4 - 12 Dec 2010

Our ride to Thailand finally takes off. It was supposedly a yearly affair but we could not agree on a date last year and subsequently it did not happen. Most of us have obligations to both work and home and taking 10 days off just to good off on a motorcycle is not easy.

Earlier we plan the ride to be pretty much free and easy with no reservations of any kind. Given the potential of not finding a decent hotel to put up for the night, we decide to plan our destinations and book accommodations accordingly. Moreover, we can plan a few ‘tourists’ spots to visit along the way.

DAY 1

Our day ride takes us to Trang some 720km of riding. We prefer the first day ride distance to be a bit more relaxed. Fortunately, most of the miles are chomped up along NS Expressway at decent speed. 3 GS and 1 ER6n take to the road. Surprisingly, the ER6n with 3 panniers and a pillion piloted by Ivan Mohan copes up with the bigger bikes extremely well.

As for the weather, we are expecting for the worse. After all, it is December and a traditionally soaking month. I traded my still decent Bridgestones Battlewing tires for a set of spanking new Michelin Anakee to take on the wet roads.

After a quick dim-sum breakfast in Ipoh, we continue our ride to Bukit Kayu Hitam, some 500 km of hard boring riding on the expressway. We arrive with the sun fully blazing above our heads. We make a quick visit to the agency to get our bikes insurances before heading to the border exit to cross into Thailand. Thankfully, traffic is pretty light and we zip past our Malaysian immigration check point easily.

At the Thailand immigration cum customs check point, the scenario is a different matter. It is rather chaotic. The border complex is very small with cars, motorcycles, busses and lorries all joisting for spaces. We finally manage to get our passports stamped and our bikes issued with temporary import permits after an hour of queuing and smelling foul carbon monoxide.

It is already past lunch when we move on towards Sadao some 20km odd km from the border exit. It is unbearably hot and we decide to detour into a beautiful Buddhist temple ground to re-group and re-plan for the day. Meanwhile, Phang’s wife, Winnie is complaining about her jacket been terribly warm and we later realise that she is wearing her jacket with the winter thermal liner installed. Meanwhile, the rest are whining about the need to eat.

We manage to find the Chinese-Thai restaurant in Sadao that Chin recommended for some quick bites.

Time flies by fast when we are not keeping tap on it. It is already 2.45pm when we finish our late lunch. We still have some 180 odd km to cover to reach Trang. My car GPS is called for duty to help in the direction. Incidentally, GIVI makes a neat pouch that would house my GPS and at the same time protects it from the elements. It straps to the handle bar via Velcro straps and is easily attached and detached. Heck, I get to save by doing away with a traditional waterproof motorcycle GPS. The pouch costs only a measly RM200. The only problem is that the double layers clear plastic over the GPS make reading a tad problematic under bright sunlight. We arrive in Trang slightly after 500pm. Somehow; I lost the guys when Phang is leading the pack. I manage to find the town’s train station with the GPS’ guidance. Phang with Ivan and Ivan Mohan arrive some 30 min later. A good lady decides to personally guide them to the station proving Thais are generally friendly lot. They offer help without hesitation and despite the communication barriers, they still do their best in giving assistance.

Our pre-booked little boutique hotel is located some 50m away to the train station. Upon entering the premise, a large prayers altar dedicated to a famous Thai saint monk, Luang Phor Thuat sits. The reception lady is super friendly and she get our keys ready in no time. We are even asked for a single Baht for any security deposit or payment. We quickly settle into our rooms respectively to clean up as we start to smell like rotten fish.

There are many restaurants within walking vicinity from our hotel. Even the night market is just about 50m away.  

DAY 2

Trang is famous for food particularly dim sum, roast pork and coffee. Phang printed a little review on a particular Trang restaurant that served dim sum with roast pork. The article is old and we had no clue in how to find the restaurant. Anyway, it does not matter much as tut-tut cabs are all plenty especially near the train station. An old chap driving a beat up 3-wheeler tut-tut is practically over the moon when we hire him to take us around. It is amazing how the little 2-stroke engine cope with all of us including the driver himself and the cab. We try our best to cramp into the tiny rear man-cargo space. As instructed, the driver takes us to a local dim sum joint. It is always difficult to order food especially when we eat in ‘local’ eatery as we do not speak Thai and no one else speaks English. Then again, that is part of the fun particularly when we use funny gestures and crude sign language to get messages across.

We manage to squeeze in a couple of stops around the town below we return back to the hotel to pack up for the ride to Chumphon.

Thailand's main trunk roads are always amazingly busy. We encounter all sort of vehicles from lorry (truck) loaded with cargo 3 times the height of the the lorry itself to 3-wheelers mini-cars. And, who could forget the cows happily grazing grass on the road's median. Don't ask how they manage to cross the busy road without being knocked down by speeding trucks.

We encounter rain as we hopped into Highway 41. The weather has been gloomy since morning. Highway 41 takes us closest to Burma as it bordered the Burmese province of Tanintharyi. We miss the chance of making a detour to visit the Thailand-Burma border as the sky is still pouring. We are trying to reach Chumphon before evening.

We eventually reach Mueang Chumphon after slogging some 420 odd km of riding in mixed conditions. Again, we depend on the GPS to guide us to the hotel. As we ride into the town center, the town's traffic police are busy blocking traffic from entering it. Apparently, there is a parade in-progress to honour of their beloved King's birthday. As we are in no hurry to get to our hotel, we stop at a petrol station to fill-up and watch the on-going parade.

Quaint was the best single word to describe Mueang Chumphon. To our surprise, the town is devoured of any entertainment joints Thailand is famous for. We pre-booked the hotel via the internet with help of website www.trip-adviser.com for reviews  I particularly like the big attached bathroom which has a big glass window next to the shower/bath tub. Kinky!

We have a little problem in locating a proper place for our dinner. Mueang Chumphon is not exactly the tourist joint with many restaurants. We are referred to a 'classy' joint next to the railway station. The semi open air restaurant serves combination of Thai and Western food. Somehow, we do not like the menu. We prefer a more down-to-earth local offering. We eventually settle at our hotel's back lane semi-roadside eatery. There are pros and cons in ordering food from a very local food joint. The cons: we have difficulty in ordering as the menu is always written in Thai. To compound further, most for-local-only operators can not speak basic English prompting another bout of sign languages usage to get the message across. The pros: We get to sample 'local' food, not some for-tourists-only Thai food.

There is not much to do in town after dinner. Saved for a brief fireworks display, the whole place is practically dead by 900pm. No pasar-malam shopping. We end the short night tour of Chumphon after walking around aimlessly. The hotel is no better with no in-house bar or pub. We goof the night away with drinks and titbits purchased from the convenient store before calling it a day.

DAY 3

The hotel serves breakfast and our room rate comes with breakfast for two. As there are not many guests staying, the small restaurant serves the free breakfast via ala-cart choices, if the guess digs either western breakfast set or chicken porridge. Food is best discribed 'bad' as me and Anne chose the western set. Phang's chicken porridge looks way more appetising. Lesson learned: never order any western meal from people who cannot speak English!

As it is still early to saddle up, we take our time to goof a little at the local Yamaha's showroom located just a walk away. We are amazed with the little Yamaha scooter Fino' range. The different combination of body and seat colours and trims make the Fino looks so cool.

As we are getting ready to hit the road, the dang rain starts to pour again. We are slowly getting accustomed to this kind of riding. Most important, the ladies take it with full stride and enthusiasm. Anyway, the day ride distance is an easy 300km to Dolphin Bay Resort in Ampher Sam Roi Yot, Prachuap Khiri Khan.

Route 4 is very straight and somewhat boring. Occasionally, we stop at main rest stops for coffee, snacks and petrol to break the boredom.

Again, GPS saves a lot of time in locating our resort. Ampher Sam Roi Yot is located some 30 odd km of the main trunk road. We would not know where to turn as there is no signboard directing to our pre-booked resort.

The last 3km (to the resort) is the coolest and best riding of the day as we ride on an empty narrow single lane concrete road practically adjacent to the Gulf of Thailand.

For RM150 a night, we get a beautiful twin-room chalet with a cosy balcony facing the pool/beach. There aren't any local or Asians in resort as the guests are practically Farangs (Thai slang for Caucasians).

The pool overlooking the beautiful beach looks tempting enough to stop us from doing any further exploring outside the resort's boundary. We are so tempted to just soak in and not do anything for the rest of the day. Then again, Khao Sam Roi Yot, a marine national park is just a few clicks away. The name Khao Sam Roi Yot means Mountains with 300 peaks, which describes the landscape of the park quite well. The limestone hills rise directly at the shore of the Gulf of Thailand, with the highest elevation Khao Krachom 605m above sea level. It covers 98.08 km², of which 20.88 km² are marine areas. The park was established in 1966, and was the first coastal national park of Thailand. The downside was we only an hour of or before the park rangers close the park for the day.

We hit the road minus our heavy jackets and gears. For once, we are feeling the wind as we ride along the village road to the park. The short ride is awesome as we ride along the narrow open road with fantastic picturesque limestone hills dotting the surroundings. We pass through quaint villages, a beautiful Thai Wat and a bridge before reaching the park. The park is devoured of any tourists. Perhaps, it is located off usual the tourists' grid. We only manage to visit the mangrove swamp walk-way before daylight starting to fade and mosquitos coming out in full force.

We make a brief stop-over to see the impressive Wat. No matter where at in Thailand, most Thai Wats are impressively built and decorated with kind donations from the local community.

We found a small roadside restaurant overlooking the sea for dinner. Owner cum chef surprisingly speaks fluent English as she used to work in Bangkok as a tour guide. Her little restaurant by the seaside is a simple no-frill setup. We have a good Thai-home-style dinner before adjoining the adjecent hut for a well deserving massage by the beachside.

DAY 4

We take a little stroll by the beach before breakfast. The air is fresh in a salty way and morning sun is gorgeous. We return back to the small restaurant for breakfast as the lady boss promises to whip up a breakfast for us. On a normal day, the restaurant is only opened for dinners unless prior arrangement with the lady boss. With the sea water beating up the shore just metres away, we have a filling breakfast consisting of many variety of phor (noodles) with freshly brewed coffee.

As we does not need to pack to check out of hotel, our bikes feel tons lighter without the usual baggages in the panniers. We hit the road today to Phra Ratchaniwet Maruekkhathaiyawan Palace in Hua Hin. The Palace was built by King Rama VI as his summer Palace in the early 1900s. It now serves as a museum for tourist to peek into the old Thai monarchy.

We take to Route 4 again to Hua Hin, a easy 140 odd km ride from our hotel. We pass through Pranburi, a quiet town close to the Gulf. Pranburi boasts a fair few tourist attractions like caverns, ravines and isolated bays excellent for swimming. Unfortunately, we stick to tarmac road on Route 4 most of the way.

Rain greets us again as we approach Hua Hin prompting Phang, Ivan, Mohan and their respective partners to scramble for rain suits.

Fortunately, rain is short and the sun comes out in full glory again as we reach the palace entrance. We are surprise that the 'palace' does not look like what is pictured in brochure. We later learn that we enter the palace's ground via its rear entrance. To enter the palace, one must take a tram (cable car) to the peak to officially enter the palace as the palace is located on a hill.

We also visit a local Wat to seek blessings for safe journey.

Our stomachs are soon protesting when we finish our tour in Hua Hin. We manage to find a Chinese-Thai eatery to order lunch. It is already past 2:30pm when we hit the road again.

We detour to a fire-road to visit Hua Hin's only vineyard. All of us have never visit nor seen a vineyard before. We hit the light road for some 30km before reaching the vineyard. Hua Hin Hills Vineyard is built on a former elephant corral, a sublime place where wild Asian elephants were domesticated. The terrain, comprising mostly of loamy-sand and slate, is conducive to the cultivation of grapes providing Hua Hin with its first boutique vineyard. We are no experts in vines, but the prices on the bottles are pretty steep. I am also surprise that the elevation of the vineyard is only about 140m above sea level. I always thought grapes grow well in high elevation and in cool climate.

On a personal agenda, I like to visit Wat Huay Mongkol but we spend a fair bit of time doing the Summer Palace and the Vineyard. Probably fate plays a big part, Wat Huay Mongkol is actually very close to the vineyard. The famous temple hosts Luang Phor Tuad, the legendary Southern Thai monk, immensely popular with the Southern Thais and increasingly so elsewhere in the Kingdom for the miracles associated with him. The biggest draw is a statue of the monk which was commissioned by Queen Sirikit of Thailand herself. The Luang Phor Tuad statue is reputed to be the largest of its kind in the world. As the road from the vineyard to the Wat is a private road, we decide to break the law for once. It is too fun to ride without our helmets protecting our brains. For once, we feel the winds and the road

We leave the temple ground just before 5pm hoping to get back to our hotel before dusk for some dipping in the pool. Thankfully, weather stays clear and we are able to ride reasonably fast to get back to our chalets.  

As we are too lazy to do any searching for other joint, we go back to the same beach-side restaurant for our dinner and drinks. The ladies at the massage joint are also happy to see us return for round two.

DAY 5

The breakfast served at the resort is surprisingly good. Selection is somewhat limited but compensated with good quality food. After all, we pay only B150 per person for a nice buffet breakfast at the resort. As we are enjoying our stay, we feel a bit heavy hearted to pack up to resume our ride back South. The day's ride distance is approximately 250km on Route 4 and continuing to Route 41 for another 200 odd km before reaching Surat Thani. 

We run into more bouts of rain as we ride cautiously along the highway but we are getting the hang of riding in the wet. Our bikes beginning to look like they are real adventure bikes with mud and grimes everywhere. I am not sure how I am going to wash them off when I get back home. For now, I am just soaking in the ride with the rest. We are having too much fun to thinking about cleaning up. It is past 1pm when our biological clocks tell us to stop for food. Looking for a place to eat along the highway is like trying to strike the lotto. Anyway, our priority is to find a clean place as we are so afraid of getting food poisoning. Most of the eateries along the highway are not exactly practicing good cleanness. Perhaps our expectations are a tad too high. However, we manage to find a restaurant next to the petrol station (our bikes need fuel too). Though they serve a variety of food, we are actually a little tired to try out the menu. Hence, save bet fried noodles and fried rice to re-stock the calories.

We reach our resort hotel at Surat Thani at about 3pm and promptly check into 100 Islands and Spa Resort, a boutique hotel along the highway. Very surprisingly, it is ridiculously cheap at B850 a night inclusive of buffet breakfast for two. However, the staff especially the reception crew are not friendly.    

To our delight, the spa is located just a stone throw away from our rooms (overlooking the beautiful pool). The proper spa is a far cry to the beach side massage shack near Dolphin Bay Resort. Most surprising is the rate where they charge only B350 for 2 hours compared to B500 for 2 hours at the shack!  Needless to say, we zero into the cosy rooms for a two hours treatment to ease the body aches accumulated from riding. 

We decide to have non-Thai food for dinner. Tesco Mall is conveniently located just across the main street and golly we chose to stuff ourselves silly with greasy fried chicken from kfc

DAY 6

As the day ride is an east 350km to Hadyai, we decide to explore Surat Thanni surroundings a little bit. Apparently Surat Thani boasts a few famous schools for monkeys .. yup .. they train monkeys to climb trees to pluck coconuts. Everyone agree to pay one of these schools a visit to see how they train wild monkeys. Thankfully, my GPS contains one of such special school POI. The morning is extremely hot and a tad uncomfortable to ride. Then again, it would be a waste to goof the 1/2 day off by doing nothing.  

The GPS guides us to some village about 25km away from Surat Thani. At one point, we are staring at a road practically ruined by the great flood a few months earlier. To our disappointment, two such schools we visit are not operating. Apparently, all the monkeys were perished during flood.

It is almost noon when we get back to our resort to pack up to continue our ride to Hadyai. The ladies are starting to get excited as we would be spending the next few days doing nothing except eating and shopping. No riding.

We continue on Route 4 for our last leg of tour of Thailand. Again, Route 4 from Surat Thani to Hadyai is another relatively straight highway. Throughout the days of riding, there is practically no traffic police's presence. We get to ride as fast as we can.

As we head out of Surat Thani, a local rider striding a cool Ducati (Mach 250?) single follows our little convoy for a few km before we step up our speed and bade him goodbye. Surprisingly, we hardly encounter any bikers riding bigger bikes on the road.  

We arrive Hadyai about 5pm. Again, rain greets us as we ride into the city limits. Traditionally, Hadyai is always packed with Malaysian tourists looking for bargains. Naturally, hotels closer to the business and shopping district are running  full house. We spend 3 full days in Hadyai looking for bargains. Part of the fun is actually bargaining for measly discounts ..

Food is no longer cheap in Hadyai as the local food stalls and food courts operators know we Malaysians love food.

shop till we drop

RM2.50 teh tarik

that's the great Southern Thai flood line @ 6 ft high

fried worms anyone ?

Christmas spirits

the ladies .. still in good spirits after almost 3500km of riding pillion

expressions says all .. after almost 4000km on the road

Meanwhile, Phang is already planning our 2011 edition. Can't wait !

      Pictures