The Road Trip of Xgrind and AngKuGuay: Day 10-13

Distance travelled so far: Approx. 4700km

Day 10

Today we headed out for our second planned destination: Kanchanaburi. The location serves as a convenient resting point for our ride down south.

The ride today covers Highway 1 from Kamphaeng Phet to Nakhon Sawan, turning to Highway 32. Then we changed to Highway 340 towards Chai Nat and to Suphan Buri where we turned to Highway 324 straight to the town of Kanchanaburi.

The ride was pretty much smooth today as traffic was light and the road condition was pretty good. As we stopped by a rest point as AKG felt his bike front is slipping, we noticed that his front tire is overinflated and so we waited for the tire to cool down before he released some pressure off it.

While we were waiting, an uncle came to chat with us. We came to know that he is a retired Singaporean businessman who came to Thailand to teach the locals on organic farming. He also gave us advises on what are the topics we are not supposed to discuss in Thailand and also what are the good places to visit in Kanchanaburi. Once AKG's tire had been released some pressure, we pressed on. Along the way we were kinda impressed by the load the trucks were carrying as the load was like almost more than one half times the actual truck itself.

In no time we reached the town of Kanchanaburi. By the time we reached the town, the local schools just ended their lessons and the students were just being released. So the traffic was kinda heavy during this time. Nevertheless we had no difficulty finding a motel since it's on the main road. Once we checked in the motel room, we went out for dinner, got some beer back to room and rested early for the night.

Day 11

The following day was our tourist mode day so the day is planned to be visits to the tourist attraction, mainly the River Kwai Death Bridge in the town.

So we first dropped by the war cemetery which the name stones of those prisoners of war who perished during World War 2 were placed. The place was well maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and these heroes deserved to be honored in this way. Opposite the cemetery lies the Thailand-Myanmar Railway Museum which exhibits the artifacts recovered from the actual Death Railway sites and also some history notes on the story of the death railway. To me, the 100 bahts admission for the museum is well worth it.

After that we are going for the real shit: the River Kwai bridge. As we were on the way there, we stopped by a road named Singapore Road. Other than that road, there were other roads that were named other countries like Malaysia, Korea, etc. Guess the roads were named to commemorate the POWs from the countries they came from. However, we don't know why there is a road called Afghanistan road. Once we reached River Kwai, we saw what we came for: the Death Railway. I had been hearing and reading about it but I finally see it for myself right in front of me. We were allowed to walk on the bridge and we went to the other side of the river to check out the area. Nothing much actually.

When we walked our way back, we saw a couple of big bikes parking besides our bikes. We at first thought that they may be some Thai riders who happened to ride to this town as well but on the closer look, they are the Singaporean riders! Wow, this is the first time in 10 days since we last saw a Singaporean rider and this time we saw 4 of them. AKG knew one of them whom I also met before. The group consisted of a R1, a Varadero, a BMW GS, and a FZ1. They were planning to go to Laos and will be heading for Mae Hon Son the following day. Group of fun loving, chatty guys. After a round of drinks at River Kwai, we brought them to the motel we stayed in there and then we decided to go to the Tiger Temple to take some photos with the tigers up close and personal.

Since there were 6 of us, we got ourselves a "songtiao" which is something like a cab in a pickup vehicle. We were told by the local that the temple is only 40 minutes' walk, but it ended up to be a 40-min drive to the destination. Luckily we chose the easy way out lol.

Sitting relaxed in a Songtiao to the Tiger Temple

The Tiger Temple is basically a temple where the abbot kept those tigers which were rescued from captivity but were not suitable to release into the wildlife. Somehow some foreigners set up some foundations and made it into some kind of tourist spot. I can understand their intention of setting up admission fees to generate income to sustain the initial intention of the programme but kinda feel like it's kinda becoming very profit driven. Nevertheless I do hope the proceeds do go into rightful usage.

As we walked to the Tiger Canyon, we see an artificial landscape where the crowd is queuing up to take photos with the tigers up close. We took photos as a group and as individual and I never expect myself to take photo with not one but a couple of tigers just next to me.

After the walk around the temple, we proceed back to town and had some dinner. After which, we just clean ourselves up and end the day early for tomorrow's journey. It'll be an early ride tomorrow again. Next destination: Chumphon


Day 12

Today we wake up early to prepare for the ride down to Chumphon, the halfway point to Krabi, to meet our friend Eddie, who decided to leave Singapore and settle down in Thailand. By the time we went down to shift our bikes to the front of the hotel, we found that the Singaporean riders we met yesterday had already left for Mae Hon Son. As we have calculated, it will be a 9-hour ride for them to reach the destination. Talk about hardcore LOL.

We easily navigated our way into the highway 323 followed by all the way down Highway 4 southwards near Nakhon Pathom. No chance for hor lan adventure since the Fang experience LOL. The road down Highway 4 is pretty boring as it is only a long stretch of almost straight road, much like the Malaysia's North-South highway.

What sets this Highway 4 from Malaysia's North-South highway is the crosswind we experienced. As Highway 4 between Surat Thani and Nakhon Pathom lies very near to the coastline (Gulf of Thailand), strong sea breeze is experienced along the highway constantly. In fact, the wind is so strong that we can see the trees are standing tilted permanently. When we were riding at above 150km/h, we constanly fought against the crosswind and at certain sections, there were sudden gushes of crosswind that caught us by surprise and our bikes swerved sideway by half the lane before we reacted to it. The crosswind in Malaysia highway is nothing compared to what we experienced down here. Awesome yet scary. We had to reduce our speed to 140km/h so that we can manage the bikes better. Throughout the ride we were literally fighting against the crosswind.

As I said, the road along Highway 4 is pretty... boring so nothing much to talk about and no nice landscape worth shooting. Maybe after watching the scenery at North Thailand, we had risen our standards liao haha. We arrived Chumphon without much hitches and we were able to find a cheap hotel very soon. Before finding a suitable hotel, we went a bit further into the town until we reached the coastline. The coastline is nothing like Singapore's coastline. Same dirty seawater, but with more spectacular view. While the hotel is very cheap, the corridors of the hotel room alley looked like a 80s hospital corridor, kinda creepy. Nevertheless, the room is decent enough for us to rest in. As we arrived Chumphon in mid afternoon, AKG spent a couple of hours watching movies while I played the Monopoly game on my lappy until it is time for dinner.

Dinnertime, we went down to the night market and looked around for some other different Thai food. To be frank, I'm kinda tired of Phad Thai (Thai fried noodles) so I decided to just wack at anything that catch my appetide. So we ordered some spicy dishes that accompanied with a plate of rice. Tasted pretty good. We later head down to a internet cafe where we spent an hour surfing net and as the cafe restrict the use of external devices, I wasn't able to upload the photos to Flickr so I figured that I gave the blog update a miss and do that at a later date.

Once we are done with the surfing, we head down to get AKG's favorite snack: the Mango Glutinous Rice. Somehow he managed to get me addicted to this dish as well so we got 2 servings and have it as supper back in the hotel room.


Day 13

Today we will be visting Eddie in Krabi today. We woke up, got everything packed up and headed out towards Highway 41.

As our tanks needed to fill up with petrol, we hunted for a petrol kiosk and to have breakkfast as well before we continue with our journey. We found our favorite petrol kiosk, PTT, only to find that they have run out of gasohol 95. So I fill the tank with Gasohol 91 and mixed with octane booster to increase the octane level.

Over at the kiosk, we met up with some Thai bikers and they happened to be riders from the Chumphon Super Bikes Motorcycle Club. They were riding a Harley, a Yamaha Diversion, a BMW bike , a Yamaha V-max, a Honda Blackbird and a Honda sportbike which I couldn't make out the model. They mentioned that they are on their way to a school for Children's Day event and asked if we wanna go. AKG and me wanted to go, since you don't get this kind of chance everyday but something happened. AKG's busa couldn't start up. There was no power on the dashboard when he turned on the ignition switch and we thought that it could be a blown fuse. After much fiddling around, we finally found the fusebox (cos AKG don't know where is his bike's fusebox) and checked that the fuse is ok. We started to worry and hoped very hard that it is not a screwed ECU or anything like that. One of the Chumphon MC members, who happened to be the boss of the local bike shop, offered his help by calling his mechanic to come to our aid. As they were rushing for time, they had to leave without waiting for us to get AKG's bike fixed.

The mechanic arrived, and after much tracing, he finally found that the ignition switch connector is loose. When he re-secured the connector, the busa is alive again. And he is kind enough to refuse to accept payments from us. That displayed the generosity of the Thai people and the positive spirit among bikers, irregardless of nationality.

With his busa fixed and our tanks filled up, we continued on to our journey to Krabi. It's a real pity that we missed hanging out with the Thai riders, or we will have another story to tell. We are back to Highway 41 again and as of yesterday, the wind conditions remained unchanged. We still constantly fight against the crosswinds while riding at 150km/h and then we turned to Highway 44 at Surat Thani to go all the way to Krabi. It only took us less than 4 hours to reach our destination.

As usual, finding a hotel was a breeze and we managed to find a cheap yet decent hotel to stay in. After unloading our stuff, we head out to look for Eddie's shop based on a faded name card that AKG have. We found the road, but we went up and down the same road twice without locating Eddie's shop. So we stopped by a printing shop and by a stroke of luck, the boss of the printing shop happened to know Eddie and he helped us to call him about our arrival. With some directions, we finally managed to find Eddie's bike repair shop. Down there, we came to know that he is in the midst of shifting his shop and also chat about bike stuff (as usual lah). He was very hospitable and his wife cooked us a meal which I find it very delicious. Then AKG mentioned to him about his front tire and upon inspection, Eddie advised him to change his front tire before making our way back to Singapore.

Chilling out at Eddie's bike shop

Eddie loaned us his half cap helmet LOL

After Eddie closed his shop, he brought us to view his new shop/home and then brought us to pray at a temple tentage which happened to be a deity's birthday celebration. So we made some prayers, wishing for safety on the way back, and we proceed to the main temple for some vegetarian meal. Afterwhich we went back to park our bikes at the hotel before walking our way back to the temple tentage again. We stayed throughout the ritual proceedings which showed things that you don't get to see back in Singapore anymore (they have it in the past).

So we headed back to our hotel to rest, but AKG is hungry so we went down again to hunt for food. We ordered this Thai Beef Soup Noodles and we immediately fell in love with it as the beef is very tender and the soup is very delicious. The best part is it only costed us 60 bahts (about SGD 2 plus) for 2 bowls!

Tomorrow we will be heading to Hat Yai, the final stop in our Thailand trip before we head back to Singapore. Can't believe that we are leaving Thailand in a couple of days....