December 6, 2006
To Ratchaburi: to the Bat Cave
A relatively short day today, about 58km more down highway 4. Highlight of today is passing by a western style saloon and restaurant and store, just outside Ratchaburi. We take some pictures, but the place is not yet open and the staff doesn't seem interest in selling Rachel a T-shirt anyway...a tried and true souvenir for her mother.
We ride into town, looking for a hotel sign. As we pass through the center Patrick asks a guy, who promptly directs the women he was talking with to show us the way. She takes off on her moped. We follow.
In a busy, three story shopping street, we find a huge, prison/hospital like hotel. Patrick checks out a room; a bit small, fourth floor (no elevator), no English station on TV. Across the street is another Chinese hotel that has larger room, good bed, no hot water, however.... the elevator sells it though. The Staff are very helpful and carries all the bags to our room with Rachel as Patrick registers.
The guy who showed Patrick the room earlier takes him up again, this time to the fourth floor puzzling Patrick. He opens a door, there is a white woman in a swimsuit on the bed...but it's not Rachel! He is embarrassed about the mix-up and takes Patrick back to the third floor where he finds the right white woman this time. We clean-up and go downstairs to find some lunch. The girl Patrick met earlier is also in the lobby with another German girl. We are surprised to see backpackers in such an un-interesting city, as they usually travel faster through such areas. She explains her guidebook mentions some interesting caves in this area and they are trying to arrange transportation to the caves and ask if we'd be interested in sharing the fare. Sure, always better than reading the afternoon away! We quickly head out to buy some supplies and check our email.
For lunch, we have some nice pastries and the last of our nice German bread with gouda cheese. Also, some nice pineapple and watermelon. At one, we meet the Germans in the lobby and agree on a 1000 bt price for a car to take us on an afternoon tour. Shared amongst the four of us makes this a reasonable price.
First, we head about 30km west of the city to a cave that turns out to be closed. We go another 10km and find one that is open. Through a narrow passage and stairs, we get into a series of huge chambers. The last one has a partially collapsed roof and sunlight gets in to illuminate the cave and the reclining buddha. There are many bats in the cave, we can see them fluttering around us backlit by the lights. In some of the narrow passages they come close enough to feel the air movement of their wings, but they never hit us.
After the cave visit, we drive about 20km north of Rachaburi and wait until past sunset when 500 million bats (or so it seems that many) leave their caves in the mountain. It's a long wait because we are too early, but finally we see a long ribbon of black bats stream from the mountain. Unfortunately, they stay close to the trees and turn east immediately so we don't get to see them go overhead, which might be a good thing...
We get back to town after dark, clean up a bit and join Stella and Jamira to the food market for a noodle soup with pork, dumplings and satay skewers. We love the food in Thailand.
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Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,628 km (1,632 miles)
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