Well it took some effort but I was finally on my way. I had to go to the scooter rental place twice because she was not there the first time and I needed to return the scoot, settle up and get my old licence back. No big deal, and anyway I left myself time to pack the bike fully, then have time for a 20 minute rest in the aircon before finally getting all the gear on and heading off 🙂 When I was handing the bike back I noticed a cloth shop next door and knowing my mum would like something , I grabbed a bit for her, hopefully the material type and colour scheme will be to her taste. As I have no idea what would be good or bad, its the thought that counts 😉

I headed north off the island and once on the mainland I stopped for a rest. Well, actually I stopped for a Geocache which is on one of the bridges here. This is an interesting place and if you follow the following link you will get a good background to the bridges connecting Phuket Is with the mainland.

Sarasin II . I looked high and low here and sadly I could not find it, a bit of a shame, especially as I was the only person here at one stage and could search without worrying about muggles. There were a lot of bait fish in the water and it was fun to see the barracuda carving into the shoals 🙂

This was one of Wolfgangs caches and that is why I wanted to find it, but either I am totally stupid or it has been muggled, which would be my guess 🙂 I hopped back aboard Flopsy and continued north and slowly east around the gulf. I have a real crappy GPS map but you can see the general direction I took here. My first destination was Krabi, it is about due east from Phuket and only 60km away, as the bird flies, but for me it is 180km 😉 You can see a small blue flag amongst all the geocaches on the mainland and that is the Krabi way point I selected. I actually was going to spend the night there, but it was so early by the time I reached it, I grabbed some lunch and continued on 🙂 The little yellow lines on that picture, between Phuket and Krabi, are roads on the two islands there, the blue of the sea should actually go right up into the arch of the road track I took. I am not sure if that makes sense, hopefully it does.

Lunch was pretty basic, I fuelled up and then found a 7/11 and ate a not too bad sanger and a mars bar 🙂

Once I was back on the road I grabbed the following photo while on the move, it seemed strange but there was a whole forest of topless palm trees, real weird?

The ride was smooth, the roads were good and although I had some snarled traffic on occasion it was a pretty good day for a ride. It was hot, but as long as I kept moving I was fine 🙂 The bike was running good and so it should after all the bloody pampering it has been getting lately 😉 So, I arrived in the town of Trang with not a clue about where to stay, around 4.30pm. I parked up in the shade and checked RideAsia.net, but nope, nobody has logged any accommodation recommendations for this town, so I was on my own. No worries, I started off by using the GPS and picked a name off the list of lodgings. This was a futile effort because all the hotels I chose were so daggy looking from outside, I could not be bothered getting off the bike to have a look. Did I say it was hot, well it was humid as well, so I was pouring sweat under all the gear. After an hour frigging around like this I was becoming frustrated, so I then started to upgrade myself and picked a few ‘resorts’ to look at, well, the reason ‘resorts’ is written that way is because they charged by the hour 😉

Hahaha, these places were the same as the Auto Hotels Vincent and myself stayed at in Mexico, in separate rooms of course!!! These were probably a good choice but they had no WiFi and I wanted to do some research tonight. So, I kept on looking and in the end went to the centre of town and found the Trang Hotel, it was being renovated, and needed it, but the room was not too shabby. I scored a room above reception and WiFi was included with secure guarded parking out back, this will do me for the night 🙂 (these first few photos are from the rear)

Trang Hotel GPS – N7.55638 E99.60988

Once I had checked in and had a cold shower etc I started to think about food. They had a restaurant downstairs, and I checked the menu but tonight I was not that interested in what they had to offer, so I decided to head down the road to the local street market, that is always an eye opener 🙂

Out of many many choices once again, I decided on a cob of corn, a piece of chook and a snag. And although I forgot to take a photo, I did finish it off with a small tray of mango, my fav 😉 On the return to the hotel I noticed this statue next to an impressive building, it looked like a sea cow, or walrus, without the big teeth, I wonder what that is? ( I saw quite a few more along this theme on my way out of town the next day, I am not sure what they are)

So, I clocked up 325km for the day, not bad for someone who has been nearly stationary for the past 20 days. Tomorrow though I would get away early if I could, brekky was from 6.30 on and I had to cover about 200km before I attempted the border crossing into Malaysia 🙂 I had seen a post on Horizons Unlimited, a chap in Malaysia was offering a free flat for travellers. It was situated about 350km south of the border and was near the town of Ipoh. I only noticed the offer because another rider from Canada asked if it was available, he was in Port Kelang getting his bike out of customs at the time. I contacted the owner Amzah, and he said sure thing, the flat has two rooms, stay as long as you like and as he is going to Canada soon, he would like to grab mine and Kevin’s knowledge and experience. So, that is a good thing to happen. This way, I can leave all my heavy camping gear once again, then go and blast the Camaroon Highlands which happens to be right next door, wow, what a result 🙂

Cheers from Trang, Thailand
TravellingStrom