It was a nice cool morning, perfect for cycling, starting with very small rural roads and no traffic. It took us about an hour to ride back towards the coast, and from then we cruised most of the day close to the sea and the beaches. No big towns, no highways, only small roads and some villages. The sun was again back at full power, giving us a beautiful (but hot) day. No problem, that just means you need more breaks and as we were riding along the coast, there was plenty of opportunity for nice stops.
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| A short stop at a temple in a small village, with tables for the market in front of it |
Most of the second part of the day we were in salt farm territory. For kms and kms (or miles and miles if you prefer) there were shallow basins of salt water, used to extract salt from sea water through evaporation. I'm sure it's quite a laborious and unpleasant work to collect the salt... Most of the basins had plenty of water in them still, no salty bottom visible, which I guess is also related to the rains of the past weeks. It was very interesting to see in the beginning, but after a while got a bit boring... Luckily, the road was good, with a broad shoulder (cycling path again in fact!) to ride on, little traffic, lots of shorebirds, and though the salt farm landscape was boring it was still a fascinating and different kind of place to be.
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| View over the salt farms, this was the scenery today for a couple of hours... |
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| A shed for salt storage |
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| Lunch: leftover of yesterday's pasta, prepared with tuna, boiled egg, oil and vinegar, spices and nicely mixed in a... plastic bag! Believe me, it was yummy. Location: shady area on a very small piece of beach under mangrove trees (that definitely added to the delicious taste) |
After 84km we arrived at Bang Tabun and looked for a place for the night. Strangely, all accommodation in this place is about twice as expensive as what it would cost in other places so far, probably because of the proximity of Bangkok (only about 100km from here). But we found a nice place (Numphet Riverside), it announced itself as a homestay but is in fact a little bungalow (quite new, clean, good bed) at the riverside, with fishing boats right in front of us. We bargained well but still paid more than usual, however the people are very nice and even brought us a surprise dinner. Totally happy with it!
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| Wats everywhere! |
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| Arrival at Bang Tabun with a view from the bridge. The river mouth is dotted with these small shacks, supposedly for fishing but we haven't found out what they were exactly |
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| The guesthouse for today, with the fishing boats (moored for repairs it seems) |
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| And the sunset from our balcony! |