(written by Nancy)

We were up early and had the bikes packed up by 7am so that we could have breakfast at the hotel as soon as they opened the restaurant.  Breakfast was okay, the usual fried egg and toast with weird hotdog and ham slice standing in for sausage and bacon.  We did meet a couple of folks at breakfast who live in Chiang Mai (one from Sydney, one from Minnesota) and their partners who had driven down the previous day so had a brief chat while we ate.

We rode on Highway 4 for most of the day today.  The traffic seemed much heavier than yesterday – there was more development along the way and it seemed like there were cars, trucks, motorcycles and dogs coming from every direction (including coming at you one the wrong side of the road)!  We did have a nice tailwind though, which meant we kept our speed up and the day went pretty fast.

Along the road today we saw so many pineapple stands.  It’s quite funny how they generally appear together, one after the other, with hundreds of pineapples stacked up.  There is nothing different between the stands – a pineapple is a pineapple is a pineapple.  Not sure why you would stop at one versus the other but perhaps the Thais know something we don’t.  Dave did stop to get a picture at a ‘big’ pineapple – we don’t know if it was as big as the Australian ‘Big Pineapple’ (52 feet tall) but it was pretty big.

We made a stop at a servo for a great iced coffee – it was overcast but still quite hot so a cold drink really hits the spot.  That’s one good thing about riding the highway, you never really have to worry about carrying extra water or wondering about where or when your next snack stop will be.

I think we had more dogs chase us today than we have had on any of our days so far in Thailand.  They seemed to have a bit more stealth today – several times we did not see or hear them until they came blasting out of laneways at us.  A bit scary when there are trucks and other cars on the other side of you as your automatic reaction is to move out into the lane to get away from the dog panting at your heels.  It’s a bit annoying too when the owners of the dogs stand and laugh at us while we yell ‘No’ at the dogs as loudly as we can.  The dog situation here seems pretty bad.  There are many stray dogs wandering around, most looking very skinny and mangy and often limping with injuries to their legs.  Very sad generally, but also very frustrating as a cyclist – though really, only 1 in 50 have the energy to give chase.

We made it into Hua Hin about noon.  We knew we had about 10k to go beyond the town centre to get to Chris’s condo so we stopped in town for lunch at a shopping mall.  There was a Tesco in the mall so Dave went in to get some supplies for dinner while I watched the bikes (while drinking coffee at Starbucks…..).  He did a great job shopping, coming out with makings for a nice pasta dinner and a bottle of red wine (though he did forget chocolate or something else for dessert…).

We rode the remaining 10k to the Boathouse development where Chris has kindly lent us his condominium for the next couple of days.  He gave us great instructions so we rolled right up to the building and despite some slight confusion about the apartment number (must be some kind secret code numbering) we have now settled in this great apartment, cooked dinner and are ready to relax for the next couple of days.  The apartment is lovely with a great view out to the Gulf of Thailand so hopefully we can spend some time sitting out on the deck and enjoying the view.  I don’t think we will have any trouble relaxing here!

The only real thing on the agenda is to plan our route for the next leg north beyond Bangkok.  We will take a few trips into town to try out some restaurants in between route planning sessions.  Life is hard…

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