This night, I had a strange way of sleeping. The first time when I woke up with the feeling I should, was 1a.m., the last was 5a.m., then I gave up and prepared to leave. I used the great wifi again, so in the end, I left the hotel at 6:30.
This was a nice experience, because the streets were less crowded and for a while, the temperature was pleasant.
I had my regular stops at 25, 50 and 75km, and the last, 100km, would have been the hotel, only a small detour made it longer.
On the way, you often can see cows, or mainly bulls accompanied by cranes. I don’t know if this is a symbiosis but here for the first time with maximum zoom, I could catch that. Normally the birds fly away when they notice me. The bull cannot fly, he is fixed with a rope in his nose.
The first stop was mainly to empty and refill my water-bottle. I had had a drink with ice yesterday and had put the ice in the bottle, but it was not pure enough and now I had stinky, milky liquid that was hard to swallow, and I said to myself maybe it is better not to swallow it in this case. In Thailand, they offer a jug of water when you sit down for food and I combined a soup with drinking and refilling the water bottle. When I left, the shopkeeper ran to me with my purse that I had forgotten on the table! That would have been hard when I would have seen that another 25km later and would have to go back to (hopefully!) get it again! It was typical human error that occurs when things combine like being distracted and in a hurry. There had been a few situations like that and most of the time I had good luck and in no case something really bad had happened so far…
On the way, I didn’t find a lane Mr.G wanted to send me and when I tried to correct this mistake I found out that it was because of a market that filled the street completely. When I realized how long this market was, it was too late and impossible to turn back, so I went on in the crowd, seeing delicious and other stuff to eat accompanied by the suitable smell and noise of a typical market scene. After 15min, I had reached the end of the ~200m lane and could go on.
The next stop would have been dedicated to fruits, but I did not find any, so I made a stop at the last shop of that village owned by an old couple and bought small cakes.
This day, I came through many rubber plantations
and this was good for me as the trees often were standing near enough the narrow streets to provide some shadow. Sometimes, there also were clouds and I hoped for rain, but at least they also made shadow from time to time.
So, I always was thinking, should I put on sunscreen or not and always when I was near to stop and do it, there was a period of shadow. My forearms look a bit strange now, there are two layers of blisters, from yesterday and from today. I think it is no sunburn, so I am not sure if sunscreen would have helped. Maybe the sun and the sweat provoked a kind of allergic reaction?
sorry for showing this – I promise not to show every bodily problem I have, only those that people on the street also would see!
Today, I saw snakes in all states between freshly killed and a longer time ago. And one apparently was still alive when I took a picture but one of the next cars will change that for sure.
At km75, I decided to eat again some street food. A man invited me to sit down at his table and he liked to talk about Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland, where he wants to go one day to climb the Matterhorn ? He knew some information like how many “Kantons” Switzerland has and could say some words. In the end, he told me that he is Muslim and he is married to the owner of the restaurant who is Buddhist, and this is not problem at all for them personally and in Thailand in general.
some religions seem to be more playful than Islam, Christianity & Co, or would they hide plastic Tigers in their sacred places??
I arrived in Phattalung, and this time I was sure that I had integrated the location of the hotel in the route, but after a while, I again became suspicious. Maps me, the offline map, didn’t show enough details, so I couldn’t find the place, but fortunately, yesterday I had got the suggestion of google maps to download an offline map and there I at least could see the name of the road. (I had the address of the hotel). And then I found out, that Mr.G had brought me there, I had been in that road, but on the GPS, there was no hint that I should stop or that I would have reached an intermediate destination.
I learned from that and at the hotel, before uploading or so, I planned daily trips with the accommodation at the end, so I could not pass by (when the tour would end somewhere else, in this case I had a 550km part to the middle of Thailand as one tour) and additionally, I bookmarked the hotels in the offline map and, additionally I bought a Thai SIM card. That should be enough.
Before I reached the hotel, I found a shop where they sold mangoes! I had heard that Malaysia imports them from here, because they are better and had even skipped buying bananas today to enjoy mango in the evening. I tasted a piece because in case of paradisaical taste I would have bought 2 or 3 or 4 but it was sour! The lady gave a pot of something in the bag and I thought it was sugar with some spices like cinnamon. At the hotel I did this and that to prolong the waiting time, then I poured this sugar upon it and – was shocked! Now it was not only sour, it was spicy and hot! ☹ With great difficulties and lots of sweets out of my stocks and plenty of water a could eat or better dispose this vegetable disappointment. Yesterday, I had seen a man with a handcart, selling different fruits, partly pealed and sliced and I hoped to find someone like him when I later went out to buy that SIM card. But there was nothing to find, luckily my Thai-days are not over yet, I will not give up! Instead of sweet fruits I met nice students collecting money for a school camp. They only had started at university now and were very enthusiastic about their international Islamic studies. I am not, but their project was ok and we had a nice talk, so I gave them some money and went back to the hotel.