Day 94 - The Final Leg
While the hotel didn't provide full breakfast, there was toast and hot water in a very pretty restaurant area, which when combined with our own tea, eggs and oh-so-good pineapple made for a decent breakfast!
We had more of a tailwind than expected this morning so made good progress along some winding side roads. However, the route was difficult to follow today so I ended up taking a few wrong turns, and having to backtrack. Including running a dog gauntlet in both directions! Then when I did come off the main road to follow the route it took me off-road through another village of horrible dogs, many who nearly got the pannier and one who nearly got me, all while the owners watched on?! Sorry but if you let your dog bite me I will do my level best to run it over. Happily neither of those things happened...just, and most owners in other places at least shouted the dogs down.
Much nicer than the dogs were the dragonfruit trees! Dragonfruit are just alien in all ways and once we learned what the trees looked like (we've been curious where all that dragonfruit is coming from for days!) we spotted some plantations of them by the side of the road and pulled over for a bike photoshoot, of course!
After that it was pretty much just cycling along the flat in the heat which we've done for days at this point, getting kind of hypnotised by our front wheel in the time where we weren't revelling in the fact that you can ride side-by-side here on even major roads and no one minds and no one tries to push you off of the road! Really going to miss that when we get home, really going to miss it.
We had time so a cool down tea and coffee was on the cards!
What on Earth is that?!
Smooth sailing that is, until we hit Bangkok. Think spaghetti junctions like you see in the films. Think of little us on a 12 lane main road, 4 lanes either side of that, a couple of slip roads, and a 6 lane motorway above and you’ll have the picture. In principle the navigation was simple - straight forward for 20 miles. In practice it was some of the most exhausting navigation I've ever done. The trick is going straight, while watching for lane changes, while not ending up on the 50% of roads that are strictly forbidden for bikes, while not getting on a U-turn or left hand turn, while not getting run over or crashing into something.
Thankfully we've been riding our bikes a fair bit recently so we could manage all of that and even change the music, but it wasn't easy! As we got closer to the city we waited at insanely long red lights (~5mins), grid-locked with the other mopeds between rows of cars and then racing off to the next lights. This is not a quick city to get around, and flows a lot more slowly than India but 'oly moly is it quieter!
You'll be pleased to learn we made it successfully, and so just like that, another leg of the trip, as far as the cycling goes at least, was done!
We went out for food later, via A&E. No Mum don't panic no one is hurt we're all fine, we were just after preemptive anti-malarials, which we were told we could only get from a hospital. We happened to walk past one, the Bangkok Christian Hospital, on the way to dinner and thought we might as well try.
What followed was quite incredible! We walked in, registered and then were taken to A&E despite us desperately trying to explain it's not an emergency. That's fine, the level of English was very high and they understood, it just seemed like that was the quick solution. Immediately Emma was seen and had blood pressure and whatnot taken. Then we waited for 15mins until we saw a relaxed, friendly doctor with perfect English, who took 10mins to explain about the drugs and what they did and didn't have. There's no malaria in the city, so they only had the basic drugs not the new ones, but that will do. We were then guided upstairs to the pharmacy where Emma's patient number was already on the screen. 10 mins after that we were walking out of the hospital, anti-malarials in hand! The whole experience took 54mins and cost 30 euros. Such good service.
Rather hungrier than we planned but with an important job done, we found a place doing awesome salads and then throughly enjoyed not having to rush to back bed because there is no early alarm tomorrow! 😁 Our hotel turns out is right on the edge of the red light district so the walk back was interesting, with a lot of fun people watching of the types around, but all feeling very safe and non-threatening.
Food spend today: 38.05 euros
Tea consumption: 8