From SP Resort to Baan Peu-un Resort

November 19, 2022

Pai Khiao to Khanu Woralaksaburi

I loved our bunglow at the SP Resort as well as the owners. It was made with all sorts of old teak timbers which made it feel like a cabin on a lake in Minnesota's north woods which is to say it made me feel at home. The heavy downpour in the night woke me enough to make me smile. It's nice when rain comes only at night, which was the case during our entire last bike trip in S.E. Asia and so far for this one too. Now, having said that, I've probably jinxed us.

The downside to lots of rain, anytime of day or night, is that it keeps the humidity ridiculously high. When we started out it was 98% which pretty much means it doesn't even matter what the temperature is because we just sweat. The good thing on this day is that it was cloudy with a slight breeze.

We rode very small rural roads once again. Half were dirt and half were cement with lots of puddles. It was apparent that the rain was even heavier the further north we went. Yesterday we saw farmers pumping the last bit of water from drainage ditches into their rice fields but today those ditches were half full and small streams were fast flowing. What a difference a night makes.

Starting to see karst hills. The plants are tapioca.

Today was a repeat of yesterday with birdsong surrounding us, people amazed to see us, big smiles all around and a peacefulness like I've never known. But there was one guy, (there's always one) however, who was downright dangerous. We could hear him coming, accelerating his pickup truck to the point it was making a high-pitched hissing. We moved over to the side of the road as far as possible and he flew past crazily fast. We estimated he was going between 85 and 100 mph! It was a reminder that Thais have one of the worst road fatality records in the world. They are actually fairly good drivers overall but it's speed that kills. We made plans if we heard him returning, but he never did.

The contrast was a man with his two-year old boy in his lap on a motorbike going very slowly past us and then turning around and making a second pass so that his son could see the farang. The boy had an expressionless look as if he didn't really know what he was looking at! These things just make me laugh.

At about the 20 mile mark we were ready for something and just then I spied a cafe boulan little setup just outside a temple gate. She chattered away in Thai about something I was only half understanding. I always know I am somewhere I want to be when the people speak only in Thai to me as if I am fluent in their language. The fact that I might not understand is something that doesn't enter their minds. That's when I know I am somewhere I want to be.

Looking into her tin coffee pots containing dangling bags of used coffee grounds I surmised that she was telling me that she was out but I also heard that she could make more and it would take ten minutes. Sometimes, somehow, I understand just enough. Ten minutes was fine with us. Andrea told me she would wait and I could go explore, mostly photographically, the temple grounds.

Fifteen minutes later Andrea was entering the temple grounds with two enormous bags of iced coffee. We hadn't seen any "Tong Yai" coffee yet on this trip. Tong means bag and yai means big. Tong also almost always implies that it will be take away. It's also called tong cafe - bag coffee. I had no idea we were going to get that type but I was thrilled because with the tong it can hang from my handlebars and it is always great coffee with lots of ice, which we needed.

We sat on a bench in the temple grounds sipping our coffee as nicely dressed people arrived carrying gifts of food to the temple. Something was going to happen but we never know what's going on. A nice man came over to talk to us but not only was he speaking only Thai but he had no teeth which made it pretty much impossible for me to gather much. Fortunately he was good at pantomime. He was super friendly and quite impressed with us on our loaded biikes making our way towards Chiang Mai. A cat laid nearby at the base of some stairs about as relaxed as any cat I've ever seen. In fact I went over to see if he was breathing!

After using the temple's hongnam - literally room water or toilet - (we always use the nice hongnams at temples) we moved on waving to the nice man and a monk who also was talking to us and impressed with what we were doing.

Once again I was impressed that Pocket Earth was finding the smallest of roads for us. We were making turns I wouldn't have ever dreamed of taking, some looking like they were someone's driveway or certainly a dead end.

We arrived at the small village where we would stay but before going to our guest house we saw a nice restaurant and I thought we should eat something because being Saturday one can never know how long a restaurant will stay open. The Thais have become quite serious about taking time off on the weekends, as well they should, but bad for us. We hadn't really had the classic Thai fried rice so I ordered two of them topped with kai dao - fried eggs, for good measure. Even the fried egg is classically Thai because they fry the egg in tons of hot oil which bubbles up the white part and the deep orange colored yolk stays runny. Some julienned cucumber slices and a lime on the side and you've got khao pad, Thai style.

A Thai lunch like this always comes with a clear broth soup as well that is probably made from some bones that have been boiling away all day. It's always a wonderful addition. All of this for less than $2. Ice water always comes with these lunches too.

I always want to steal the glasses in Thailand.

Table legs surrounded by water assures there will be no ants.

As I loaded Thai chilies swimming in fish sauce (nam pla prik) onto my fried rice, load after load of tapioca roots went by on the nearby road. The roots were piled into bins at the back of small tulogies going as fast as tulogies go producing ear drum destroying decibels. One after another blasted by as I piled on more and more chilies. Was it some sort of weird reaction I was having, as if I was going to dampen the sound somehow? Each time one of the monstrosities went past I looked over at the cook who was completely absorbed in her phone and paid no attention whatsoever to the noise. Noise? What noise?

So, in only 25 miles of riding we went from a totally flat land rice paddy landscape to a bit more hilly and a change in soil which meant a lot more tapioca growing. It was being dug up (harvested) and transported to the processor. Along the way we also saw a few eucalyptus groves and one rubber tree section, a first for each.

Andrea taught herself to read Thai a few years ago. She says that all she can do is slowly sound it out but often in so doing I can understand what she is sounding out. At the restaurant I asked Andrea what other things they could make and she sounded out pad prik keng which is one of my favorite dishes - fried meat of choice with a few veggies but 'keng' is ginger which they always slice thinly and pile on amply. The fried rice was so good that I wanted to return for dinner, which we did early, but the restaurant had already closed. We looked around for a papaya and again found none. There really was nothing open or anything going on in the small village but we did find a stand that had some fried chicken. A pad prik keng mouth-watering dream of a dinner turned into one and a half chicken drumsticks and some sticky rice (khao niao). It was enough. And I did find a one baht coin on the ground on the way back to our bungalow. I never would have known the guest house's name if Andrea hadn't sounded it out. Baan Peu-un Resort which means Friend's House Resort. All in all, another great day even if our bungalow at Friend's House had a crypt-like tiled bed frame! Why?!

This may be Friend's House Resort but friends don't let friends sleep in crypts.

lovebruce

Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 197 miles (317 km)

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