Ayutthaya – Koh Chang

4th April 2014   35’C    458km

Today was a great ride.  Lots of back roads with not too much traffic and beautiful scenery, passing great mountain ranges and intricately detailed temples.

I had started out early from Ayutthaya, after saying goodbye to Jeeda, the lovely owner of Promtong Mansion.
Just outside of town, and not long after filling up for fuel, I was stopped at a police checkpoint. One of those regular checkpoints in Thailand that usually only pay attention to trucks, but the cop saw the bike coming and starting waving, long in advance of my arrival at the police post.  I pulled up next to him (in the middle of the road, forcing trucks to turn around me) and said “Sawadeekrap” with a smile.  The cop responded with “Umm, Umm, you got light-sen?”  To which I said “yes, of course” and fished out a dodgy copy of my Australian license from the tank bag, handing it to him.   Mr Cop studied both sides of the license, and then re-studied both sides again for about a minute, before he said “BMW… Hmmm, that’s going to be big money eh?”.   I decided at this point, that this whole thing was probably a shake-down, and ignored him, instead I smiled and waved at his younger colleague who was standing in the other lane of traffic watching.  The older cop figured I was probably a waste of time I guess, and handed my license back to me, saying “OK, go”.  I said my “Kopunkarp” and left with a smile.

At the next traffic light, I was approached by a lady selling floral blessings for good luck in travel, and in exchange for 20 baht, she draped one around my mirror.  The fragrance from the tiny rose was so sweet, and in contrast to the dirty smelly motorbike. In a few minutes all I could smell was rose.  Later I moved the flowers to the left pannier, where they were less affected by wind.

Forty minutes later, I needed to stop for a drink and a toilet, sighting a service station I pulled in, fishing out the paper from the tank bag.  No sooner had I stepped away from the bike towards the toilet and the heavens opened. It pounded down rain for 30 minutes, so I hid out in the service station workshop with a teenage Thai couple until the rain stopped.

Later in the day, I had my second instance of someone trying to swap a female family member for the bike.  This guy was waving frantically at me while I was stopped at the traffic lights.  The lights in Thailand take forever to change colour, upto 300 seconds. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you are sitting on a hot motorcycle in the sun, not moving, it feels like an eternity.  So I had stopped right off the edge of the road, under the shade of a tree.  This guy was gesturing to his sister or maybe his wife, suggesting that I could trade the bike for her.

It seemed like a bad deal for both parties.  The light went green before I needed to make any excuses, and I took off without looking back.

I had a quick break at the tourist information for the town of Trat. I had not yet decided where to stop riding or stay for the night, and was thinking it was time to make that decision, but the guy in the tourist office told me that the island of Koh Chang was beautiful and I should go there.  So I headed to the ferry terminal, and took the short ferry trip across to Koh Chang.  The ferry engineer came over and checked out the bike for a few minutes, seeing the flowers on the pannier, commented “ah, it’s good you have this. For good luck and safe travel”

Koh Chang is certainly a magnificent island, with beautiful white sand beaches and a mountainous interior. Although it is suffering for its beauty, like so many Thai beach-side paradise locations, with an expanding strip of girly bars and massage joints along the main street.  It’s a shame, the island must have been a really gem a few years before all this stuff arrived.

So tonight, despite being in a bungalow on the side of a cliff overlooking the sea, I have the thumping bass of the nightclubs to lull me to sleep. Hopefully.

Tomorrow is another non-riding day, as I’ll be taking a dive boat out to a wreck of a U.S warship on the reef, for a day of scuba dives.

Looking forward to it!