Coming home to Thailand!

March 9th, 2002 at 12:00am

Feels great to be back in Thailand! Yesterday I crossed over the border at Hat Lek and rode 16 km north to the next town, Khlong Yai, where I stayed for the night. The road was EXCELLENT with a wide shoulder – ahhh, it felt SO good after Vietnam and Cambodia! It was the perfect temperature too – at 5pm the sun was beginning to set and it was nice and cool – what a great welcome back!

The road I took to Trat today is kind-of like the Pacific Coast Highway of Thailand…a bit windy and hilly, following the coastline up from Cambodia. Really beautiful ride. I did the 79 km to get here in under 3 hours. I arrived here in Trat at 12pm and was going to take the boat to Ko Mak at 3pm but then decided to stay the night here because I wanted to spend some time on email (too expensive on the island) and I also wanted to work on my bike a bit and get it ready for the ride back to Bangkok. Lucky for me I found a GREAT bicycle shop in town where they cleaned my chain and tightened my brakes – all for just over $1! It’s much more civilized to eat a bag of Doritos and watch someone else work on my bike than it is to try to do it all myself…I was thrilled! For that alone it was worth it to stay in Trat (second reason is the pedicure which I am getting as I currently write – haven’t had a proper pedicure in almost 2 months!).

Tonight I’ll decide if I will go to Ko Mak for a few days or just head straight to Bangkok. My friend Brent is going to be up in the north for at least a week so there’s no hurry to get anywhere. God, it just feels so good to be here – even Brent said, it’s like coming home! I can already speak enough Thai to get what I need, I know what food I like and how much things are supposed to cost, and the Thai people are just so great that it makes it such an easy place to be. Last night I went to the internet cafe in town and mind you I was the only farang (foreigner) in town, but as always in Thailand, I was surrounded by 12-15 year old Thai boys playing their computer game, with headphones on and screaming to each other, completely unaware and not bothered at all by the farang girl in there AT ALL! In fact, I think they were happy when I left because someone jumped on my computer to start playing right away. No stares, no crowds surrounding me, none of that! (Although I have to admit that today I did kind-of miss all of the Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello’s that I constantly got while cycling in Cambodia). And here the drivers are totally cool and really give you a lot of room on the road and they don’t blare their horn on you like in Vietnam. Oh, and I was so happy to have the little bus-stop houses back – at least one every kilometer – the perfect place to get out of the sun and sit in the shade for a peaceful break on the road. Cycling heaven! Well, except for the heat, but today I finished cycling before it got hot and even then it wasn’t that bad, although I expect that it will get hotter as I get away from the coast and back towards Bangkok.

On the boat yesterday, I ran into these 2 guys that I had met back in Vietnam on my first day of cycling (they were on motorbikes). It was crazy to run into them again! Then, today, when I got back to my guesthouse, there were 3 other guys who had been on the boat as well…they couldn’t BELIEVE that I actually cycled from the border. It was pretty funny. Now…should I get my hair trimmed while I am here as well? Yeah, I’m happy to be here.

~~~TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Sorry for the delay on updates as of late – I have been busy going through my pictures from the last 8 weeks but am happy to say that EVERYTHING is now updated! You can now view all of my pictures from 1.14.02 to 3.9.02. Thanks for being patient – photo updates were impossible in Vietnam and Cambodia. If you click on the JOURNAL button above, you can scroll through the entries and any one that has a photo icon next to it has photos for you to view. Enjoy!

Look at this BEAUTIFUL road!

A little friend I made on a break by the road

Entry Filed under: Cambodia,Cycling,Sihounakville,Uncategorized