26th March to 1st April - heading to paradise on Koh Samui.

26th March - Ban Cha Ching Pra to Pak Phanang
In my blog last time I said that we were in Pak Phanang, which was actually a lie. All the roadsigns are in Thai and for some reason I am incapable of retaining any place names. Honestly it's a big problem. People ask us where we stayed the previous night, or where we're going, and I literally have no hope of telling them. Another problem is telling people where we're going - we often lie so we don't look too rich, but Bangkok isn't called Bangkok, and nobody understands my pronunciation of China. Anyway.

So we left Ban Cha Ching Pra and headed straight up the coast to Pak Phanang. We went on a parallel road to the mainroad which was completely empty apart from animals, including a few scary dogs (specially scary for people who haven't had rabies jabs). It was hot.We've found it a real problem telling the difference between cafés/shops/people's houses. You see some plastic tables and chairs outside a building and think great. Then get closer and there's no sign of any of the things you would expect to find in a café. There are people sitting around who all start laughing. You peer inside and see for sale: dried fish, baby clothes, wasabi peas and washing powder. Or, you see some napkins and water on the table, a good sign of café life, but then look into the building and there's somebody asleep on the floor, or a lot of washing hanging up. Is it a café? Probably yes. Coffee isn't a thing here except in western looking shops. I tried asking for coffee once and was given a just-boiled kettle and a box with 4 different types of nescafé in. Revolting. We were debating the house/café thing when a guest from the nearby wedding party insisted we join in for some food! They brought us three different delicious dishes, ice cold drinks, sticky rice for pudding, and one of them was an english speaker who told us lots of interesting stuff!

Anyway I'm running out of ways to describe cycling along the beach being too hot the entire time. We arrived in Pak Phanang and started looking for somewhere to stay... We kept looking, riding in circles round the town. We were asking people for directions and they would talk for hours in Thai and point left or right. This went pretty badly because we had no idea how far away the hotels they were thinking of were. At one point in Morocco just as it was getting dark I asked a policeman where a hotel was and he gave me directions to one 32 kilometres away, without mentioning it was 32 kilometres away. ANYWAY we eventually found one run by two sisters who found us absolutely hilarious. We were quite far away from the nearest restaurant so we cooked pasta and they kept coming to watch and take photos. When we made tea and added milk they collapsed into hysterics, nudging eachother and jabbering in Thai. This was all in very good humour. Unfortunately at night I started feeling sick, which soon translated into actual vomit.

27th March - Pak Phanang to Tha Sala 
I woke up still feeling pretty sick, too sick to leave so we stayed for a while. We needed to make some progress though because Koh Samui and Grandpa and Hilary awaited. Eventually we left, and made our way up the coast in small hops.

Luckily it wasn't too hot, and it was very flat and easy so it didn't matter that I couldn't eat anything. Eventually we decided we'd made enough progress and stopped at a guest house. To our surprise, a white man came out!!! This was only the 4th white person we'd seen since leaving Australia. It turns out he was Swedish and had been married to a Thai woman for 16 years, and lived in Thailand for 4. It was only the past 2 years he'd started learning Thai, and his wife spoke no English (It was love at first sight of course). He seemed to do nothing all day, while his wife ran four businesses which he didn't help with because he had to "be careful" (I still don't know what that means). We had to wait for his wife to get back from selling clothes at the market so she could get the room ready. We had an interesting evening talking to him... (I really really hope he hasn't found this blog somehow, he was very nice really).


28th March - Tha Sala to the ferry port at Don Sak
In the morning we were about to have muesli for breakfast (a remnant of our tesco trip) and swedishman told us to go down the road. We knew this was a mistake but as usual we were incapable of saying no. In boiling hot SE Asia it's really important to do as much cycling as poss in the hour before it turns into an oven. Instead we spent ages in this café eating the rice around the fish sauce and drinking coffee that was half condensed milk. Anyway eventually we got going. This was a nice ride along the coast. All the riding in Thailand's been really nice, with empty roads and a decent hard shoulder. (I feel like I've written that sentence before?). Anyway we saw a turning for a cave and decided that we should go and see it. We parked our bike, mum changed into flip flops despite the staff telling her not to, and we started walking towards the cave. It turns out we needed a guide and a man followed us with flashlights and helmets. I thought it was probs thai health and safety gone a bit mad. How wrong I was. The first problem was 142 steps, but the guide told us we could have a rest at the top. Then we entered the cave and it was absolutely staggering. I had no idea what it was going to be like but it was beyond my wildest dreams. I felt like I was in that Enid Blyton book where Jack, Lucy-Ann, Dinah and Philip get trapped in the mountain with the people who do all that spirit worshipping and have to escape through the caves to the mountain shelf. There were stalagmites and stalactites galore, bats flying around, underground waterfalls and cool rocks shaped like animals. I would have enjoyed it still more if I hadn't been terrified for my life, on the wet slippy rock in my cycling shoes. There were sheer drops everywhere. I took my shoes off and walked around in my grippy socks but mum had an absolute shocker with her flip flops. She kept screaming in a blood curdling way. Anyway unlike in an Enid Blyton book we made it out unscathed and without capturing any villains, much to our relief.

I realise those pictures are absolutely rubbish (mum took them but she won't read this).
As we left the cave it poured with rain, absolutely torrential. We waited it out as long as we could but by this point we were getting a bit trembly at the thought of Koh Samui and we stayed as close to the ferry port as possible.

29th March - Don Sak to Koh Samui
We had two ferry choices, but it was so rainy in the morning that we left a bit later, which meant less cycling as the ferry went closer to the hotel. Eventually we got our bikes onto the ferry, I'm 99% sure we gave a couple of the staff long term back problems as they underestimated the weights of our bikes. We were soon off the ferry and heading towards Grandpa, Hilary and the good times. When we got to the hotel we tried to get in and the security guards descended on us, obviously thinking we were homeless people trying to break in. I hadn't washed my hair in other a month and it had formed one massive dreadlock, sticking up madly at the back of my neck. The rain of the past few days meant everything was really muddy, and having not seen a washing machine since Sydney, we really were looking rough. Eventually we managed to persuade them that we were actually staying at the hotel and they relaxed a bit and showed us to reception. We were given a welcome gift of a cooling towel and a ice cold pineapple juice. We have never stayed anywhere that's been close to giving us a welcome gift. We ran down the pool to see Gramps and Hilary. At this point I burst into tears, shocking the other diners who were very confused at these two homeless women wearing cycling kit and crying. Eventually we recovered and had a cold beer, in a cold glass. The menu had English translations, the staff didn't make us feel stupid, the food wasn't overly spicy. Honestly you really can buy happiness. After this we moved into our room and I made a start at de-dreadlocking. We strolled along the beach to the nearby town before coming back to the hotel for a buffet and a fire show. We claimed front row seats for the fire show but then were all terrified. There would definitely have been a safety barrier in the UK. After this we slept on the comfiest bed we've had in ages.

The breakfast buffet was literally the Buffet of Dreams. Pancakes, waffles, cheese, bacon, eggs, doughnuts, sushi, muesli, fruit, orange juice... I could go on. Mum and I put in a decent effort sampling everything. Gramps stuck to toast and marmalade, despite my best efforts to get him to try a doughnut. The next 48 hours were lush, relaxin' chillin' eatin' drinkin' chattin' and playing bridge. About an hour in I started to dread leaving, and it was even worse than I thought it would be...