Ride #6: Chumpon to KraBuri

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Another restless night to wake to a sore jaw and headache. I was beginning to think the hard mattresses where not suiting my back which was giving me a restless nights sleep which was causing me to clench my teeth which was giving me headache. All above confirmed by google who I believe has an MD.
I headed out of the town the same way I had rode in thinking I would see a sign to were I wanted to go and everything will be fine. Sure it will be grand. 2 kms went by and it was looking unlikely so I checked my map, perhaps something I should have done the night before or at least this morning. Ah, I needed to leave the city on the other side. I back tracked into the city and winded my way down to the highway, route 327. The entrance to the highway was at the far end of the town so I secretly rode the wrong way along the exit slip road and swung onto the highway. I'm sure no one noticed me not even that guy flashing his head lights. pfffhhh, they go on the wrong side of the road the whole time and I get flashed. A particular concern when riding is scooters barreling along the wrong side of the road on the hard shoulder. The protocol is for the driver going the correct way to move out and let them go through on the inside. Fine, no problems, except when you are a tired cyclist with your head down praying for the end of the day. You look up at the last moment to see a scooter flying at you with no intention of moving off course so you have to move. Your riding instincts kick in and you swerve your bike as you would normally, however with the extra weight on the back the bike will spin 90 degrees if you are traveling slowly. That puts you heading straight out onto the road. A quick fix of direction is needed which puts you heading back towards the ditch. one more fix and you are back on track. This happened to me a few times until I realised no matter how tired I was not to put my head down. That doesn't help however when you are over taking a parked truck and a scooter comes flying at you around the same side of the truck. Luckily since I had already checked that there was no traffic coming I could do my erratic swerve without fear of being run over.
Route 327 was quite a busy road that ran through an industrial zone. I knew I had to follow this road until I got to the intersection with the north south highway. Once on the other side it was going to be all sweet riding on a cloud of puppies and marshmallows. At the intersection they were constructing a new city bypass so there was a detour to get across the road. I had to travel 5kms down the road and turn around and come back up again on the other side. WTF!! I headed down the road following the signs for the turn around route to Ranong. I figured the round about would be one of their nice bridge under passes. Nope. The turn around was a right hand turn on the far lane of the highway. Ugh, another battle with trucks to get across but this time they were moving at full speed. When I got off my bike and turned around there was a gap in the traffic so i legged it trying to catch the eye of the drivers turning right to please not run me over. one waved me through and I kept running to make it across a gap on the other side of the road. That turned out to be easy. I rode back to the intersection that I was sure was the place I was supposed to cross originally. There was no signs or road markings but it had to be it so I turned left and headed on. Once through the road works the country side changed and the road changed. Finally, country thailand. The double lane highway had changed into a single lane road (or whatever it is called, both lanes on the one piece of road). The amount of trucks on the road had immediately halved if not thirdededed. Nice. I still wasn't sure I was on the right road though. Checking the gps on my phone put me back on the highway. hmmmm, I might choose to ignore that and continue on anyway. It was not until the 25km mark that a sign for Ranong appeared and just at the start of the climb too. I wouldn't have wanted to start a climb still not sure I was on the right road. The climb was quite long at about 30kms but not very steep. An easy gradual climb of between 1-3% most of the time. The extra weight on the bike did however make every climb harder. Not only was the weight itself a problem but the width of the pannier bags created a large cross sectional area that was working like an air brake. If you were on a flat piece of road and you stopped pedaling the extra drag from the pannier pages would cause you to come to a stop pretty quickly.
The ride up the hill was quite nice, less broken down shacks and more farm houses. Still a fair amount of dogs chasing after me. The dogs did seem harmless enough. They would run barking after you for a couple of metres but then mostly stop. The occasional dog would keep going but increasing your speed a small amount usually dropped them. They didn't seem to be that energetic that chasing a guy on a bike was worth the effort. In the towns some of the dogs were scary looking though. not in "i'll eat you, track down your family and eat them" way but in a "help, I've got ever disease known to dog and I'll be dead soon". Anyway, no bites so far.
The downhills always seem to be over to soon. Looking at the gps profile the climbs are really not that high they just feel it which would explain why the downhills are over so quickly. Like sex really, all that effort and hard work to get on the top and before you know it you are at the bottom looking at the another climb back to the top...😊
The descent and road into kraburi ran parrallel to the Myanmar boarder. Every now and again you would get a glimpse of the river that was the boarder. No idea of the history of the area so if you want to know, go read a book or use the interweb. Kraburi is a tiny little village, the smallest I have been in on the trip. I rode down the main street which lasted all of 50m and then turned back. Not a hotel in sight. I pulled over to a shop to sit in the shade and get some water and have a think of what to do. The next stop on the route was Ranong which was 58kms away. "that didn't seem to far" I thought. What? I had struggled for the last 10kms and now my mind was telling me that another 58kms wasn't that far. hmmmmm, better check the internet and see what is around. A quick search revealed that there was one resort in the area just on the outskirts of the town on the opposite side that I had arrived. I rode down and had a look. It didn't look great and my mind was still telling me that 58kms wasn't that far. Perhaps I'll have some food and think about it. As soon as I sat down to eat the controlling share holder in this adventure, Arse, put his hand up and said firmly that there was no way we were going any further. Mind, always afraid to go one and one with arse agreed and it was decided we (I) was staying here. The staff at the cafe didn't speak any english so I pointed at one of the dishes. The lady started to laugh and called over one of the customers who said "hot" and made expressions implying that my face would explode. I tried to hand signal/gesture "ok, just give me food or I'll smash you, this place and your hot food" but in a polite manner. They seemed to understand and gave me some rice and cabbage with an egg on the top. It didn't last long. Even the bowl of soup that had a big chunk of meat bone in it was quickly devoured. I didn't touch the raw salad with the flies on it.
After eating I went down the road to the resort. Queue the incredibly friendly thai lady owner. Her english was pretty good but I still couldn't understand a lot of what she was saying. The rooms turned out to be quite nice, little individual bungalows with air con. After showering I joined her out the front to use the wifi and have a beer. 25 baht (80cents) for an hour of wifi use which was spent mostly answering her questions about australia and europe and showing her pictures. She had a book that she asked me to sign which I think contained only the names of people who had cycled through. It was pretty much the only place you could stay so anyone riding from bangkok to phuket would have stayed here. Surprised to see that there was probably a cyclist or two passing through here day. Mostly dutch people and some germans. An explanation was giving to me that dutch people cycle everywhere, as you can see by the amount of bikes in amsterdam, but still commuting to work everyday is a far cry from touring around a country. I put it down to an inherent fear of windmills that a lot of dutch people have and a need to escape from holland. Riding around foreign countries reassures them that not every land is full of windmills. That is just my theory though, still not confirmed by laboratory testing.
I get some food at the market and head back to the resort where the lady has orgnaised a thai massage for me. The masseuse arrives and the hotel owner comes into the room too. Seems she is going to hang around for a little while as a translator. A little strange having an audience for a massage. The masseuse is really good. She most have at least 20 different moves I have never seen before and moves through them in quick precision. Two hours later I feel a bit battered and bruised but none the less better.
Ride 6 done.

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