Phuket

Day 8 Rest Day at Khanom Beach

We really enjoyed our rest day. The weather was windy, so the Gulf of Thailand was still too choppy for an early morning swim. Bob and I tried to walk along the beach before breakfast, but the tied was coming in and we were getting washed to shore. We escaped through a private road and made our way back to the hotel. Decided to go for breakfast and met up with a few others and all enjoyed a very leisurely breakfast.

After breakfast Bob and I hired the hotel’s Tuk Tuk and he drove us into the town. This is a market area where we walked along and in between the passing showers we enjoyed a couple of nice coffee stops. One was a donut shop (all outside) called Daily Donuts. It was too hard to resist the donut which we shared along with Strawberry green tea for Bob, and I tried the Thai milk tea. The donut was like eating air. It cost 10 THB which is $0.43 Canadian.

When we were ready to go back to the hotel, we called the hotel, and they sent the Tuk Tuk back for us. A nice service and not very expensive.

We took another walk along the beach as the tied was out, but it was still choppy so no swimming today. Storms were still coming through and I guess if it’s going to rain, better on the rest day than when we are on the bikes. It was still warm and the rain just made it more humid.

We got our laundry back, all nicely pressed so we could repack and prepare for the next four days of cycling.

We have a much later start tomorrow. Only about 90 KM tomorrow and the profile looks rather flat, so that should be better for the group. But if the winds hold, it will still be challenging.

Day 9 Stage 7: Khanom – Surat Thani = 89.9 km | 206 m ascent

We had a nice late start this morning at 9 AM. Nice way to start after the rest day. It rained all night and while we were having breakfast there was a passing downpour. The sun was out, and it just made it humid.

The cycling Gods were on our side as we left on dry roads, and we didn’t have any rain. The route today was mainly on back roads through lots of landscapes to the provincial capital Surat Thani. We had our usual highway Amazon Café coffee stop at just before 30 KM and then we continued to what we were told was almost 70 KM for lunch. That ended up being 61 KM which meant we had almost 30 KM to the hotel after lunch.

The lunch spot was a very interesting place with lots of decorations that almost looked like it was still celebrating Christmas. Our meal was NOT FRIED RICE!!!! But instead, a very heavy but delicious meal of Shrimp Pad Thai or Egg Pad Thai. We chose shrimp and it was nice, but so much food before riding.

We had lots of time due to the tail wind and the shorter distance, so I think we stayed at the lunch spot longer than normal.

We headed out after lunch and everyone was staying together. When we had about 10 KM to go, we hit the highway and the very busy streets that led us to our hotel. We had to coordinate our way through the traffic lights and traffic. Not sure how we all survived, but we made it to the hotel in one piece.
The hotel is okay, we are all meeting later for dinner in town to a traditional Thai restaurant.

We walked to a place called The Riverside which was a very local Thai restaurant on the river. The evening was perfect, the sun went down as the moon came out. The place even had some nice live music. Not on purpose, but this group was all the English-speakers on the tour. We wanted to eat earlier than the others with more European styles. Dinner was again very reasonable $29 Canadian for a shared Leo beer, Panang chicken curry with chicken fried rice and green curry with chicken and chicken fried rice. So much food! The area also has a night market so on the way back to the hotel the vendors were out selling their food. More locals here than tourists.

Now we are getting organized to be ready in the morning for an early departure. We have another short and fairly flat ride tomorrow – we think.Read more