April 24, 2025
Day DS3: Off the Radar
If there were ever a place to disappear from the world for a few months, this would be it. You’re not just off the radar here — you’re off the map. This was truly felt at the Narathiwat beach on my clothes shopping expedition. I've only been in the deep south for a couple of days and for whatever reason will be officially out of the area today. Nobody will find you here. And maybe that's it: the reason for the slow dissolving of pressure, the steady drop in background noise, the invisible weight lifting off my chest.
Could someone actually stay here longer? Potentially yes. Things here are unbelievably cheap — even by Thai standards.You could probably find a place to live for 5,000 baht a month or less, especially in one of the newer housing developments going up on the edges of town.
The question becomes: what could you actually do here? I’m not entirely sure yet. But I have a feeling there are ways besides going to the only bar in town and selling Nvidia options. It would be more constructive to perhaps get involved with an NGO to work on peace for this region. It's something to file away for future reference along with many other discoveries made on this midnight run. The amount of smiles and genuine interactions has been through the roof here. The world is really feeling like my oyster now.
But my body refused to get up and going. I woke up well after 11am, the kind of sleep that feels like your system simply tapped out. The bed had pulled me in like quicksand. And once I finally stood up, the heat hit like a wall.
Mid-April in Thailand is the full-on hot season. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Just pure unfiltered blaze. I lathered on as much sunscreen as I could, already knowing it wouldn’t be enough. This was going to be one of those days, sweat-soaked ride where the heat doesn't just come from the road, but from the air itself pressing down on you.
I made it about a kilometer. At the first major traffic light, I spotted what looked like a mall attached to a KFC and called in, not because I needed anything but because I needed out of the sun. The Muslim woman doing security checks at the door gave me the kindest smile and waved me through. No bag checks. No suspicion. Just warmth. Inside, it was pure relief, there was blissful AC and a handful of shops selling cheap clothes and not much else. No big name brands of fancy cafes. But there were genuine smiles. The kind that knock you out of your head and remind you why you travel. I would come back to Pattani again just for that hospitality.
They didn’t have coffee, but across the street there was a Cafe Amazon. That was enough. I sat there for a long time cooling down, caffeinating, recalibrating. Watching the clock crawl toward 1pm I hadn't even started and needed to bike over 105 kilometers. It was going to be a long and brutal day. But at least now, I had smiles in the tank.
There was a nice section of tailwinds until the junction leading to Hat Yai and then this small restaurant was spotted. She didn't understand what I wanted but showed a picture of some noodles and I said fine, I'll take it. I'll eat anything at this point.
After that food stop, the road turned mostly west and it was relentless. It was straight and empty. No breaks, no shade, no stops. I must have clocked over 20 kilometers in one go. In ultra-hot weather like this, that’s not a feat — that’s borderline dangerous. The smart move is to stop every 2–3 kilometers if you can. Let your core temp reset. Let your brain catch up to your body. But there was nothing, not a sign, not a junction, not a traffic light, not even a whisper of a 7/11. I found myself scanning for *anything*, even a torn roadside banner or a dog crossing the street could be a clue. Anything that suggested a storefront might be nearby, a place to refill water, soak in shade, or just exist without burning.
The only thing that broke the stretch was a familiar sight: the army checkpoint on the border between Pattani and Songkhla provinces. This would be the last checkpoint I would see today. It has been there for decades and I recognized it immediately.Wide, concrete, and the sniper towers at the top. But today it was unmanned. No soldiers. Just silence and a checkpoint that had become little more than a landmark.
It hit me hard. I remembered past trips through the Deep South, back when I was traveling in the other direction, packed into a minivan. This checkpoint wasn't option, it was the first of countless military stops where the tension was so thick you could slice it. It was the sober reminder that you've entered a no-go zone. Today? It was like time had paused there and left it all behind.
I pulled into a small steakhouse that appeared like a mirage. I ordered a double burger, fries, and coke. When the food arrived, it was nothing short of divine. The burger was messy. I didn’t care. The staff looked Muslim, and inside were signs saying Eid Mubarik but I could tell the cultural fabric was starting to shift. No one wore headscarves. The vibe was different. I was leaving the Deep South in more ways than one.
Then boom. Thunder. The skies opened up and just like that, the day turned into a six-hour downpour.
I worried about my bike left outside, but I didn’t need to. One of the staff smiled and said: “It’s ok we already moved it in.” Good people. So I waited nearly two hours sipping Coke and placing market orders while watching the water cascade down the windows. Eventually I had to make the call. I stood. They said, “It’s raining. It is heavy rain,” I nodded and said, "I know". I had only ridden 40 kilometers so far and I wasn't going to let this be the end of the day.
Unfortunately, that meant the next 50 kilometers were going to suck.
The rain eased up at times, but it kept coming back — in waves, in sheets, just enough to keep me soaked.
I ducked into shelters when I could, but dusk was setting in fast. At some point, the only real option was to embrace the misery and just keep pedaling. Everything got wet, even my shoes. Nothing about this was fun.
The only relief was knowing my bags were doing their job, keeping my valuables dry. The road hugged the coast, winding past countless beaches and what looked like potential resort properties.But in this weather? Forget about it.
No one’s checking in. No one’s watching the sea. Just gray waves and ghostly lights flickering through rain. Eventually, I pulled into a 7-Eleven at the junction where the road splits: Hat Yai one way 40km, Songkhla the other way 30km I did the math in my head then made the obvious call: Songkhla it is!
That turned out to be the winner. As soon as I made the turnoff, the trucks disappeared. If you’ve ever ridden on a highway in the rain, you know that alone is a kind of salvation. There is nothing more miserable than cycling in these conditions with one truck after another thundering past, kicking up puddle spray and road grime all over you. They drench your face, your gear, your mood. So when the road shifted to a secondary route and and the traffic thinned out, I breathed out. Not because I was dry or warm but because I was finally out of the splash zone of death.
The rain didn’t stop. And now it was pitch dark. I decided to end this ride at a resort hotel some 18km away and simply count down the kilometer markers to sned this misery in soaked silence.
And then I heard it: music. What the hell? In the middle of nowhere, in the dark, in the rain, there was a full-blown party going on.A Thai live band was blasting out hits, and table after table was packed with people eating, drinking, laughing , and dahcing like the rain was nothing. I pulled up on my bike, dripping and stunned, and was immediately waved over.
“Are you hungry?” someone called. Well due, what does it look like. Before I could answer, someone grabbed my arm and led me to a table. “You’re my friend! Eat whatever you want!”
The food was spicy, rich, full of flavor. It is the kind of food that brings your senses back to life. Then came the whisky. Then came more whisky.Then came shots of ultra-strong Thai rice wine that hit like a freight train.\n\nAnd then someone passed me a smoke: marijuana rolled tight. I rarely touch that stuff, but tonight? I took a hit.And it nearly knocked me out. They just laughed and poured me another drink. I had gone from drenched and defeated to completely welcomed, all within minutes.
Then it hit me.
For all those years living in China, I’d conditioned myself to never touch marijuana while "abroad" on summer or winter holidays. Because even if you were clean by the time you got back to China, a surprise drug test could still wreck your life. It stays in your system for months and if you ever told the police “Oh I had it in Thailand,” they wouldn't show any mercy.
Such is the power of the Chinese state. They even found ways to control your holidays abroad.
But now? I don't care. I'm never going back. Smoke me those tokes.
And that changed everything.
For whatever dumb reason, I shared a piece of that party moment with Sophia — just a quick message. I don’t know why. Maybe some part of me still wanted her to know I was okay. She wasn’t thrilled.The drinking. The smoking. The weed.She made it clear she didn’t approve.
She's still holidng out hope that I'm coming back to China and back to the life we had. Who is she kidding. That door is closed.I didn’t just run.I burned the map behind me.
The guys at the party were cool. They understood I still had 10 more kilometers to cycle before I reached Songkhla.
One of them smiled, poured one last round, and said:
“After this drink, you go.”
And I did. The rain stopped just like that. And somehow, those last 10 kilometers? They were the best cycling I’d done all day.
I rolled right into the heart of the city and checked into The Palace Hotel, a peaceful quiet spot with a soft bet and a surprisingly nice room for only 900 baht.
Still buzzing from the ride, I went looking for a Thai massage. Didn’t have to go far, it was just a few hundred meters away. It was exactly what I needed. A full-body reset, a reward for pushing through all the rain, the heat, the checkpoints, and the soaked silence of the south.
Afterward, I wandered into a corner shop and met Chris, an older expat living in Songkhla. He was the first foreigner I had seen since entering Thailand. This was confirmation that I was now out of the deep south.
Today's ride: 105 km (65 miles)
Total: 435 km (270 miles)
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