Robert Beal

I cycled my way back up to Krabi from Satun (it taking two days) to return to the Pak-Up hostel I had previously stayed at. Given I had spent longer in the deep south, and wasn’t cycling back to Bangkok I had several days to kill in Krabi before heading to Bangkok. I didn’t really have any plans apart from wanting to have a rest and see the Tiger temple. In the end my days typically were made up of long lie-ins, plodding around during the day then drinking in the evening (my first real nights of drinking on the whole trip). Once in Bangkok I had to get a new Chinese visa, repair my bicycle and do any typical touristy stuff.

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Leaving Ko Lanta, I said goodbye to Liam and Jess and was on my own once again. For the first time in Thailand I started to get a lot of attention. Mopeds would beep me, or more commonly pull alongside me and ask where I was going. They didn’t seem to care where I was from, just where I was going in Thailand. On the ferry out of Ko Lanta, two muslim girls just starred and smiled at me from no more than three metres away. I gave them a friendly wave to keep them content. They giggled and turned away. Twenty seconds later they had turned round and were smiling at me, this time also waving. I waved back once again and they turned away. This repeated around a dozen times and became a little bit tiresome although the girls were very sweet. I started gazing up at the sky and pretend-checking my bike to avoid eye contact! Annoyingly I saw them on the 2nd ferry (two to get off Ko Lanta) and it all repeated again.

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Cycling out of Pa Tong was a lot harder than I had remembered (when entering). While the hills weren’t very steep relative to what I’ve cycled in the UK and Europe, it was the heat that was causing me problems. Even climbing for a minute or two I found I would overheat and be drenched in sweat. Stopping to rest, even in the shade, meant I would sweat even more. It was a no-win situation. The best thing to do was to get over the hills as quickly as possible. The northern part of Phuket was suprisingly nice. The beaches were beautiful and quiet. When I stopped for lunch, there were only a few people dotted around, all of which were Thai. It was quite a contrast to the southern part of the island and amazed me that people don’t seem to venture further up to find such beaches.

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My original plans were to visit Thailand after having done India. This all changed when I decided I would spend Christmas with my brother in Hanoi. Given I didn’t have enough time to cycle India before going to Hanoi, I chose to fit in Thailand instead. Due to budget reasons it meant having to drop Malaysia and Singapore from my travel plans and around 600km of cycling distance. I booked a return flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok, landing in Bangkok on November 7th. Given this was right in the middle of the largest floods in Bangkok for 40 years I decided to see Bangkok at the end of my tour of southern Thailand, so booked another flight from Bangkok to Phuket.

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