Thailand - Krabi and Laem Sak

Ooo, these were a good couple of days! Landscape was off the scale and we visited a wonderful remote monastery where a senior monk hugged Lilz (you are not supposed to touch monks as a sign of respect).

Getting to Krabi from Koh Lanta was 64 miles (103km) of meh: retracing our steps up the peninsula and then highway pretty much all the way. When we deviated off the hwy we hit snarly dirt tracks which the rain last night had turned to mud. We did pass an elephant hospital though (no elephants seen, only imagined with jumbo bandages). We have also seen a lot more cycle tourers - at least five before lunch.

Krabi Town was nicer than we both expected.
The weekend night market had the best street food and we slavered our way through big bowls of Massaman Curry, a southern Thai dish we instantly fell in love with (a mix of Persian dried spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves, with Thai ingredients like lemongrass and galangal). I delighted in seeing green vegetables again - something I’d not seen a lot of whilst in Malaysia and Indonesia - and ate the larger half of our shared Morning Glory dish. Yom!

The landscape around Krabi - huge towering lumpy bumpy karst limestone - is amazing and one of my favourites. I love the drama of it. We took the beautiful rural 4034 away from the highway (a cycling highlight of the trip) with a detour up to Kuan Nom Saow restaurant. It was a workout to get there: 900m along a sandy track up to a high viewpoint, but worth it to enjoy lunch looking out across a stunning panoramic karst vista.

On these wonderful rural roads we briefly stopped to chat to a Spanish tourer, looking rugged and relaxed he was cycling Hanoi to KL and gave us some camping tips.

Turning a corner we were met by a serene line of five pure white Buddhas, each smaller than the one above, guarded on either side by fearsome nagas (Nilakarn Nakarat and Kanyawadee Nakhi Devi. Nagas are guardian spirits/powerful supernatural serpents, that can influence well-being or destiny).

One of my favourite things about cycle touring is randomly coming across such things. Stopping to look I learnt it was a community built shrine, still in completion. A large poster in the shrine’s workshop area told of Mr. Supin Thin Nongchik, the craftsman, who conceived the idea of ​​creating the large statues during Covid, to be built through volunteer work only, driven by merit and faith. Children, adults, and elderly people all participated, sculpting the Buddha statues one by one, bending iron and mixing cement.
Mr. Supin wanted to “create these miraculous things, to represent the power of merit, the power of faith, and the power of unity”. Seeing the construction up close and the moulds for the naga’s scales, each placed by hand, I marvelled at the community’s time and dedication.

By late afternoon we had turned west to cycle down the Laem Sak peninsula, a detour to visit ‘Wat Mahathat Laem Sak’ at its tip. Limestone karst cliffs accompanied us down the quiet rural highway undulating its way to the Wat. A stall-seller gently laughed at me for buying one cucumber (normally sold in large bags) not understanding quite that we have no fridge to keep things from turning to mush in the heat, neither wanting to lug more weight than needed for tonight’s tea.

Rolling into the Wat’s grounds around 5pm Lilz approached a slight framed monk, dressed in rusty orange and tending to flowers in a hedge. In his best broken Google Translate he asked if we could set our tent up somewhere in the grounds. Obviously not the first with this request, softly smiling Chusak (the monk told us his name meant raise up and be strong) led Lilz to a large covered car park area and showed him the sanitary block. Wow: showers!!! Happily setting up on a raised platform next to a row of minibuses we settled in for the night, listening to a melodious call to prayer from the mosque next door. When the heavens opened with a deluge of rain we were glad we were undercover, happy to listen to the rain drum on the metal roof above. When in Edinburgh and Lilz struggled with insomnia his go-to white noise was tropical rain. I looked over at him: he was fast asleep.

At dawn I heard the monks leave the monastery and then return laden with alms from the villagers.

In the morning we had just finished eating some sorry looking packet food, mainly for the calories, when a tall thin monk approached and asked us to follow him. Taking us to a table with a handful of villagers sorting out food he indicated we could eat anything we wanted! Assuming the food was leftover alms we tucked in encouraged warmly by the villagers.

Feeling utterly blessed and very full, we skipped up the long flight of steps up to the white and gold temple. A place above life’s humdrum it changes your mood almost instantly to one of calm and serenity. In bare feet we drifted around the outer square of covered cloisters, looking out at the spine of karst islands and cliffs jutting out of the sea. In the centre we wondered at the sublime decoration inside, the intricate murals, gold, stars, and painted doors. We had the place to ourselves and felt like we were in another world. A gift of a place.

Returning to the world below, full of a lazy calm, we weren’t quite ready to get back on the road. Instead we wheeled down to the coast and continued our luxurious morning with an iced coffee and karst view before exploring the small seaside town. Lunch was simple, sitting on a raised platform built around the expanse of a Goliath fig tree and looking out over the sea. Little narrow streets dotted with street art wound us gently back to the highway. At last we must leave and cycle the rolling 20 miles to Thapput, which sets us up tomorrow to take the 4118 up to the national park of Khao Sok.Læs mere