Day 73, Chanthaburi to Ban Phe

One thing should be made clear, we did not intend to repeat cycling over 100 km in one day. Yet somehow we managed to do it. We had planned to cycle along the main road and then descend to the coast, to a beach where we had found a nice-looking, reasonably priced hotel on the internet. This should have been about 80km.

Yes, I love it when pictures are taken
of me and my food

It all started innocuously enough, we had breakfast in the hotel and set off around half eight. After a detour and an argument we found the main road and continued, stopping for the standard mid-morning noodle soup break.

At the town of Klaeng, we asked the way to the coast and only got lost once, finding ourselves in a temple and having to descend a set of steps with the bikes before finding the road again. But we have a policy (which would come back to haunt us): No U-turns.

At the beach, we couldn't find the hotel we were looking for, apparently it had changed its name. There was a long unattractive stretch of hotels and restaurants facing the sea, and they were all exorbitantly priced, there was not a room under $20. We don't take a room for more than $20 unless it has internet, hot water, air-conditioning and preferably breakfast. No such luck. We couldn't work out why everywhere was so expensive, especially as everywhere was empty yet no one wanted to offer us a discount.

At the end of the strip, we sat and had some food, and made the decision to carry on up the coast. There was bound to be something a bit cheaper not too far away. And we don't do U-turns. Well, thanks to the rampant  development of Thailand's coast there were plenty of options as we continued, but none of them were cheap. It was depressing, but the further we cycled, the more determined we got.

And so, 25km and 2 hours later, just as the sun was starting to set and we were trying to convince ourselves that one day we would laugh about this, we pulled into the town of Ban Phe. A waitress in a bar recommended us a guesthouse that had fan rooms for $6. We rose above the fact that it was 1km behind us and headed there. The cheap rooms had no bathroom but the woman offered us a better room at 550 baht (£12). The lesson being kids, don't ever give up on your dreams.