007
Bikes and Elephants
You certainly know you're a long way from home when you see Elephants. But when you see tigers near your tent - well, you wish you were at home!Day 261, 16th February
Muak Lek - Saraburi - Ayutthaya
Awoke on the temple floor after the 6am prayers and shortly afterwards sunlight flooded the room. We ate breakfast with the monks - rice. But it’s strange what these Buddhist monks eat, I mean…I thought they were vegetarians but the eat fish and buffalo meat. Last night I saw some of them drinking beer and smoking cigarettes even!
We got on our bikes and left just after seven, following the small track back onto the mainroad and then downhill most of the way. It became hotter very quickly as we entered Saraburi, and we became a little lost. The road we ended up on was state highway 1, actually the elevated motorway part! It was safe to ride on, though, and we should have stayed on it but no, I thought it would be better to go on the quieter roads via Phachi and Nakhon Luang. These roads turned out to be very bumpy and added an extra 10 miles to our trip today.
Our destination was the city of Ayutthaya, and we arrived there just after 1pm and checked into “Old BJ’s Guest House”, a friendly
Ayutthaya Temple
Wat you looking at? place with no stairs to lug our bikes up. We had decided to come here instead of Bangkok, which we both didn’t fancy seeing or negotiating to be honest. Stephane decided to do his own stuff and I went to the internet café to see who’s been in touch:
Scott is fine, albeit 2 days east of us. Apparently, when he left us to get food he was only a few minutes doing it, therefore when we took a peek at the temple he passed us. He carried on down to the Cambodian border to see a temple which ended up being off-limits due to some fracas in the border areas. Rory and Toby are now in Bangkok after doing a 280km days cycling. Rory has seen the doc and is now on antibiotics…. I had a short and abrupt email from Kathryn too. What’s going to happen here? It’s times like this when I wonder if I’m becoming too involved or even too presumptious with her?
I spent the afternoon with Stephane going around the huge and interesting market. Later on I spent time reading my “Russka” book and talking to the many interesting fellow travellers until
My new journal
This is the kitsch cover of the journal I'm writing everything down in. around midnight when I finally crashed out.
Total Miles: 11940.55 Todays Miles: 63.87 Average speed: 14.3 Time on bike: 4:27
Day 262, 17th February
Ayutthaya
Spent the day riding around the wats on my bike. Some of them are over 1,000 years old and have a base layer of bricks, just the same as the common bricks used on modern houses everywhere. I saw elephants today, transporting tourists about on top of them shaded by umbrellas. They didn’t look as if they were being badly treated though.
It was just a chill-out day that I spent with some Aussies, drinking beers and taking about absolute shit. They asked how many different types of animals I’ve seen on my bike trips over the years which set me thinking…. Well, there was the Elephants today, that was a first: I’ve also seen dogs, cats, a pair of shagging hedgehogs in Germany, a mouse that burrowed into my food bag, spiders, slugs and snails, pesky ants and mosquitoes, a wild boar, cows, horses, camels, yaks, gazelle, deer, a golden eagle, a Siberian wolf, and the most scariest - a bloody big bear in Sweden!
Day
Canal Life
Just one of the small towns we passed through on our way west from Ayuttaya. 263, 18th February
Ayutthaya
I awoke early this morning after a night of bad guts and being on first-name-terms with the toilet. And went into the lobby area to finish of “Russka” and to wait for an expected phone call from Kathryn, which didn’t come. So I went and checked email at 11 and had one from her saying she’d called just after I’d left the guest house. Hmmmm! So, she’LL call me back later in the afternoon and we hope we’ll get things sorted out. Apparently, she’s decided not to meet me in Singapore cos her intuition tells her it’s not safe to do so, bet we can meet in Hawaii. To be honest, I feel dissapointed now, I was really looking forward to meeting up in Singapore, Hawaii really doesn’t appeal to me at all. I feel at times like this that I’m being played with, strung along, and that I’m being ‘tested’ for my commitment value? Or, have I been wasting my time chasing an impossible dream and a relationship with Kathryn turns out to be a nightmare??? How many other travellers have this situation? One person on the road and one person at home
Ayutthaya to Bangkok Canal
Didn't really expect to see such huge boats... - does this ever work out?
Later on I gave my bike a thorough check-over, changed the front pannier bolts for new ones and fixed a couple more strengthening nails to then with hose-clamps. Cyclists, forget Blackburn panniers for distance cycling - they’re crap! The outer tyre patch I put on a few days ago to hide a gaping hole seems to be holding up very well. In the evening I met a young English couple at the hostel and spent the night chatting about places to go and things to do before you die. It’s interesting staying in a place with travellers, I miss this conversation when free-camping and cycling every day.
Day 264, 19th February
Ayutthaya - Sena - Bang Len - Don Tum
It was time to leave today and to try and head south without hitting any of the busy roads around Bangkok. This would involve rural roads and a bit of getting lost. My old blue shorts that cost me 50p at a charity shop a few years ago were now finally falling apart, holes everywhere, and a day ago I was toying with the idea of chucking them, but,
Thai Beer
I suppose everybody knows this label who has been to or is in Thailand. I paid 45 Baht for a beer at a cafe in Ayutthaya and 5 Baht for the same beer outside of the city! you become kind of attatched don’t you? Well, one of the employees at the hostel had his old Singer sewing machine out and offered to patch up my shorts with gold stripey patches. He did a wonderful job adding a new pocket and putting a heart-shaped patch on the arse! Well worth a beer! So, with my sexy new look, I set out with Stephane at 10am after posting my package and a few letters. The postmark was dated 19th FEBRUARY 2545 - that’s the year in Thailand!
On the way out of Ayutthaya we passed temples, tourists, elephants and wats. Then after just a few miles, we were in the un-touristed Thailand again with friendly waving locals in the fields. It seemed to me a strange concept then that the Lonely-Planet-hugging-Backpackers use their books as bibles and only seem to frequent the places put forth in the pages of the Good Book. At times like this I feel forever grateful of the freedom that my bicycle can give me to meet the real people and the real Thailand. That was a good thing I did in 1995 to put my backpack in the attic and get my bike out of the shed.
Just a small thing about prices: the difference in prices in the touristy compared to local areas are stark…. Bottle of water 10baht - 2baht, Bottle of beer 30baht - 5baht, Basic meal 40baht - 10 baht…. And so on….
The roads were busy and we zig-zagged across country for 80 miles before coming to rest near Don Tom as the sun was setting like a big red ball. We were in rural Thailand once again and I chose a dirt path of to the west of the road. It followed what seemed to be a canal for miles into the jungle. The trees became thicker and thicker and our path became blocked by ever-increasing tree roots. Then to our left we saw a clearing where a building recently stood, the jungle was just starting to take over. In the dim light we pitched our tents, just the transparent fly-sheets cos it was hot in the nights. This was the time when the day creatures stop their singing and the half-hour silence begins before the night creatures begin.
As we lay down in our tents, we became aware of a noise, a sort of rusting crunching noise coming from within the trees. We both fell silent, our primeaval senses showing, becoming alert and ready for whatever or whoever came out of the trees. As the noise became louder as it got closer I prepared my pepper-spray and flick-knife for action, I’d used them once before in Siberia and was not afraid of defending myself again. We certainly weren’t prepared for what we saw next - a tiger….a fucking great big tiger! In the dark, half-light, it came out of the jungle into the clearing about 50 feet away from us. I rubbed my eyes, I thought I was hallucinating, this can’t be true, can it? This thing can kill us, right now! Tear our flesh from our bodies and feast on us! Man!... I was scared, what can you do? Pepper-spray would blind it but not stop those flailing razor-sharp claws from inflicting severe damage or even death. What if it goes for Stephane? Do I try and stop it, or run away to save my live - what a fucking decision for anyone to make. This morning I was talking to elephant-riding backpacker - now I’m facing death!
It got darker and darker, I think the wind was in our favour, the tiger either wasn’t bothered with smelly bikepackers, didn’t smell us, didn’t see us…anyway, it just weaved into the jungle again and left as the night creature began their chorous of hoots, howls, brrrr-brrrr, gehrr-khoee, etc… All this was accompanied by fireflies and a rising half-moon. The tiger had gone but the night-creatures masked the sound it would make if it returned in the night when we were asleep. Stephane and I didn’t really sleep….
Total Miles: 12022.47 Todays Miles: 81.91 Average speed: 14.2 Time on bike: 5:45
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Jackie
non-member comment
Wow
Did not expect that. Oh for those prices not 300 bht for 2 small singas in phuket.