We have just had the most amazing time walking around the night markets in Trat. Once a year they have a celebration on the weekend of the 3rd to the 5th of March. It involves the most enormous night markets I have ever seen. Imagine markets running the entire length of Strickland street, to the old hospital, plus all of the side streets filled with food and toys and clothes.  Awesome. 

Patrick, Robert and I braved the insect food stall.  The beetle Robert chose tasted like fish. The grasshopper tasted a bit like KFC but you really had to use your imagination.  

Patrick was very brave but throw up about 20 seconds after this photo. 

The next thing that happened was just incredible.  We bumped into our first Australian, Vanessa.  We asked the usual question “where in Australia do you live?”. When we answered Denmark, she said “you don’t know Pete and Belinda Ross do you?”. 

What a spin out. Turns out Vanessa is the sister of Pete’s sister, Megan’s husband. 

It is such a small world. 

Beautiful days. Perfect weather. Wonderful rest days. The photos explain it all.  

We hired a car again for our rest day and I am so glad we did.  The island of Chang is so mountainous.  The boys had a great time riding is the back getting a blow wave.

We arrived in Trat safely yesterday afternoon after a swim in an old quarry.  I was surprised at how nervous the boys were, to go swimming in a blue pool of fresh water. I think they have watched too many episodes of river monsters.

We decided to travel to an Island off the coast of Trat called Koh Chang. We were going to cycle to the ferry terminal and bring our bikes to the Island with the intention of cycling around the island. What stopped us was a quick look at the topography of the Island. Very very mountainous.  Instead we caught a tuk-tuk to the terminal and we are hiring a car tomorrow to do our own waterfall tour. There are 6 waterfalls on the island and Robert wants to swim at all of them. 

There is a pool at our accommodation and Allister become king of the kids. Three local girls joined the boys in the pool and they all had a great time. 

Today we had our usual 50 km planned but it was broken into three convenient section.  Last night we stayed in a remote beach hotel. There was no shops and very few restaurants.  We have been purchasing all of our staple foods from 7-Eleven’s. There is a 7-Eleven around every corner in Asia, except last night.  We were running out of bread and had no apple juice or fruit left. We checked on the map and the closest 7-Eleven was 15km further down the road. We decided to eat what was left of our food and then just cycle straight to the 7-eleven for morning tea. 

We also planned on visiting a waterfall on the ride today. The waterfall was a perfect 18km from the 7-eleven.  When we arrived there we were the only foreigners.  There must have been 200 Thai’s and us. It was amazing. 

As you can see in the next photo. We were not the only animals swimming in the water. 

There were hundreds of carp. They were harmless but they did bite a little bit.  

We found accommodation in a town called Ban Chang.  It is only a cross road on Google maps but when we cycled into town we realised that it is a small city.  We saw a sign for a hotel called the Grand. We decided to head towards it. The boys decided to race us on foot because it was only 500m down what we thought was a quiet road. As the boys rounded a corner on the foot path they ran straight into a squeal of ‘working girls’. The girls were all dressed up ready for a night of work. The street we were on was the equivalent of Hay street in Kalgoolie.  Both of the boys stopped in their tracks in shock.  This gave the girls time to close in. Patrick got a squeeze on the bum and Robert got a kiss on the cheek.  The girls were hooting with laughter and the boys were horrified.  The boys pushed their way through the girls and made it out alive. Later we had to explain to Patrick what the oldest profession in the world is.

This morning was like every other morning.  We woke up expecting to have a great day. We live in hope. When we went to load the panniers on the bikes we realised that my rack had broken away from my bike frame. This is a problem because the rack wobbles and it puts a lot of load on the other attachment sites. 

When we looked closer we discovered that the bolt had sheared off at the frame. Big problem.  The owner of the hotel offered to help and to cut a long story short, he ended up getting two of his mates to come to the hotel with a welder and an electric drill. Kingsley and Phil would be horrified at what they did to get the bolt out of the frame but after about an hour they had it repaired.  That bolt hole will never be the same again but I don’t care.  It’s fixed. 

We hit the road mid morning and made it to a beach side hotel by mid afternoon.  The closer we get to Cambodia the hotter it is getting.  We are hoping for an early start tomorrow morning to avoid the midday heat, but who knows what tomorrow has in store for us. 

Had a nice rest in Hua Hin. We spent our days reading, watching movies, eating great food and our nights were spent wondering the many night markets around Hua Hin.  My favourite dish at the moment is sticky rice with mango. 

We spent half a day at the immigration office in Hua Hin, getting renewals on our visas. That was an eye opener.  We have been so remote and away from other tourists that it was strange to be surrounded by them at immigation. Some people are so rude and impatient. The boys and I had fun people watching while we waited. 

We researched our options for bipassing Bangkok. Our options included ferry (expensive), private taxi (expensive and uncomfortable) or bus (5 hours). In the end we chose the bus. The seats were business class quality and the cost was half the price of the ferry. The bikes fit easily in the cargo hold so we did not have to disassemble them. 

We are now in Pattaya.  I can understand why it is not a popular destination for Australians.  Pretty much every tourist here is Russian.  It is the Russian equivalent of Kuta for Australians. We are cycling away this morning and I doubt I will even return here.  It is so developed with shops, restaurants and hotels.  It reminds me a lot of Kuta.

Allister is still having phone problems.  We left his phone in Surat Thani for servicing, with the arrangement that they would post it to us in Hua Hin. Well, it didn’t arrive.  He is now on the phone with them trying to get it posted to Trat but they are asking for more money because it is not a Thai phone and they can not use Thai parts to repair it.  I have a feeling he should cut his losses but he wants to get his phone back. Once we cross the border into Cambodia, I suspect that will be the end of it. I doubt they will post it to another country.  

Allister also repaired his first broken spoke. He did it very well.