Geoff Jones

Chumpon Beach to KohTao Island

The lovely folks at Grasshopper tours let me hitch a 40minute ride with my bike to the ferry terminal at Chumpon. We made it for the 7am Catamaran service to the East coast islands, their group went to the big island Koh Samui. I opted for the first small island Koh Tao thinking I could then catch the afternoon ferry to Koh Samui

The bike went on the very full Cat OK although taking it almost doubles the price from 600 to 1100 baht! 100minutes later we made a brief stop at Ko Hang Tao to drop of a whole group of folks and there fresh fruit & veg supplies. A quick 12 minute spin across the bay and we were at Koh Tao (Turtle Island). Once I disembarked I bumped into a Brazilian guy who is biking from Hong Kong to Singapore, he recommended avoiding Phuket & going via Krabi down the West coast to Singapore. So many choices, .

Once on the island I decided to bike across to Ao Leuk to get some brunch, Wow what a steep hill! On the way back I struggled to push the bike up the hill! However, I had lovely Thai vegetable green soup & rice. Arriving back in the town I went to book my ticket to be told the afternoon ferry was full 🙁 So I’m leaving on the 9.00am today

I ended up, after a fruitless hour searching for the Jom Thong Guesthouse, including falling off the bike in the fine sand 🙁 In the end I decided on the Cafe del Sol Guesthouse in the village centre run by one the many French people on the island. Nice room but the usual dodgy internet connection.

I treated myself to another pedicure, manicure & foot massage, with the lady using a stick for the first time over here. Not the best but OK for £12

The pictures of the day are here

and the Strava for the short hop over the island is on Strava here:

Baan Grood to Chumpon Beach on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

I managed a really great early start today leaving as the dawn broke just after 6am, the first two hours are bliss, lovely and cool. I stopped for a lovely roadside breakfast in Bang Saphan and then pressed on as today was going to be long due to the distance of 70 miles+, the undulating conditions and most difficult of all THE HEAT!

In Thung Maha I was dying of thirst but, reminding me of Cambodia, there was no where selling cold drinks in the village, so I continued up the hill where I spied a ‘western’ style shop so I pulled in and much to my amazement two English ladies with their Bangkok hire bikes were sat outside! Becky & Julie are doing an independent cycling trip to Phuket, they had also met up with The Grasshoppers previously so we had a good little chat before they set of leaving me to my Sprites 🙂

I bumped into the ladies again at a roadside stall selling water melons, which was handy as one huge melon is too much for me but for 3 is ideal. But my word what an ordeal getting the seller to give me the price! In the end I had to get my notebook (a gift from Sally) out so she could write the price in!

The day got hotter and the hills bigger by the time I reached Pathio I was in danger of overheating! However, a Tesco/Lotus store hoved into view which I dashed into the icy cold AC, cold ice cream & drinks 🙂 when I came out I noticed a Amazon coffee shop so I disappeared into there too for a blueberry smoothies! Delicious and soooo cold.

I bumped into B&J again who were severely overheated! so in my fresh state I kept going. As I was cycling along the beachside in Chumpon beach, trying to find somewhere to stay, who should shout me but The Grasshopper group from yesterday! They had only ridden 60km or so and then travelled in the van. However, they had seen trained monkeys collecting coconuts 🙂 So I joined them at the Chumphon Cabana Resort

Imagine my surprise when at dinner Becky & Julia joined us so 3 customers had garnered 3 leeches 🙂

Tomorrow I’m off to the islands probably ending up in Ko Sameui before continuing the cycling from Don Sak

Here is todays 70 mile Strava

and a few photos here

Biking from Kuiburi to Baan Grood on Geoff’s SE Asia tour

I left the Kuiburi Hotel & Resort in a bit of a huff & rage at their incompetence, so I never had the breakfast I ordered due to the ‘urgent’ call from reception asking me to attend to the fact I had partaken of a beer & crisps from my room – I couldn’t face going back to the breakfast room as I was convinced any omelette would have come stuffed with ham anyway.

So it was almost 7am before I hit the road 🙁 my back tyre still had a slow puncture so once I arrived in Prachuap Khiri Khan I endeavoured to find a fixer, but I was out of luck so I pumped it up and kept going. A bit later I found a moped garage in the countryside who found the problem was a leak at the base of the valve so impossible to repair with normal patches, but maybe the liquid stuff would have worked? So I had to use one of my precious new inner tubes, we also discovered the back tyre is in dire need of replacing after only 1,600 miles 🙁

Whilst cycling along an unavoidable section of the dreaded Highway 4 I happened upon a small group of slackpackers travelling with Grasshoppers cycling tours during one of their regular breaks. Seen , their leader, guide, translator invited me along with them, so I thoroughly enjoyed my next few hours with Howard, Kevin & Heather as we stopped for lunch and had cold water breaks with their backup van. We arrived at the delightful Baan Grood Arcadia Resort with me cycling just under 65 miles. In the evening we had a glorious spread on the beach tables, where Howard treated me to a beer 🙂 🙂 So a great ending for the day.

The Strava is here:

and the pictures here

Geoff in SE Asia with a bike – Hua Hin to Kuiburi

Another early start and the hotel had made me a egg sandwich for breakfast, once again they thought it needed a slice of ham 🙁 So i fished it out.

The previous night I had created a route with bikemap.net that stuck to the coast and avoided the dreaded main highway 4, the route worked beautifuuly even including a bit of dirt track hill climbing 🙂

Amazing to see multistorey massive hotels just plonked in some remote bay, so incongruous, really makes you wonder about our civilization. The further from Hua Hin the more low key the place s become culminating after 30 miles in the rather bohemian village of Dolphin Bay with massage beds on the lovely beach & lots of low key hotels. After my massage & snooze (an experiment to see if my pm performance would improve – it didn’t 🙁 ) I moved on although i should have stayed I think.

I went on the edge of Khao Sam Roi Yod national park and even got to see a pack of monkeys rummaging in the Sulo bins, thoughtfully placed there by the park staff! Eventually after 58 miles I arrived at the Kuiburi Hotel & Resort which I’m not enjoying at all, crummy internet, staff who don’t know about smoothies and loads of mossies, so I’m currently having dinner & using their excellent internet at the neighbouring Vartika Resovilla.

Here is the days Strava:

I make it that I’ve now biked 1,656 miles (2,650km) so still about 1,100 miles to do, which if the temperature keeps increasing at the present rate I’m unlikely to be able to do it all on the bike in the remaining 26 days.

The days pics are here