Day 6 - Surin - Charat

Dear all,

 

Sleeping on the train was not that easy, as sometimes it is quite bumpy. I slept for about 3 hours, then I just switched to blogging, as all the cabin was damned silent! Moreover, you cannot imagine how cold it was inside that wagon, with that air con boosting up. I cannot recall it 100% reliable, but my gps gadget has a temperature sensor that was indicating a bit less than 19 degrees!

We arrived into Surin a few minutes after scheduled, and yes, our bikes were disembarked trouble free!

The sun only raises about 5h30, so we spent that time left chatting, blogging and preparing our bikes for the upcomming day!

Surin train station, sun raising!

It is interesting that they control all the train lines from the station itself. I did not know if it would be allowed but I sneaked in to take a picture!

Surin's railway tracks control room

We passed by 7 eleven for some water, bread and some canned food for some emergency and we hit the road and build up some kilometers before the heat would be just too strong to cycle.

Finding the way out of the city without a map and hardly understanding the local language was surprisingly simple. On the last crossing we just found the right way according to the sun position. Soon we were on the road we wanted to, and that would takes us to Sangkha.

Surin region is known for the elephants, having the city and surroundings quite a lot of references of that fact. We stopped by one ruoundabout to make some videos and take some pictures.

Marta, Mr. elephant and Mr. lamb posing for the picture

The road is quite boring, with little traffic (at least at the time we cycled through it), but the Thai landscape is quite nice when you go out of the city.

On our way to Sangka

On our way to Sangkha

Marta was cycling strong, so our average speed was over 20 km/h, which was great!

When we cycled for about 50 km, we were starting to feel VERY hungry and we almost had no water so we decided to go straight to the local market and see what we can get! What a joy, loads of street food!! We were still not prepared to try the flies, so we ended up choosing grilled chicken. There was another vendor selling what it seemed to be some green dowe and some little balls that I assumed to be fried banana but ended up to be something we could not figure it out at all. Anyway, it tasted good!

Street food at local market

We went to another shop to get some drinks and also water for the trip and sat down at the shadow from a shop's wall and had the meal just there.

As soon as we finished, we had to options: to wait some hours for the temperature to go down a bit, being in a not so pleasent place, or push it harder a bit more untill we find a nicer spot to be or simply could not stand cycling under that heat and stop at any shadow.

We ended up choosing option 2, and as we did not find any other park or village along the way, we stopped under some trees. They collect some liquid from it, but we could not figure it out what it is. There is quite a lot of these trees along the way.

We were resting over banana tree leaves and Marta eventually fell asleep.

Marta resting

We spent in that place perhaps 4 hours, as the sun did not allow us to cycle before. We arrived to Sangkha, but we felt that would be too early to look for a place for the night, so we proceeded.

At this point I could not recall the rough planning I have made some months before in Portugal. We tried to ask some locals, but they were saying that Cambodja was to the right, and I was sure that was either to the left or on a smaller road going straight. Well, intuition was telling me that I could go straight, afterall Cambodja would have to be heading South!

We took that way and it was not a steep, but rather long downhill. We stopped at a local shop for some icecream and decided to ask again for directions to Cambodja and Anlong Vang (first village after border). They did not speak any English, so just for them to understand the word Cambodja, you have to try 3 or 4 different versions. I thought that showing a small map from the tablet would help. I showed roughly the place where we were, the city we just passed, and the following one, so we could all speak the same language. When I show Cambodja, they were poiting right. I pointed to Anlong Vang and, if it is to the left how can you be sending me to the right? Why the maps I have has no resolution at all in Thailand and Cambodja? Why I haven't done the homework?

Well, when I see myself in "troubles" while travelling I take 3 baby steps:

1. Breathe
2. Checkout the options after cooling down
3. Choose what it seems the most adequate.

In this case, following the opinion of the locals did not seem logic, as they were probably talking about another border point, and I wanted to use the one I have read about at another cycling blog.

Going back, facing the uphill, did not seem too much of a joy, so we decided just to go straight, as the road we were cycling now, would connect to the main road in about 40 km, and that would be the worst case scenario, that we would return to the main road one day after.

 

We were getting more and more tired as the kilometers were building up, and we could not find any place that would look like a guesthouse or something even close to it.

 

After some time more there was a small shop open, with some locals having a meal and I stopped my bike and showed them by mimics that we are looking for a place to sleep. They smiled, laugh and pointed to the very next narrow path. Well, there was a sign at the road we were cycling, but all in Thai language and not even a picture of a room, so we would never guess that it could be a place to sleep.

Well, we had no clue how far would that be, we passed down some houses, no one seemed to be a guesthouse, then we found a lake, with some children playing in the water. I greet them and some more mimics about a place to sleep and they pointed to a wodden house just at the lake's shore. Really? Are we THAT lucky?

The lake, see from the owner's frontyard

The owner, a Thai woman apparently married to a Belgium guy asked if we need a room, that she has one with TV and hot shower for 500Bath. That is outrageous!! No way we are spending that money (12,5€)! I said that we are travellers and travelling for many days, so we need a cheaper room. She asked me how much we would be willing to pay and I said 250 Bath. Then she showed us a room for 300 Bath (7,5€) that we needed to accept, after all we would not want to cycle even one more kilometer! Not much comments about the room!

She asked if we want to have dinner, we replied that we do not want, thank you, which I believe that she did not like that much, but who cares?

When we talked about the trip to Cambodja, she told something about soldiers, military, that the husband was trying to go through border and could not cross it. Well, we did not get it too well, the next day we'll figure it out!

Yes, we went to swim in that lake and had some meal at the room's frontyard till we got sleepy which came very quickly as it has been a long day with lack of sleep the previous night. Moreover, we would get up at 5 AM the following morning for one more day of cycling!

Summary of the day:

• Daily distance: 82,6 km/h
• Daily time: 4h19m16s
• Average speed: 19,12 km/h
• Maximum speed: 48,69 km/h

Total travelled so far: 155,10 km

 

Total time cycling: 9h15m03s

 

And tha's all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter & Marta

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