Crawling Up, Flying Down

Throwback to Phu Pha Man, with the promise of the millions of bats: yes, they were there, and they were many! Very impressive to see them flying in waves in the sunset! Still at our Phu Pha Man resort, we finally ate what the entire Isaan seems to be crazy about: Moo Kratha, a pork based hotpot. It's a mixture between Korean-like BBQ and Malaysian steamboat: in the middle there is a grill for the meat, around the side there is soup in which to boil the veggies and noodles. Ideal with the cool weather too! We had a good night - oh no, we didn't: the roosters were crowing the whole night through, loudly, nearby and woke me up very often. Ouch! Anyway, we treated ourselves to the resort's breakfast - a fried egg in a hot pan - and left by 8am.

Can you spot the bats?

Moo kratha, the Isaan favourite!

The next morning started with truly wonderful cycling, on cozy rural roads, with magnificent views on the national park's mountains, in pleasant morning light, on an easy going road with hardly any traffic. After 14km we joined main road 12, which is the only road going west from here - as it crosses the Nam Nao National Park in which there are no other roads (luckily). Here is where our climbing started in earnest. First there was a short but very steep climb, then some kms undulating, and from km22 onwards a long and quite steep climb. 13km to gain more than 600m elevation. Unfortunately that was not gradual, which would mean just below 5% slope on average, but it went in bursts and some of it was definitely more than 10%. That is really hard work on a heavy tour bike! It was a rewarding ride though, as you ride through the national park it is a very green and natural environment, with a lot of birds singing - if you could hear them at least, because there was a lot of traffic, very disturbing really. I guess a lot of people are taking a long new year weekend and started leaving already. Also fascinating: many warning signs about elephants, which we (unfortunately?) did not see, however there are indeed many animal tracks on the side of the road leading into the forest.

A beautiful start

Still wearing a jacket - we don't need these anymore currently, the weather has become warmer again

There is steamed sticky rice inside these bamboo sticks, slightly sweet - the taste is almost like rice pudding. It's perfect food to take along as power food on the way up!

You have been warned!

Eventually we arrived in Nam Nao, where we have been many times when we lived in Khon Kaen - some of you will have been there with us. It has also changed, we could actually not even recognize the headquarters area. In the Thai national parks you can rent a tent with all the needed camping gear, they even set it up for you, we could pick our favourite spot ourselves. Luckily they gave us not just 2 sleeping bags, but 2 extra as a blanket, because the nights are cold here ("nao" means cold in Thai; there was a sign claiming it was 8C at night!). We had a nice lunch, went for a short walk in the park; there are not that many walks you can do, and on top of that there was a requirement to be back to sign in again before 4pm - so we did. Nice little walk though, and the legs had worked enough on the ride up, so the rest of the afternoon we enjoyed lounging comfortably in our Helinox chairs, reading. We had an early dinner and then retreated in our tent - it was indeed quite cold already and we don't have any warm clothes in our luggage. And oh yes: we also learned an elephant came into the headquarters area the night before, which caused a lot of excitement. Didn't happen while we were there though.

A camouflaged tent...

Giant bamboo in the park

Just a few short hikes, very nice though and quite well signposted along the trails!

The vegetation in this part of Thailand is not lush and tropical like the south, or like Malaysia.

From the park, the next morning, the road was supposed to go downhill towards Lom Sak. This downhill has a lot of up however, and it gets really steep too! So it was not just easily rolling downhill but again quite a lot of hard work. The traffic was even worse than the day before, really very disturbing... Burned rubber smell, exhaust gases, and so much noise! Plus, not always comfortable, as the road did not always have a safe shoulder to ride on. Plus imagine, even when you hold back, you easily zip down at 40 km/h on your bicycle, which doesn't always correspond well with cars in heavy traffic. In fact, some parts you fly down at over 50 km/h, especially when the road is free. With the slope grade variations, we often went from 50 to 5 km/h just in a few seconds, and then you grind up again that 10% slope in your very small gear. Finally, the last 20km of that day and after the descent, we found a small rural road parallel to the 12, and so we could end the cycling day very pleasantly. And, surprise surprise, we stumbled upon a very nice coffee shop of course!

Breakfast in the morning sun, too cold otherwise!

The way down, exceptionally without traffic here

3km in low gear - good news, that means it is actually going down properly!

Lunch with a view

The view

Well well, what a coincidence, we found a nice coffee shop once again

We arrived in Lom Sak early in the afternoon. Lom Sak is quite a pleasant town, not big at all, attractive. We have now officially left Isaan! It seems even the dogs know where the boundary is (really???); in Isaan it is known among tour cyclists that there are many loud, aggressively barking dogs chasing bicycles (although they never attempted to bite), now suddenly they all seem lazy and goofy. In Lom Sak we felt like having western food, found a good Italian restaurant on Google, went there - to find it was closed. Nevertheless, we still had the second choice western food, and enjoyed it.

Lom Sak riverfront

The weather has become warmer again, day temperatures go back into the 30's, so we left at 7am again - especially because we knew we had another long and steep climb ahead. It went like this: 13km leisurely to the start of the mountain, 14km up to gain around 600m, then another 13km or so up and down (some really big and steep ups still), and then 20km mostly down (although still with some short 8-9% climbs)! The climbs were really tough, varying in slope but going to more than 10% several times. My rule of thumb: up to 4% it is comfortable, to 6% is work, to 8% is hard work and above that is tough. There was a lot of tough today! Also, there was a LOT of traffic, really unpleasant. We saw many pickup trucks fully loaded with people, no idea where there were heading but just guessing there is some big new year festival or so going on at the hilltop.

Leaving Lom Sak, with a sign towards Myanmar, Malaysia and Laos - Lom Sak, the ASEAN intersection!!! No sign to the coffee shop on the left, so OK well then we didn't stop (and also we had to go ride up a big hill)

For the past days, there have been a lot of these roadside stalls selling tamarind; very tasty!

The road up; it's all OK if there is a good shoulder to ride on, like in front, but often today that shoulder disappeared, like in the back - and then it is not that pleasant... When you are crawling up, you need to make sure you stay nicely at the side, when you are flying down you have no "safety" space

Once at the top, at Khao Ko, it was a bit of a tourist circus; it seems to be a major Thai tourist destination, with Eiffel towers, Big Ben, windmills - and even this: an Easter Island statue!

Up up up, and yes the view is nice

Finally, after 60kms, with the mountains pretty much behind us, we arrived at a smaller road: road 2013. We knew this road! Back in 2017 on our bike trip, we came from the south via Sukhothai and Phitsanulok, and then cycled that same road heading towards the Mekong. Another 30km (coming to a total of 95km, with well over 1000m D+ even 1400m according to Strava, making it a big day on the bicycle!) to Nakhon Thai, where we also spent the night back then. However, we went to another guest house now, which was full, and were more successful with a second attempt a bit further. It did not look appealing at first, but we still decided to stay, and it is quite good in fact. An elderly couple are taking care of it (or are they the owners, not sure?) and they are so "cute" and friendly. We're happy we chose this place now, hopefully it supports them (at 400 Thai Baht, which is just a bit more than 10 EUR...). Tomorrow, new year's eve, we'll have an easier day, and going in a different direction than in 2017!