There had been a storm that night, the remnants of which could be felt even this morning. With the temperatures dropped by about 15 degrees, an overcast sky and a gusty wind, we felt homesick for Wellington for the first time in a while.

But it was no good; it was time to leave again. Actually, the cool weather was great for riding. So we hung around just long enough for one more breakfast of Thomas’ home-made bread and got our “horse” saddled. It felt good to be rolling again.

The first couple of roadside attractions along the way could not tickle our fancy this day. We therefore stayed on the main road north until we came upon the Khao Sam Roi Yot National park. We turned off the main road towards the coast for a little 60 km detour through this park and the region around. This time, we were quite chuffed about our decision to do so. Jutting limestone cliff all strewn around a flat freshwater wetland. The view was great, much better than sticking to the dual carriage way of the main road all day.

It was here that we finally had some sense and got out our wind and water proof outer jackets we have been carrying tucked away since that one time in Sumatra. A wise decision indeed. This, in combination with the audio book (Book 2 of the Barthemaeus trilogy), got us into an almost zen-like riding mode.

This might also be the reason that once we reached our rough endpoint for the day at Amphawa (famous for it’s floating markets, which were not on today) we decided to … ride some more. The selection of hotels seemed much better at the western outskirts of Bangkok. Just another hour later, it turned out to be true. We even only got to experience a very small bit of famed Bangkok grid on our way there.

Nina’s comment: We were really happy with riding the bike today but as soon as we got back into towns or cities, accidents seemed to happen. We stopped at a roadside motorcycle shop to buy some chain oil when a scooter with two young ladies on it turned a corner, didn’t watch out for traffic or just simply didn’t care and pushed another scooter of the road. The man reacted quickly and was incredibly lucky that he made it up on the footpath which had a very high step here but there he fell. Parts flew off his scooter and I was seriously worried about him until he jumped up and angrily cursed after the ladies who just drove off. The second accident was nothing we witnessed but something that we stumbled upon. We turned a corner and there was a scooter on the ground. It was picked up in this moment by a helper and then we noticed the woman sitting on the pavement. My first thought “Wow, she’s lucky, not even road rash” when we simultaneously realized that her shin looked odd and her foot was an a strange angle…definitely broken. She was taken care off so we passed but I had my fingers crossed for Bangkok because accidents don’t seem like fun at all.

The only fail, really, of this day was our feeble attempt at getting a cheap, vegetarian dinner. After 30 minutes of looking and not finding, we resigned to Nutella toast and snacks for dinner instead.

Overall, we were satisfied though. Cheap, clean hotel and only 50 km to go to the tire shop. What could go wrong?