On to Mae Phim Beach: Don't come here on the weekend

January 14, 2017

I ate rice soup for breakfast at the resort, along with some toast and coffee, and took off. I enjoyed the bike path leaving Chao Lao Beach, but had to dodge a few vehicles parked on the path. My route for today involved a few turns onto small roads, trying to stay close to the sea. I only ran into one dead end. That happened when I didn't check my map. I was trying to avoid stopping to check the map because I was surrounded by little barking puppies when I slowed down.

Today's ride went past a lot of small rivers and ponds with fish farms.

The churning paddles splash water, but I think their purpose is to mix air into the water.

I saw the Swedish touring doctor again. He was stopped for breakfast. He said he had spent the night in his tent in the forest. He crawls in immediately to escape the mosquitoes, and yes, it is hot and can be uncomfortable. We wished each other well, and I left him to finish his breakfast.

There was a shoulder marked as a bike lane. I was following these signs, but didn't know where they led.

I rode on, and went through the town of Ban Pak Nam Krasae. It's a strange little town, where I had briefly considered staying for the night. Some reading last night convinced me that it wouldn't be a great stopping point. But I turned off the road into the small streets in the town. It is really a fishing town, and the homes and even the streets are built up on piers over the water.

The town of Ban Pak Nam Krasae is built out over the water.

Ban Pak Nam Krasae is a fishing town. The boats look much nicer than the homes!

It is on a river, near the mouth where it feeds the sea, and more recently a large bridge has been built that goes over the town and then over the river. The bridge carries traffic past the town, and it requires a determined detour to get into town.

In fact, when I was leaving, I didn't realize that the roads that are under the bridge don't connect up to it, and I had to backtrack through the town to get back on the road to the bridge.

Then I plodded on to Laem Maephim.

I knew that this beach town gets busy on the weekends, and that accommodation is expensive compared with other places in Thailand. I was nervous about finding a reasonable place to stay, and went online and booked. I chose the Sunee Resort as someplace at the lower end of the price range and close to the beach. At 1200 baht, it was the most expensive place I stayed, even more than I had paid on Ko Mak.

Except I'm not staying there. When I arrived, I couldn't make the staff understand that I had booked a room and payed for it through booking.com. The woman kept saying 800 baht. I used Google translate to say I had booked and payed. She called her boss, and seemed to get that, but the room she showed me was not the one I had booked. Despite being only one person, the room I had booked clearly had one queen bed and one single bed. The room she showed me had only a double size bed. If I pay a ridiculous price for a room, I want what I paid for. I said "no" and we called her boss again. He said he would be there in a half an hour. I waited a bit, and got the Wi-Fi password and went on line. At half an hour I had run out of patience, the staff had completely ignored me, and I left.

I went down the row of hotels, and at the 4th or 5th one, I'm not quite sure, I found one that wasn't fully booked. It's called This East Resort. It looks like it has some nice bungalows, but I'm in a motel type room. It has AC, a fridge, and a hot shower, but the bathroom is lacking a sink. You would think that for 1000 baht it would have a sink. Oh, well. The only good thing is that booking.com has refunded my original booking in full despite a no refund policy.

This place is supposed to have in room Wi-Fi, but the signal is weak and it keeps dropping. So pictures from today are on their way.

And, oh, the beach really is nice. However it is lined with seafood restaurant after seafood restaurant, all appearing alike to me, with beach chairs and umbrellas and hordes of Thai families. The other beach towns that I've passed through on the coast have seemed quiet. I wonder if they've gone crazy for the weekend, too.

I suppose the beach is not *that* crowded.

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Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 2,654 km (1,648 miles)

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