From Trailguru
Overview
| Trip Title: | Southern Thailand Bike Touring – Songkhla to Hua Sai |
| Date: | February 22nd, 2007 |
| Trip Members: | Tpark |
| Points of Interest: |
Map
Trip Report
We awoke later today but still reasonably early. It was definitely a lot harder to get out of bed this morning -- but a couple of yoghurts and a cold Nescafe in a can later I was ready to go.
We left heading to Songkhla's ferry terminal through town for the short and cheap 4 baht ride across the bay that separates Songkhla from the east coast to the north, saving us over an hour of backtracking that we would otherwise had to have done. To our dismay, the main 408 highway was not very scenic -- mostly roadside shacks and moderate to heavy traffic -- the future is arriving in Thailand and as such the road here was being widened into a 4 lane road and seemingly late as the choking traffic was already here. But we were able to find a quiet parallel road off the beach after a number of unsuccessful tries that was very nice -- not many beach views but lots of local activity and constant shade.
This eventually dried up and we were back on the main road. We rode fast on this as neither of us enjoy these stretches and spent most of this looking to the right for another offshoot that might take us closer to the water. One of these tries, although not successful from a riding standpoint, did end us up at a nice spot for breakfast. We had noodles with yellow curry and green beans for some ridiculous small amount of baht. We "chatted" with the owners about the map and about our bikes in our now fluent arm jabs and smiles language.
We were able to escape the main road for a large stretch after breakfast, getting in at least 20km on a road that was mostly pavement but also dirt along beachside villages. This road followed the gap between the oceanfront huts to the right and the prawn farms on the left. The prawn farms all had whirring gasoline engines alternatively pumping in salt water to replace that which had evaporated or beating the water with what looked like propellers in order to aerate it for the prawns.
I was getting hungry doing all this riding and watching of prawn farming but thankfully we waited until we reached an almost mirage like lunch spot of separate covered dining huts right on the beach. We kicked back and relaxed in what would be our favorite lunch spot of the whole trip. I tested the ocean waters and they were just as hot as in the south -- literally bathwater warm.
Back on the road, we followed this ocean-side road just as long as we could (and onto gravel road when it petered out but we refused to accept it) and merged into the main 408 highway as it converged on the coastline. The main highway was less busy here and we rode it north to Hua Sai. In Hua Sai, we picked up some snacks and then headed north just a bit until we found a gap where an abandoned and razed hut provided an opening for us to camp on the beach for the night. Shannon took off to get food as it was getting dark fast while I struggled to put up the tent in deceptively strong winds. Fortunately a couple of locals came out to help out although they mostly just were curious about the space age tent that we had but did give me permission to camp there.
Shannon only came back with water and beer and no food, but I was too tired to care and we jumped into the ocean to wash ourselves off in the afterglow of the sunset. We then strategically ate our cracker and snacks dinner in the open doorway to the tent so that the mosquitoes could devour Shannon later.
We didn't bring our thermorests on this trip so sleep came slowly on the harder than expected beach sand and not really at all for Shannon given the mosquitoes -- but we were both glad to be out in nature and on the beach where we could hear the surf roll in. Even if it kept us up all night.
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Photos
Submitted by: Tpark |
Submitted by: Tpark |
Submitted by: Tpark |