A Pedal Too Far

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Given our recent bad luck with motorbikes, we decided to give good old pushbikes a go today in order to finally try and track down the elusive Dragon Temple. We were prepared for it this time though - we knew the name of the place in Thai and had a map to help us. What we didn't bank on was the randomly placed misleading roadsigns...

It was midday when we set off on our epic bike ride. First of all, we rode through town to the so-called ferry. This turned out to be a flat metal boat that chugs you and your bike/motorbike across the river for just 4 Baht. On the other side, we headed off along a good quality road that was virtually devoid of traffic. At the big junction we carried straight on until we hit a traffic jam, Thai style. The road was blocked by a big herd of cattle being driven leisurely by a weatherbeaten man man and his 3 dogs. Weaving in and out of the herd, we made it to the other side only to realise that we had gone the wrong way.

A quick U-turn took us back on to the right road and off we pedalled again. The map showed us that we needed to hang a right somwhere before the road bridge and after about a kilometer we saw a big sign pointing the way to the temple. At last, we thought, we're finally going to make it. The road surface was pretty rough though as it led to a quarry and the continuous stream of rock-laden trucks driving down it had caused some serious potholing. We passed wonderful scenery as we rode including a rather odd looking Chinese cemetary that reminded me of Hobbiton - I expected Frodo Baggins to pop out and say hi at any moment! We cycled about 5 or 6 km along this road, waving to the friendly locals as we went but when we saw our first road sign in a while we were in for a shock - there was no mention of our temple!

Just as we were scratching our heads, wondering how on earth we could have gone the wrong way, a Thai woman pulled up in a big pick-up truck and asked if we needed directions. She told us we were in completely the wrong place which meant we would have to cycle all that distance back to the junction before taking the right road to the temple, a total journey of 9km. In the blazing hot sun, this just didn't seem like an option. Just as we made our decision to head back to the hostel, the lady suggested we could pop our bikes in the back of her pick-up truck and she would give us a lift. (It was like the motorbike breakdown all over again - we just couldn't believe our luck!) We chatted with Jane (most Thai people have a western version of their real names to make it easier for foreigners) on the way and were crestfallen to learn that the first road we had been on, the one with the cattle, had been the right one after all!

The temple itself was nice but nothing spectacular in my book. A steep flight of steps flanked by some colourful dragons led up to the caves. Inside we got to see the occasional intersting rock formation and at one point had to scramble on our hands and knees to access the chambers. It was nowhere near as impressive as the cave temple we found on our first day and we didn't get to see the famous floating nun either. Still, we were glad to have finally found the place after so many failed atempts.

Cycling back to the hostel was hard work not only because we were hot and tired but also my left pedal kept falling off leaving me with only a thin metal bar to put my foot on. Glynn hadn't been feeling 100% all day so when we got back in, he had himself a nice long nap. The evening was spent in the company of our excellent German friends again but Glynn and I had to head to bed early as we had booked a tour for the next day that involved getting up at 6.30am. I was glad of the sleep too though as I have been in a bit of pain all week from my extracted wisdom tooth. Tomorrow, we're off to the Erawan waterfalls - supposedly the most beautiful in all of Thailand. Tune in tomorrow for the verdict!

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