Day 3 Bangkok to Saigon

Day 3 10th November Distance 109.24Km, Chaolo Beech to Soi Dao Highland Resort

We had a reasonable distance to cover and so planned an early start, on-time to allow us to get a chunk of the cycling done in the “cooler” early morning. I thought this meant I could wake up at 6.30AM for a 7am breakfast so was a little worried when at 6.25am there was a hammering on my door and Jim was there looking as if he was ready to set off. It turned out that he wanted to avoid being seen as the faffer and was ensuring he was ready on time. He had knocked on my door to get his camera memory card back as there was another possible way to retrieve the data he had lost the day before.

We had pre-ordered breakfast and this time instead of bacon and eggs “surreal” I chose a rice soup. I felt it would be more likely to be cooked appropriately and better for the cycle ride ahead. It was delicious, unlike the coffee. One other odd thing was the temperature, even I was almost cold and Mary who lives in Florida had to put on a coat over her cycling top as did Khun Yuo. This was the hotel's restaurant and looked onto the beach.

We almost set off close to the planned time, as we needed to get up to near to the Thai/Cambodian border we had to cover a fair distance which meant cycling over busier roads. This time Chris faffed around, later he claimed that he thought Khun Yuo had said we would start at 8am rather than 7am.

The first bridge we came to had police control as a film crew were filming in the middle of the bridge. We just cycled on by. In this part of the coast they also play the National Anthem on loudspeakers mounted on the telegraph poles, in the early morning and in the evening.

As well is being cold there was quite a wind blowing, later it came back to “bite us”. We sailed on past the first scheduled stop and then crossed a huge bridge before the next stop 25Km/15miles down the road on a garage forecourt. Once again Khun Lec gave us each a chilled towel – it was fantastic, then we ate fresh fruit and some form of super sweet rice cakes and drank more liquid whilst Khun Lec filled our water bottles. This time I also piled on a bunch more sun tan lotion. I will no longer consider factor 30 as being stronger than strong! Jim often shoots on ahead and then will stop to take a picture of something that catches his eye - here is one scene he stopped at, so I took a picture too.

We then set off and Jim and Mary tanked off up the road, unfortunately Khun Yuo discovered her instructions might he been a bit misleading as we hit the first town, so Chris and I hung around at a street corner whilst Khun Yuo cycled in one direction, Khun Lec drove in the other, it turned out they had gone the right way after all, so we had just delayed things. This is what advert on walls look like in Thailand.

We set off again and soon Chris and I left Khun Yuo behind, not very chivalrous I know, but she is a fair bit younger, knows where she is and speaks Thai. The road started rising a little with the Cardamom Mountains in the misty distance and Chris mentioned that on a previous route they would detour to a waterfall and bathe in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. So a sign we passed showing a waterfall in 0.5Km looked too good to resist. I told Chris we would be there and back before Khun Yuo had caught up with us. She passed by soon after we headed up the hill. All we found was a car park and the road to it guarded by one of the rare nasty dogs. (Speed rather than a pump attack was all that was needed though). As we were in the car park there were some weird noises coming from the tree next to me. This is a video for the sound rather than the picture, I never did see what was making the noise.

After wandering in the car park area Chris found someone who pointed up the hill to where the waterfall really was. So we left our bikes leaning against some trees and set off. As the forest enclosed us the humidity levels soared and despite occasionally glimpsing the odd bit of waterfall and a bit of noise nothing lived up to the promise of the sign. It did get more and more humid as we climbed up through the forest, passing all sorts of interesting vegetation including this clump of bamboo.

Eventually we reached a small shrine where a statue of Buddha was guarded by two tigers. Quite unexpected along a narrow forest track.

I was all for turning back, fortunately Chris pushed on and after clambering about on some slimy rocks we arrived at the waterfall. It was pretty good, and would have been even better if we could have had a quick dip.

Here is a still of the same waterfall, having spent the time to get here I was making sure we had pictures to prove to the others that we really had taken a detour and not just been very slow.

Since the others were all up ahead we texted Khun Yuo to let her know where we were and headed back down through the forest to the car park, not easy in cycling shoes with metal cleats in the soles. We got our bikes and zoomed past the dog and back onto the main road.

This time I set the pace, Chris tucked in behind me it was hard work cycling, we were hungry, thirsty and last in the group. The good news was that we only had 10Km to go, the bad news was it was windy and getting hillier. After what seemed like the longest slog of the journey we passed a wedding on a small hill which almost crippled us and it took a while to pick up the pace again. Seeing the van and the group in a café was great, a cold towel and a cold non-diet Pepsi later and the best ever Pad Thai turned up – it was so delicious that Chris and Khun Yuo had a second one each straight after. (Khun Yuo normally eats only small meals so it must have been good!)

After lunch we set of to the hotel we were staying in, estimated at 50Km/41miles. We cycled with Khun Yuo, but when the wind blew against us she slowed down too much so we left her behind again. Jim and Mary had left early after lunch so Chris and I cycled together. As the name of the hotel suggests, Soi Dao Highland Resort, it was likely going to be higher than the Beach resort, it turned out that most of the climbing was in the afternoon with the wind against us. We slogged our way up, Chris stopped for a breather but I carried on and we agreed to stop at the top and wait for Khun Yuo, for some reason there was no water/snack stop planned with the support van. The hill went on for ages, my GPS records it as around 200m, which does not sound a lot, but on a hot day with the wind against you seems merciless and although the average grade was only 10% it peaked at 20% or 1 in 5.

I still stopped en-route to take pictures - not every day I see a rubber tree plantation, the cups to collect the rubber are all in place- these trees were quite old.

We stopped at a café at the top with around 25KM/15miles to go and had a large bottle of Pepsi each, not diet we needed the sugar rush (24Baht, or 50p for both) and waited for Khun Yuo, she turned up and the Van also turned up – apparently Jim and Mary were checking in, how could they be 25Km/15miles ahead? It turned out there was a miscalculation and the actual distance left was 15Km/10miles. We set off feeling pretty good - not so far to go into the wind and apparently with the worst of the hills behind us. Here is Chris in the cafe.

As we neared the turnoff to the hotel, Khun Yec passed by in the van and parked at the turn point to make sure we did not miss it. However we saw this temple and stopped for a closer look. Khun Yec was wondering how it was possible that we had gotten lost in such a short distance.

The hotel had its own driveway of 4Km/2.5miles and for some strange reason was quite hard work even with the wind helping us, it was not hilly just gently undulating. The hotel was very comfortable and not very busy and had fantastic views of the mountains in the distance.

The best thing about the hotel was that it had a bath, when I am cycling I like to soak at the end of the day. This time as I eased my self into the hot water there was a sting in the tail or rather my rear end. Because I had been riding a bike that was too small for me I was not sitting properly on the saddle and so ended up with the wrong bits in contact with the saddle. So after the bath I used Sudocrem - great for nappy rash - and cyclists' bottoms.