Sailing past Koh Samui on our way to Don Sak harbour...
T & C out on the deck of the ferry...
The ferry to Don Sak took only two and a half hours as apposed to the three hours it had taken traveling in the opposite direction a few days previously…
We coasted past Koh Samui, where Phil would have by now been settling in for a few days of parting with his friends from Saltspring… They had taken the early morning, fast passenger ferry across from Thongsala, which took barely half an hour to make the crossing…
Our ferry had a decent lounge area this time, and we settled into a comfortable booth and sat reading to pass the time…
We had parked our bikes up in the bow of the ferry, and were first to disembark in Don Sak… It was one of those blazing hot days and we decided to ride without our jackets on for a while… This was the first time either of us had done this, and we enjoyed the wind whipping over us and cooling us down…
Riding without our jackets was invigorating...
After just a short distance, I noticed that Trevor’s arms were turning a bright red, so reached into my Bar Bag, extracted a tube of suntan lotion I keep there, and sidled up next to them, and handed the tube to a surprised looking Chenty…!!
We were traveling at about 85 km/h at the time, so the handover had to be done smoothly, as you can imagine…!! It was not the first time I had done this… I had in the past passed over sweets and water, so Chenty knew what to expect…!!
I switched back to the centre of the lane where I prefer to ride, smiling to myself all the while, at the sight of Chenty rubbing the cream into Trevor’s arms and neck…
Little moments such as this epitomized the fact that we rode as a team, one biker looking out for the other…
We had long ago settled into a comfortable rhythm of riding together, and for the most part knew exactly where the other rider was all the time… We stuck to our lines, Trevor almost always riding close to the edge of the road, while I almost always rode closer to the centre line… These differing habits were a good thing because if either of us had to brake suddenly, the chances of one of us running into the back of the other were almost non-existent…
We had no idea why such a huge statue of a kangaroo should be standing here...
This is how pigs are transported in Thailand... You don't want to gett too close to the back of one of these, believe me...!!
We rode west, skirted Surat Thani and then turned north on Route 41… We picked up the pace then, riding hard past Chaiya, Tha Chana, Lang Suan and Ban Hat Sai Ri… After two hours and having covered almost 240 km, the heat began to get to me, making me drowsy….
We pulled over into a large service station with restaurants attached, and bought a few sandwiches in the 7-Eleven on the edge of the parking lot…
Then we retired to a nearby coffee shop that served only biscuits to go with the coffee they sold, and sat there munching away while we rested…
Leading into the service station stood a the huge figure of a Kangaroo, complete with a joey in her pouch… We tried to figure what the heck it had to do with Malaysia, but could not come up with a satisfactory answer except perhaps that the owner has a connection of sorts to Australia…
Back on the road, and east of Chumphon, we turned off route 41 and headed west again, to cross the mountains that run lengthwise down the peninsula… This was the same stretch that we had ridden just a few days previously on our way to Koh Phangan…
We had all (well, Trev and I especially…!!) looked forward to tackling the curves and twisty’s that we had enjoyed coming the opposite way… We tore along this, the Route 4, on our way to Kra Buri and down to Ban Thap Chak, before slowing down on the entry into Ranong… The ride through the mountains had been sweet, almost clear of traffic, allowing us to skip along at a nice even pace…
Then we were into the twsisty's that took us up and over the backbone of southern Thailand...
It was great to be hooking into corners again, knowing that I had new rubber under me, and a the Big Fella had all the grip he needed to take corners as if we were running on rails… Loved it, and judging by the grin on Trevor’s face when we reached the end of it, he had too…!!
We had punched in the co-ords to the Kiwi Orchid Guest House, where we had read, we could also do the visa run into Burma from…
We arrived at the hostel and offices of this exuberant woman who would be arranging our trip to Burma the next day...
We arrived there to be greeted by the boisterous and quite amusing owner, a Thai lady in her fifties I reckoned, who was full of wise cracks and kept up with me effortlessly… Chenty went to check out the rooms, while I dunked my head in a fountain feeding a large fish pond, much to the horror of the owner…
“No, no, no….!!” she said hurrying up to me, “Use the basin over there… This water is no good…!!”
Chenty had not liked what she had seen upstairs and muttered, “We need to find somewhere else…!!”
Chenty gets a lift to our next hotel....
We explained we were looking for something a little “more comfortable” and with a laugh the landlady agreed that we deserved better, and set about calling a few other hotels and lodges until she grinned in apparent triumph and told she had found a “good place….nice and clean”…
The Pathu Resort turned out to be a good call...
Before we left to go there, we paid her for the visa run which amounted to 500.00 Bhat… This included transfers to and from our hotel, as well as the cost of the longboat that would take us the few miles across the bay to Kaw Thaung in Burma and back again…
Then she pointed to her scooter, told Chenty to hop on, and then instructed Trevor and I to follow them… We grinned at each other as we rode behind them, watching Chenty’s legs swinging out on either side of the scooter… It was so strange seeing her up on another bike…
Darkness fell swiftly as we made our way through the streets and a short while later arrived at the Pathu Resort… It was located in a quiet side street just off the main road that ran through Ranong, and had ample and secure parking… Staff were friendly and they quickly had us checked in and settled in two adjoining rooms of the ground floor…
We shed our kit and were in the small swimming pool in minutes, cold beers in hand…
It had been a hot and sweaty 400 km ride, and we were glad to be off the bikes and cooling down…
©GBWT 2011
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