Day 9: Khao Lak to Khao Sok National Park
[ Sally typing, this is a catch-up post Day 9 was actually June 26, no idea what day it is now, I think it’s July ]
Tommy spent yesterday recovering from a bit of stomach ailments (for clinical details of Tommy’s digestive tract, please refer back to his post Day 8: Day of Rest — the title was funnier when we thought it was the seventh day of the trip, oh well). So thankfully, Tommy was feeling better so we decided that 2 whole days in Khao Lak was lovely, but certainly enough time to get a sense of the place — small beach, and approximately 31 eyeglasses stores.
We stopped for breakfast on our way out of town at Tiffy’s Cafe where we met a really nice German guy named Gunther, who was working there or maybe owned the place. He’s been living in Thailand for something like 20 yrs and in fact Khao Lak had quite a few German and Scandanavian tourists coming through, as well as ex-pat’s who had permanently relocated there. Well Gunther was just about the best person we could have stumbled into. Not only was he a gracious host serving great food, he was a recent convert to the bicycle after recently quitting smoking and he had great advice for us and our continuing journey.
Gunther went as far as printing us better maps than the ones we had, and showing us a shortcut for our day’s ride that probably shaved 15 km from our trip. Aside from all the practical help, it was really encouraging finally meeting another cyclist who had toured around Thailand a bit.
From there we headed North and followed Gunther’s route. We turned right at the sign for Rainbow Waterfall (I’m forgetting the Thai name) and decided to take a minor pit stop to rest and see the waterfall, which was quite nice! We had the place all to ourselves and cooled down by the fall before continuing on.
Today had a real feeling of being off the beaten path. Nothing we saw was covered in any Lonely Planet or Rough Guide book. We were in the country! Hardly any food carts to be seen, just really really beautiful, lush mountains. We had a nice shady route, and it was generally just a really good day of riding.
Midway through the ride we stopped for snacks at a bus shelter. We seemed to be in a sort of industrial area — not much residential stuff around, just BIG trucks blowing by way too fast. There we are eating some leftover Indian food and a man escorting a working elephant walks by! Very cool! We later caught up to them as we continued our course and now the guy was riding on top of the elephant.
The ride continued to be really pleasant all the way. We finished up with a beautiful but challenging 5km climb up the mountains with some amazing views and monkey calls along the way. The the grand finale was a super fun 5km descent down into Khao Sok National Park with the most stunning mountains I’ve ever seen, just at sunset — perfect!
1 year ago