The same road no. 12 from yesterday was also our route for the entire day today. Destination: Thung Salaeng Luang, a national park, about 80km east of Phitsanulok. Initially, for the first 20km or so, the road was busy and really boring; I had kind of expected that, to get out of a bigger city on one of the main roads, that's what you get... It's still dull riding though, you just put your mind on hold and pedal. Afterwars it became better, yet it remained a 4-lane highway for the entire stretch of today, luckily with less and less traffic on it.
 |
| Mid morning means: coffee break; at this point the road was already much nicer, and a short side trail was enough to find a nice spot |
 |
| Road 12 in one of the nicer parts, with even no traffic at all on this photo! |
Despite the big road, the ride was not too bad (once past these first 20km of course). There's a lot of nature (or otherwise at least fragmented agriculture that didn't look too bad), with the national park constantly on the right side of the road not too far away. We had 3 waterfalls on our way of which we visited 2; the third was a bit too far away from the main road.
 |
| The first waterfall of today, Sakunothayan waterfall, less than a km from the main road through a nicely shaded forest, with a nice park around the waterfall area. Surely a recommendation. |
 |
| The second waterfall, Kaeng Song. More visited than the first one, because it's just beside the road. |
It was a hot day however, in the afternoon I found out on my phone it was about 35C. We hadn't had such hot weather for a while. Add to that some good hills and 2 bodies that seem to be recovering still a bit from the food story, and it became quite a tough day. After 65km we had the toughest climb, with a short pause and then another steep one. That was the one too much for today, and we decided to call it a day and stay in the town we were in - Ban Yaeng. Luckily there is 1 small resort, very reasonable at 400Baht, decent room, friendly people and good food!
 |
| Our home for the day in Ban Yaeng |
We drank liters after we stopped: coke (again!), 100Plus, water. Because the air is much drier here you don't notice as well as usual that you actually sweat a lot, it was clearly needed to hydrate! And yes, the food went down very well this evening too... Today is yet another proof, when bike touring you often need to change your plans according to the circumstances! No Thung Salaeng Luang today, no camping. But so what, we are in a good place and have another day tomorrow! It means tomorrow will be a very short ride, and then we can enjoy a nice day in nature. It was also clear today, the body still needs a bit of recovery time, so an easy day won't hurt!