Day 10 part 1: Khao Sok National Park to Ratchaprapha Dam (85km / 53 mi )
[ Sally typing ]
I hope to fill out this post later, someone is cooking some food nearby that smells like a cross between cheese, vomit, feces, dead animals, and fish so I have to vacate before I, myself, vomit. Phew! *sweating*
We woke up this morning and opened the door to our bungalow. We were surprised to find MJ the cat, waiting there! He might have slept there all night waiting for us, the poor guy!
We rolled out from Khao Sok National Park and I wasn’t feeling too well. Bicycle touring in itself is a challenge, and you can go easy, go hard, but no matter what your pace, touring fully loaded in the tropics is going to have it’s harder days. Today was mine.
Our easy 6km hike yesterday was done in bike shoes which are deliberately built with an inflexible sole so that you don’t lose mechanical energy when pulling up or pushing down on your pedals by the ball of your foot. It didn’t quite make sense to pack and carry an additional pair of shoes just for the occasional hike, so we hoofed it in the cycling shoes, and they seemed to do just fine at the time.
This morning, however, I woke with my right calf muscle on the verge of a charlie horse at a moment’s notice. I tried to stretch it out a bit and make sure I was drinking enough fluids, as cramps can come on due to dehydration and/or lack of potassium. But I think Tommy & I haven’t done nearly as much stretching as we should…so here I am, painfully sore with a looming leg cramp, and for whatever reason just generally feeling low and not mentally up to the task ahead — a really long day of 50+ miles.
We rode about 5km, maybe more and stopped under a canopy of trees to dodge a bit of rain. Despite the on and off sprinkles, it was brutally hot to start the day. I think the humidity had built to the crescendo of rain, but between showers it was a sauna. We chilled for a moment and something stung me on the arm and immediately sent a sharp, hot, stinging pain down my arm muscle. *$&*&! (explicatives). Seconds later, an army of ants was attacking my ankles and legs, I had apparently stepped on their home. More explicatives. Tommy, being a perceptive and sympathetic guy, notices that I’m not enjoying our bike tour this day and I whole-heartedly confirm.
The ants cause us to quicly roll away and keep riding. Luckily the weird arm sting goes away and doesn’t bother me any more. We ride, and it’s hot, and my right calf siezes to the cusp of a debilitating cramp only HALF of the time I’m pedaling. Left leg, Right leg ow *$@#!, Left leg, Right leg ow *$@#! on and on, over and over, kilometer after kilometer.
I won’t get into the finer points of my crotch and bottom, but needless to say the places that seem to suffer most during an extended bike tour are the contact points with the bike, which happen to be the more sensitive bits of the body. Combine the deep tissue ache with the surface chafe, and ever present prickly heat rash and the slightly more tolerable 50% of the time that I’m not using my right calf, I’m focused on the burning hot pain down under.
I feel a thick malaise due to the heat, and can’t seem to muster the enthusiasm that riding 85km with 60lbs of gear (or whatever) demands. Tommy is unphased. He is, as usual, bouyant and not at all bothered by the heat, the fatigue, the crotch pain, the biting ants.
We stop again to re-apply sunblock. My “ice mutant” skin is not well suited for sun, and at this point I’m thinking that genetically, my disposition isn’t suited for whatever this god-awful heat index is. My German/English/French body should be huddled up in a cozy fur parka eating bratwurst somewhere icy, grey, and cool.
We find shade under a nice bus shelter (there are shelters like this all over Thailand luckily) and moments later, the “Nothing” appears in the sky — a frighteningly ominous black cloud is moving towards us. I recommend we sit for another minute to see which way the weather is moving and in fact, moments later the skies open up and unleash a torrential downpour the likes of which we have not yet seen on this trip.
As we wait for the storm to pass, a little fleet of 10-13 year old boys pull up on motor bikes, 3 to a bike. Mostly dressed in tshirts and shorts, or even just shorts and flip flops, they’re soaking wet, giggling, shivering and run under the shelter to spend the next 30 minutes waiting out the storm with us. They’re really fun kids, and turn out to be naughty! One pulls out a (gasp!) cigarette and lights up. I’m sure they’re making fun of me in Thai, or at least teasing their buddies about me because they’re motioning each other to be the one to sit next to me. I can’t blame them for choosing the leaky side of the shelter over getting within the 4 feet of me, I can’t imagine that I smell very good.
It’s a bit cooler once the rain clears, and I feel a wee bit better. The kids drive away and we go to mount our trusty steeds. Pain, pain pain, stinging PAIN!! I look down, ANTS AGAIN! My feet, ankles, and lower legs are covered in dozens, hundreds?? of tiny little biting ants. I jump around, say some bad words, shake the little buggers off, and return quickly to my prior foul mood.
We roll forward. Calf pain, still only 50% of the time. I am hating this.
[ to be continued ]
