December 16, 2016
To That Phanom: A nice, cool ride
The included breakfast at the hotel was disappointing. I had been told it was a buffet, and was looking forward to gorging. The buffet had plates pre-assembled with cold fried eggs and salad. There were some Thai dishes that were quite spicy, and some soup that was brought out after I started eating. The girl working there assembled a small bowl of soup for me, and added too much chili. Coffee was instant 3 in 1.
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I had been up for a long time before I ate. There were 2 big bus groups at the hotel, and they were up and noisy at 5 am. The buffet started at 7 am, and I was the first one there. I was on the road by about 7:45, retracing my ride from last night. I was pleasantly surprised by the bike path. I had seen just a bit of it riding in the dark.
There was a constuction (sic.) zone just outside of the city.
That was bumpy and dusty, but after that, it was a smooth road with a good shoulder and reasonable traffic. To top it off, it was overcast and even sprinkled for a good part of the ride. The road went through some towns, and there were food options if I had needed them.
The hullabaloo in Nakhon Phanom had been due to graduation ceremonies. There were lots of stalls along the side of the road selling congratulation gifts. Traffic by the tourism college was so jammed up that I had to stop my bike.
I stopped about half way at a low key market. It didn't have any hustle or bustle, but it did have a coffee stall at the front. The stall had a real espresso machine, and I had a great iced cappuccino along with a sesame coated ball of something that was pretty good.
As I got closer to That Phanom, I was able to leave the highway for a little cement road along the river. It went through some sleepy little towns that didn't seem to have much going on.
It brought me to the outskirts of That Phanom, where there was a Tesco Lotus. I went in, and found a KFC and had some surprisingly good chicken. There was a family there with twin girls, age 5, who were learning a few words of English. One of the twins was curious and came to sit with me. Her sister was physically bigger, but more timid. Their mother told me they were twins, otherwise I would not have guessed. She said the little, curious one was the monkey and the bigger one the pig. I finished eating and said good-bye, and went and found my guest house. I had wanted to avoid a repeat of yesterday's fiasco, and booked it before leaving Nakhon Phanom. It turned out the That Phanom is a lot less busy. I'm at the Tho Saeng Resort, not fancy but comfortable, and 378 baht through Agoda.
After showering and doing laundry, I walked to Wat That Phanom. It's huge, dominates this small town, and attracts tour buses. The stupa reportedly contains the Buddha's breast bone. The stupa was rebuilt in 1975 after it fell down, so it looks new.
Then I walked to the river front, where absolutely nothing was going on.
I'm eating dinner at the restaurant at my hotel. It's a standard stir fried pork with rice with a fried egg on top, and sliced cucumbers. The menu was in Thai only, and no one here speaks English, so we did some pointing at pictures. And I've long since learned that pork is moo and rice is cow. Okay, kao, but I like the mixed up animal words. It's cool enough that I had to go and dig out my wind breaker.
Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 1,636 km (1,016 miles)
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