Martin´s South East Asia Trip Chapter 2 - South

martins

Thai tourer
Jul 22, 2008
18
0
1
Nakhon Ratchasima
Hi again, here is the continued story from my trip.
To follow my trip please see pictures on my home page

After getting my bike cleared I rolled out in the streets of Bangkok. I thought it should be quite easy to find my way out to the south. It was not. However I managed to get out of Bangkok and hit the road south. It took as while and at dawn time at six o'clock I made it to Hua hin where I stopped overnight. A nice touristic town with a lot of oppurtunities to overnight, I found a place with a Swedish owner and felt safe and sound.

Next morning I started out in a sunny day on roads that was amazingly good. Like Highways at home and quite low traffic. The heat stroke me, I wore leather clothes and it was about 40 degrees Celsius. I realized that leather jacket was not the right outfit to wear in this heat and continued with only a T-shirt but with leather trousers. The road was nice and straight but quite boaring.

i took the road 4 down to Chumpon and then headed west on the old road to the west coast and the Burma border, this road was a lot more nice for a motorbike. At Chumpon it started to rain but it was a nice warm rain that really did not matter. I stopped for a while at a family shop taking a drink and waiting for the rain to stop. It did and I continued on. I miscalculated the distance to Phuket where I was going and when it started to be dark I took a road right to the coast and hit a tsunami warning area, I really felt strongly for the people that had a great tourist business before the tsunami but now was entirely emptied from business. However a really nice area. i recommend a visit there.

After an overnight chatting with the family and had a really good dinner and breakfast I continued toward Phuket, my next goal. I managed to make it to Phuket town before dawn and had a couple of nice days in the area with an old friend of mine living there. There was a couple of heavy rain on the way down but as said before, warm water makes you feel like standing in the shower. not to bad. One thing that was hazardous though was the dogs. Plenty of dogs along the road, running out and chasing you makes you quite scared on the bike sometimes. This is actually the one and only large danger on the Thai roads, wild dogs along the roads.

I had a couple of good days in Phuket visited the Pi Pi Islands and several other touristic places. The traffic in Phuket was real aggressive and people on motorcykles drove more or less sober, the later the day the more alcohol in the traffic. Not only thais but even tourists on hired bikes. I decided to not drive after dark in Phuket, better safe than sorry!

After a weekend in Phuket I started of to the east and Koh Samui. It was a very nice tour at appx 200 km through a national park and over a car ferry from Don Sak. There was some rain but a real nice trip so no problem. I hit the ferry in good time before dark and arrived to Koh Samui, this beutiful paradise Island. I looked in my Lonely planets guide and found a great hotel on Lamai beach where I stayed for the night. There was a diving agency nextdoor to the hotel so I booked a diving tour the next day and went to see the underwater world of koh Samui.

After some research I found a place in the Jungle called The Jungle club, a great place fare away from the tourists not reachable by car but the bike took me up there and I had a really nice stay for nearly a week in the Jungle. I did some tours around the Island with my bike and one of them did not end so well. I tried to cross the Island on off roads (dirt roads). It was a nice adventure until it started to rain heavily on the top of the Island. The rest of the tour was on muddy roads and some heavy chrashes with the bike. Anyhow it ended out well but I do not recommend this offroad tour in rainy season.

I spent a full week in Koh Samui and did not really wanted to leave this paradise, I urge you to not miss this wonderful piece of Thailand when your on tour. It's probaply the nicest place I ever been to, an absolute paradise. I left Koh Samui with regret but continued my trip through Thailand after this wonderful week. I took the ferry back to Don Sak as there was no other car ferrys and drove the way to Chumpon for an overnight. Chumpon felt like a real Thai countryside town whare you can walk the streets and feel the original Thai culture.

The next leg took mr back to Bangkok and I spent a couple of days trying to convince myself that Bangkok is a nice place. I did not succeed...
To many peolpe in to small area, thats my conclusion of the caotic place. But I beleive I'm a countryside guy, appriciating country smells and sights from my bike. There will be more of those next week when I continue my travel towards the north of Thailand.

See you then...

//Martin