Tak to Sam Ngao

November 25, 2022

We had a massive breakfast in our room at Suansin Resort consisting of a mango,a papaya and a banana cut up into our bowls with muesli and soy milk. The bowls were overflowing. The promised "breakfast" the resort was offering turned out to be not the nice little packets of coffee and milo, which we would have gladly taken with us, but the worst kind that is scooped out of containers in the lobby. Forget it. We were out of there by 7AM.

At first it actually felt a little cool, but the humidity took care of that lovely sensation right quick. We rode through Tak at a clip because it was Saturday morning and there were few people on the streets except near the central market which is along the riverfront street in downtown Tak. I have never done anything in Tak other than take buses through it so it was really good to finally get a feeling for the town. I like Tak. It has a very long riverfront park (at least a mile long) which is beautiful and the river in front of Tak is beautiful as well. The town is much larger than I thought but that might be because of my memory of it from 1978 when it was a very small town. There are two large bridges over the Ping River and a footbridge so nice that they don't allow bicycles. The reason being that it is too narrow for both pedestrians and bikes. I get it.

I loved the market area right in the middle of town and across from the park on the river. As we rode the beautifully paved roads out of Tak to the north I thought that someday Tak is going to be a very important town because it is situated perfectly for trade with Myanmar when the war ends over there. Myanmar is not very far from Tak and Tak stands to be quite the crossroads someday with the big super highway going through it to either Chiang Mai or Bangkok and another major highway going straight across to the east part of Thailand and the west to Mae Sot, the border town with Myanmar. Before all the trouble in Myanmar the Chinese were planning on spending something like $15 Billion around the border area inside of Myanmar. They knew the importance of the crossroads. But the military government bigwigs in Myanmar are too ignorant and too rich to understand any of that.

Strangely and coincidentally, we were in Tak briefly almost exactly 3 years ago when we exited Myanmar. We didn't stay in Tak that time but proceeded to the ancient city of Sukhothai to the east on our bikes. This time it's nice to get to know Tak a little bit, brief as it is.

We had crossed to the east side of the Ping when we entered last night but this morning we went back to the west side to continue on the nice road hugging the river. The road was even nicer today, perfectly smooth with very gradual ups and downs. Also, for the first time on this trip, we had a slight tailwind. It was only a couple miles per hour but it was nice to have that extra little push. The temperature is coming down very slightly each day but the humidity is still horribly high so it's still really sticky. But, add it all up: the smooth road, slight tailwind, slightly cooler and it all made for a nicer ride today. (Mostly I think it was the excellent iced lattes we had that made it so enjoyable.) I don't even drink coffee that often back home but here I crave coffee because it's so tasty.

These little shelters are everywhere in Thailand and are quite a welcome sight especially if it starts raining. We have had many a snack inside these.

The road followed the Ping quite closely and we had some nice views of it. On the other side, to the west, there were nice views of a large valley full of rice paddies and lychee groves. Lychee or longans or as the Thais call them, lomyai. are a major crop in northern Thailand. Thai lychee fruit are some of the best in the world and get high prices. Years ago I knew that most of the lychees went to Hong Kong where they fetched the highest prices. But who knows if that is still true. Who knows what is going on in Hong Kong these days. But the massive lychee groves explain the obvious wealth we observed today in the quality of the houses and businesses. In Baan Tak which is a small town north of Tak we saw a lot of really nice restaurants lining the road. Unfortunately we were still full from our enormous breakfast.

It's nice to start seeing ranges of hills because they are beautiful but also hold cooler air.

Lychees are starting to form on this tree. As they get larger they weigh down the branches so much that bamboo poles need to be made to prop up the branches.

Beyond the rice paddies and lychee trees were beautiful big hills in the distance to the west. Clouds hung on their tops and a lot of them were rain clouds. We got blasted by rain briefly when we were having some iced lattes at a coffee shop called Cactus Coffee. We just stayed and waited it out while the young woman owner made hand deliveries walking to various stores in the area that had ordered from her. We basically kept watch over her place while she was away.

A coffee shop called Cactus Coffee. I also had a moon cake which I had purchased earlier in a market. They are soy bean paste filled gut bombs. There is lard involved as well. It's tradition for me to have a few of them on each Asian trip. But I must say, they went down easier when I was in my twenties.

When we did get going, I stopped repeatedly to photograph the beautiful hills but each time I thought of Myanmar which is just beyond those hills. We have been experiencing the most peaceful loving people full of hospitality and considerateness from drivers when we are riding. We know the Burmese people are just as hospitable and it's hard to imagine the horror that is happening to them just a few miles from us. Whole towns are being burned by the military government. The Myanmar government is terrorizing its own citizens, killing innocent people indescriminantly in an effort to get the protests to stop. Imagine the government troops suddenly setting fire to your home for no reason at all! It's really awful what is going on in Myanmar and the world does nothing to stop it or even report on it.

Riding along in peace seems as weird as when I was attending college briefly in Thailand while the Vietnam war was raging. One would have never known the horrors that were going on just a short distance away because Thailand was so beautiful and peaceful. But, like Lt. Colonel Kilgore in the film, Apocalypse Now, who Robert Duval plays, said, "This war will end someday." I just wish it could somehow end right now before more innocent people die for no reason at all.

We don't know what this is but it sure is spectacular.

That's a lot of chickens. One day we will be so hungry that we will buy one of these and devour the whole thing by the side of the road like wolves.

We haven't seen many basket shops. I always marvel at the skill involved in making them.

We again crossed the Ping to the east side when we got close to the tiny settlement of Sam Ngao. After striking out twice with bungalows that were either not open or too scary, we found probably the only viable one in town. It was a really nice resort too and our bungalow this time had four rooms! We've never had more than two. It was oddly luxurious to have the bedroom as a separate room. And we certainly have never had anything resembling a kitchen. The place also had what looked like the best restaurant in town attached so we didn't have to go searching.

We were lucky a restaurant came with the place because there really wasn't much of anything to the town.

Andrea taught herself to read Thai which has come in handy many times. This was our menu inside our room.

And then there is a bedroom not pictured to the left. Nice curtains too!

When I checked in, the young receptionist woman behind the window asked for my name. I told her "Bruce" three times because she just stared at me. This is not particularly strange because no one in Asia has ever been able to grasp my name. They can never say it unless I say, "Like Bruce Lee", but that doesn't work anymore because most people are too young to know what I'm talking about. So, I'm stuck with blank stares whenever I say my name. But this time she had to write my name down in her guest log. I have no idea why she didn't just hand me her book so I could write down my name. But finally she wrote, "Boo." I nodded that that was correct but apparently she didn't believe me. She kept staring at me so I said my name a couple more times, very slowly. It seemed she was really concentrating on hearing the subtleties of pronunciation, quite foreign to her. I have to hand it to her, she was trying hard. She was trying to translate what she was hearing to writing it down using English letters. Finally she had it and she added an 'f' to her original Boo. Somehow I didn't burst out laughing and instead said, "Oh, that's even better", and nodded my acceptance of the name. She seemed satisfied.

So, there is this guest log book at a resort in Sam Ngao. Page after page of the book is in beautiful Thai script, Thai name after Thai name, but then you come to this glaring, "Boof" - my name! Perfect!

We did have dinner there, about twenty steps from our bungalow. The owner of the place was absorbed in the World Cup but he broke away long enough to take our order. You have to understand that no one we have encountered in the past few days speaks one word of English and so it's our limited Thai that has to work. It's been interesting but as far as ordering food we usually can get what we want. It's when it comes to saying my name.... that's when things go haywire.

lovebruce

Today's ride: 34 miles (55 km)
Total: 359 miles (578 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	8

Gregory GarceauThanks for that very entertaining account of you trying to get your name across to the receptionist. I definitely got a good laugh out of it. If I was touring with you, I'm pretty sure I'd be calling you Boof for the rest of the trip.
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1 year ago

Bruce LellmanTo Gregory GarceauI know!! That's what I fear from Andrea! And not just for the rest of our trip but for the rest of my life!
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1 year ago

Rachael AndersonI love your new name!
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1 year ago

Jen RahnDear Boof,

I'm so glad to be going back to catch up on entries that I missed.

I really like your new name!

Love,
Jen
(I was called Fefo by my nephew who couldn't say Jennifer)

Maybe we could create a series of children's books called The Adventures of Fefo and Boof!
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1 year ago

Ron SuchanekTo Gregory GarceauCan you imagine if both you and I were touring with Boof? How many times a day would he hear, "Hey Boof!"?
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1 year ago

Gregory GarceauTo Ron SuchanekI'm guessing he would hear his new name a LOT in such a scenario, Ron. I'm positive Boof is not a violent person by nature, but with enough Boof-calling, Boof could be tempted to kill one or both of us. And a jury would probably consider it a justifiable homicide.
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1 year ago

Ron SuchanekTo Gregory GarceauI didn't think about that. I know Boof fairly well, and he's always been kind, generous and patient. But our constant taunting would probably release the monster beneath.
I say it's worth finding out!
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1 year ago

Gregory GarceauTo Ron Suchanek"I say it's worth finding out."

Maybe, but when Boof is deciding who to kill first, I'll remind him of that statement.
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1 year ago