Along Mae Klong

A very pleasant cool morning, colourful morning sky... The first 10km today were nice with a lot of wetlands, and then we had to cross Rama 2 road - a real highway with 3 lanes each way. No bridge or underpass or anything, just cross at a U-turn. Luckily it was not too busy, so all in all it was not too bad. Once we had crossed, we were in river and khlong (canal) territory. Again on small roads, through green, lush, tropical, scenic Thailand. The area was literally full of wats (temples), sometimes one after the other but never more than a few km without a wat; we saw many dozens of wats today. Really the very typical kind of Thailand, almost as good as it gets.

Morning coffee break in one of the many wats on our way, at the edge of a khlong

View over one of the bigger khlongs from a bridge, electricity wires included

We made a short stop in Ratchaburi, as we had seen there is an outdoor shop - good to buy a spare gas canister. We might need this in the next weeks. After Kanchanaburi, we'll probably stay a couple of nights in national parks, perhaps camping and cooking. After these parks we ride into Myanmar, where we can probably not even find such gas. And we could not imagine to be left without gas: that would mean no more coffee breaks!!!

Typical scenery for today

Another 2 hours of easy, beautiful cycling brought us to Photharam. No tourism here, very few places to stay, but we have again a nice room for the night. Photharam is totally unknown, but this place is very surprising and I would say it would be a nice destination for a tourist looking for a different, authentic place. It's also reachable by train, so not so difficult to get to, and it seems a nice area to explore a little. So, new discovery, strong recommendation. If Takua Pa a couple of weeks ago was a place with good potential, being compared to Hoi An in Vietnam, I'd say Photharam definitely is! Here is a series of photos to illustrate.