We’ve not seen many tourers this trip which has been a great surprise as we thought the place would be heaving with them, so perhaps like London buses they clump together and we duly bumped into a Spanish lady heading to Hong Kong from Bali and whilst we were chatting to her another British couple on a Tandem turned up – immaculatly clean, much to our Tilly’s disgust – and whilst talking to them ( discovery we had mutual tandem friends in England!) a couple of Canadians turned up too.
The Canadians had numerous Canadian flags flying and we wondered, given we’ve recently been told they now do this, its to make sure that no one thought they were Yanks.
Anyway, after we’d all parted ways, we continued our lovely cycle down the coast with the whole place getting more tropical with more palm trees appearing everywhere but a corresponding rise in temperature and humidity.
We’ve been in a dilemma as we’re heading south. We have to go over to the west coast of Thailand soon as (and we didn’t know this until someone told us… our research for this trip consisted of ‘Lets go to Asia’), there’s some independence / terrorist movement going on and the FCO advise against all but essential travel. Now that wouldn’t unduly bother me given that 18,000 people die on the roads here each years and only 94 in terrorist activity, but our insurance won’t cover us if we go there. In the last 10 years about 600 people have died in terrorist activity and 180,000 on the roads. So, the west coast it is when we get that far south..
If we choose the west coast before that we pass all the islands that Thailand is famous for. We’ve already decided not to go to Phuket after every cycle tourer we’ve met said it’s horrible (apart from the old town), we like grumpy old folk destinations – quiet, the ability to just listen to the waves and the birds without the thump of music and the smell of cigarettes and we’ve been really spoilt with that as we’ve headed down this coast.
I spend a lot of time working our route out and we often detour or pass deserted beaches where we are the only people on them and stop for a picnic. At times there’s not even a shack on the beach and these locations are fantastic a far cry from the tourist hot spots we’ve passed so far and fear some of the islands may resemble.
When we earlier ventured out to Koh Chang the beaches and island were gorgeous, but it was heaving, noisy and smoke filled. So, will it be the western islands or not! Who knows what will happen on that one and like most things, we’ll make it up on the day we need to make the left or right turn decision..
Poor Tilly has also been in the wars since the day of the floods. We think that water may have got into the bottom brackets (they were submerged so it’s not an unreasonable guess) and when we peddle hard Tilly grinds.
We’ve been into a few bike shops and had many different diagnosis, plus a spray of WD40, but we are still grinding along. I’m not sure what to do on that one either and of course our brake issue has flumoxed every mechanic who’s had a look, and there’s been a few!
The brake works but isnt working properly. It will slow us, but can’t stop us down hill, more of a drag brake I suppose. It’s also a cable actuated hydraulic brake which is a fancy way of saying no one has any idea of what to do with it. We’ve changed the pads, bled it, changed the pads again, cleaned the rotor, reset it, tighten the cable and it remains lazy. I suppose it’s a bit like us and doesn’t like hills!
Mechanics have said there’s nothing wrong with it – there most certainly is as it can usually stop us going down a very steep gradient on its own – it’s cos we are so heavy they say, and the favourite, ..we’ve no idea.
Anyway, one brake works perfectly still so we plod on…slowly.
We’ve been bumping into more tourers, all Brits, and it’s nice to stop and chat to them. There’s a kind of bond between tourers once you’ve done it a few times and as soon as you see someone coming you both cruise to a halt for a chat. Always nice to hear where they’ve been and to exchange tips. I’ve learnt my lesson never to mention our tyres being very resistant to other tourers who kept getting them as we got a puncture the very next morning!
But! We planned a short day and a visit to yet another bike shop for our next ride and arrived at about 9.30 in the morning. The guy then spent 3 and a half hours with Tilly trying to fix the brake and the grinding noise.. He cleaned the chain and drivetrain – no effect, reversed the chain rings – ditto – and realigned the chain tensioner – ditto – but he would not be beaten and so he changed the sprocket (that attaches to the rear wheel for the chains to drive it around) and bingo – all fixed! I didn’t have the nerve to ask him to put all the other bits back to how they were before he started though.
He also worked his magic on our brake, changing all the brake sleeving, cleaning the cable and the scrubbing the rotor and sanding down the brake pads and again, although not 100% it’s now able to actually stop us so a vast improvement. And then he changed a tube on the front as we had the puncture on the way into him (very hand) all for the pricey sum of £22.
So with Tilly now purring away we continued on our way southwards going back and forth on the discussion for whether to go over to Krabi and Trang and visit some of the islands. We’ve not come to any conclusion yet!
After 10 days and 500km of cycling (a lot for us) we had a day off at a lovely hotel to recover a bit and to sit around the pool. It was done in a colonial style and was gorgeous but quite why you have a Hubba pipe in your non smoking room I couldn’t figure out. Maybe it goes with the bacon that came with my veggie breakfast…
Our room was fab and like a number of others it had an outdoor shower (and hot tub, which we used as a washing machine for our entire wardrobe leaving the water a colour that the World Health Organisation would advise wearing of safety gear to deal with).
I’m not keen on these outdoor showers, they sound glamorous apparently (not that I’d know anything about glamour) but it seems to me that they’re they’re just so wet westerners at dawn can keep the local mosquito population happy. It’s almost like the battle of Britain with them all scrambling as soon as you turn the water on, the sky’s full of them. So another lesson learnt here..no showering until it gets hot and the mosquitos go for their siestas by which time we’ll have adjourned for a jobs day by the pool….
Lovin the Grumpy old foggies beach !! Our idea of paradise! No one else around.