The day didn’t start great, I had a puncture before i had even rolled the bike out of the room. A huge slither of metal had worked its way in. This apparently set me on the wrong side of the bed, the road we were on was busy and the noise was really getting to me. There was an alternative route which did add much onto what we had to do to get to Laos but Loon wasn’t keen. Loon is a planner, he likes to know what and where he is going to be 5 days before hand whereas i just go with it and if there is no hotel i will just find somewhere to put a tent up but Russell and Loon didn’t want to camp.
I said to Russell if he wanted to see Thailand or ride up a motorway to Laos, then we comforted Loon and to my disappointment we agreed on a day’s diversion as Loon was worried we wouldn’t make it to the border before the 12th of march (which is heaps of time). Heading along the 205 the road was much quieter and my i was feeling much happier. Stopping for lunch i asked Russell if he would rather stay on this road to Laos or go back to the main road, with the turning just ahead it was time to make a decision. I wanted to stay on this road and so did Russell, we spoke to Loon and to be honest i wasn’t bothered if he wanted to go back to the main road or stay on this road. Russell was only riding with us till Laos and i was having a good laugh with him along and I like riding with him.
After another stop, about an hour after lunch, we decided to take a shorter road on a even minor road, after a few minutes of riding up it two western guys in a ute indicated for us to stop. There was the older driver ‘Mr Chang’ from Norway who was quite loud and i could smell the alcohol on him from about 5 yards away (too many Changs!) and another guy from Sweden. Mr. Chang wa talking to Loon and fro what i could gather was saying there is nothing on the road we were cycling along, i spoke to the Swedish guy and used some of the basic Swedish i have learnt just to make sure they knew i could speak their lingo and weren’t going to talk thinking we couldn’t understand, makes them think twice. The Swedish guy left, where to i don’t know and the Mr Chang was telling us there is nothing for 180km etc, he said we should go back to the 205 and find somewhere to stay in Chatturat. He offered for us to stay at his home but this guy seemed a bit wild, I’m sure he was fine but we were all a little wary and wanted to get a few more kms under our wheels. We turned bnack to the main road and just before we got there Mr Chang who had drove out ahead was stood by the side and handed us each a red bull type drink while on the move, though Loon did drop and break his while trying to grab it. A few kms up the road Mr Chang drove ahead and we all slowed thinking what the hell is with this guy, we were a little unsure and all slowed. Getting closer he held his handout with another Energy drink to replace the one Loon drop, crazy kind, he then turned round and drove off.We rode like mad men to Chatturat but the last kms were hard as we crashed from our energy drink courtesy of Mr Chang. Just on the edge Loon somehow spotted a hotel, it was written in Thai and Loon cant read Thai so it was one hell of a find. We tried to haggle them down to 300baht but Russell was done and didn’t fancy searching for anywhere else so we coughed up 400 baht between the three of us, i volunteered the floor again because i didn’t want to share the double bed! The owner of the place then brought us a piece of paper with a hand drawing of a women and 1300baht written next to it, pricy!
After showering we went off for food, there wasn’t much near us with this being right on the edge of town, there were lots of karaoke bars with girls all who kept trying to talk to us as we walked by, i let Russell deal with it, his strange humour confused them. After dinner we went back to our room, where the fun and games started, first we tried to keep the mosquitoes out, then the giant ants attacked, then a huge spider in my bed. We then heard strange noises outside then it was the turn of cockroaches again, well one flying one. I don’t like this place, my knife is close by just in case of a bear attack.
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