Haste was the order of the morning, I wanted to be packed away before the sun came up, not having an alarm made this tricky, every time I woke through the night I checked the time, this happened every hour until 4am where I didn’t wake till 615am, over sleep! It took me 30minutes to be packed away and ready to go but before breakfast I faced one of my great demons, the squat toilet, it was uncomfortable but I think this morning was essential. As food stalls were not yet open I ate my pineapple to fuel me till I found one, after successfully finding one I was fuelled to motor onto Khiri Khan. My aim was to get there before the afternoon sun destroyed me. Riding along I wasn’t sure if I could see another cycle tourist ahead, ‘is this a dagger of which I see before me,’ YES! I caught up and got chatting to my new friend, his name was Loon, when I get to know him better I will nickname him ‘Loonly.’ He was from Malaysia and was riding the same route as me till about midway through china. He was travelling much lighter than me but seemed to go along at a fair pace and had a similar time scale as me. Fantastic I have a friend. I asked him about how he coped with the afternoon sun, he didn’t, he then told me his thermometer he had said it gets over 40C! So my complaining about the heat is just, it was 10am it felt cool to ride in but his thermometer was reading 36C and rising. The lows of European winter will be fun. Riding along we spoke of how we had both been chased by a lot of dogs but just this road and nowhere else, one or two cyclists doesn’t deter them so when we were chase by one hungry dog I sped up, Loon grab the cane he kept on his handle bars and smashed our pursuer right across its head, that seemed to work. We were both heading to Khiri Khan so to save money agreed to share a room, as it was a Thai holiday and a Sunday places were full and all we could get was a room with air con (I haven’t had a room with air con yet) for 200baht each, about what I’d pay anyways. Shower and food was the next plan, but a recent infestation I have been having is cockroaches, they seem to be taking a liking to my pannier bags, doesn’t seem to matter which one, opening one up in search of clean underwear one came running out, I hate the things yet do admire them on their ability to survive anything, so I smashed the little bugger into the ground.
After food I discovered mango sticky rice thanks to Loony, I then needed to sleep. Hour and half later my body felt as if I had sleep deprived it (a little) and been making it cycle in ridicules heat but I summond the energy to go to another temple on top of a hill, only 396 steps and a sh!t load of monkeys. I hate monkeys and it would appear the feeling is mutual as a big fierce looking male decided he didn’t like me and began shows his teeth and motioning towards me. I bravely did what any self respecting bloke (or monkey) would do and hid behind Loony, he can deal with monkeys but with no cane apparently not, we bravely made our escape before this new enemy decided to show who is top of the food chain. Inspired by the effectiveness a good stick can have I grabbed my own, this was my monkey stick, there was a lot more between me and the 396 steps to the top but luckily for the monkeys it was not required, maybe they are smart enough to know someone carrying a stick does incase a monkey wants to show who rules.
Reaching the top we had a great view of Khiri Khan, it’s a magnificent places and not yet riddled with tourists though I fear shortly it will soon be on the tourist trail, crystal clear water, not the best but nice enough beach an idyllic area. The evening basically consisted of eating, I ate a scary amount of food, even Homer Simpson would have been proud, eventually I managed to fill myself for long enough to make it back to the Guesthouse where I’m too lazy to go out a search for more.
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