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Published: December 9th 2013
I started late again since I had not slept until the morning. I had to start with the only obvious road, which was an Autobahn more or less. Luckily, the emergency lane is used as a bidirectional lane for small and slow vehicles, so it was not a problem to drive there. The smog was not so nice however. But I guess 2 days won’t kill me.
After about 10 km I had the chance to leave to a “rural road” and that is what I did. If I had known that the road was damaged for many kilometres and basically just dust and dirt, I might have decided differently. Although the scenery got much lovelier, the dirt just sticked everywhere, especially with the 100+ trucks passing and creating clouds of dust. Every time I passed a truck, I had to ride through a dust cloud, visibility under 5 m. When I made a break and cleaned my face, the handkerchief was brown… There were also some tricky situations with the bike, going through the sand. Benno will laugh at it J . But with my saddlebags, I was quite happy that I still did not ride my special bike
shoes and had my legs free to help. At one point a guy was watering the road. As I passed I saw that he was trying from preventing dust clouds to go into the nearby wood factory.
After a while I found an excellent location for a break, over a small water and with view of rice fields. And believe it or not - it even had an open WiFi from some house around. What a surprise!
Later I went to eat something and stopped at some street restaurant. A Thai woman (she was a guest) approached me because she spoke the best English and asked me if I would like something to eat, maybe noodles. I confirmed and asked for a bottle of water. Seems she misunderstood because 20 minutes later I still sat there with no food and the lady was gone. Meanwhile one of the cooks brought me a piece of melon (for free) to show hospitality. I asked for some dishes and showed in sign language that I was hungry. But since she did not start cooking I thought about leaving. Then came the other cook and gave me some mandarins. So lovely. And
finally she understood that I was hungry and I got a wonderful soup, a Tom Yam with, öhm, “things” inside. Might have been pork liver. My Laab Gai yesterday evening still had chicken bones inside (minced…), so you can see that I am really eating street kitchen.
Around 1 p.m. I reached Samut Songkhram and because of the delays (rural road and food) I decided to look for a hotel there since I had to start working at 4 p.m. and there seemed to be no more accommodation ahead for the next 30-50 km. Finding a hotel was easier since I immediately used the Google Maps application. I picked the first one and as usually I wanted to see the room before. Well – I wonder why I use to do this since I said yes to this room anyway. I had my doubts but if you take this room, you will never again find one you won’t take. The price was only about 6 EUR, BUT still I think that cleaning should be possible. For example the light switch was brown/black and I tried it – it was just dirt. Never has been cleaned in the last 20
years, I bet. The funniest piece of furniture was the mirror however. I never stood before a mirror that would reflect nothing. Not anymore. I am so happy now that I brought my sleeping bag and towel because I would not use their stained ones. And the bed – well I still can sleep on the floor but there I expect cockroaches to come out and party at night. With firecrackers, alcohol and a big German as their main dish. But on the bed the animals inside the matrass might bite me as well. Not an easy decision. And mosquitos are all over the room.
Again I had trouble with my internet SIM. Apparently my laptop works well with it after I had found the right APN setting in the web, so there I am on 4G. In my f**ing Samsung phone there seems to be a problem with the frequencies, although 2100 is supported. Now I got only Edge there and sometimes even that does not work. I am using my laptop as a hotspot but that won’t work on the road of course. Well, I will keep investigating the matter and buy another SIM when I reach
some tourist town. The last 60 km were largely industry, metal wielding, a foundry, weapons and seafood factories.
Question: which song is included in this blog? Reward for the first right solution: 2 Cocktails of your choice.
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christine
non-member comment
I know the song, I know the song !!!!
Of course it is "View from a bridge" , Kim Wilde, long live the 80's !!!!! Come on, don't complain so much about your room, it's thai style, we had the same thing for much more money last year in Koh Ngai.