Day T21: The Day That Wouldn't End

February 24, 2020

Bowin to Middle of Nowhere

I checked out of the hotel and the owners gave me some fruit while wishing me good luck. As an aside, there are literally hundreds of these unmarked hotels on the side of the road, most go by the name 'resort' which is a little misleading, but it's a roof over your head so who cares. Most of them aren't marked on Google Maps as I would later find out again.

Makeshift Amazon Cafe while the real one undergoes renovations for some reason. No matter, it was equally chilled out here

Rolling along Route 331 in awesome conditions

Eventually I turned off the main road because I was looking for a more remote way to reach the Cambodian border. Things started off awesome at first, the traffic totally petered out and it was nice quiet roads and tons of greetings and smiles from the locals who probably never saw cycle tourists going this way before. There were even some unexpected and amazing Buddha images at some temple in the middle of nowhere.

What an awesome find. The temple was literally in the middle of nowhere

Even a reclining Buddha! I'd have loved to get inside the compounds for a closer look but the whole thing was barbwired off so I dared not to

After all this meandering, I took the northernmost rural route and set the GPS on a 'hotel' programmed in at a respectable distance. Judging from all the looks I was getting, the lack of any food or drink stalls, and the total lack of traffic, I was beginning to get worried that this so-called hotel would not exist. Sure enough, my worries proved true.

This 'hotel' was actually an abandoned resort and full of dogs. No way was I going to stay here.

Unfortunately the next closest 'hotel' on my phone was another 20 km away, and that one also turned out to be a dud. By now it was totally pitch dark. My phone conked out of batteries. So much for that, it would now be the old fashioned way: find a place to eat, speak a little Thai, and see if the locals knew where any hotels were. The strategy worked perfectly as they knew about a 'resort' just 1km away that wasn't marked on any online maps. As it turned out, that place was run by the same group of people who managed the restaurant I found. At 450 baht it was a great deal.

There's always a resort where you need one

Today's ride: 120 km (75 miles)
Total: 546 km (339 miles)

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