December 28th: Nakhon Phanom to Sakon Nakhon – 98.17 km
Day 76
So far wherever we have traveled, hotels are everywhere so we have done little planning as to where we will lay our heads each night. Today Thailand taught us a new lesson. We were a bit slow getting back into the routines of cycling, and after changing our rear view mirrors to the right hand side (as the traffic goes on the opposite side in Thailand), we didn’t get on the road until 10am. Shortly after arriving at what we thought would be our destination we were alarmed to find no hotels and the next town Sakon Nakhon was another 50kms away. With the afternoon sun already casting long shadows, we rushed off to get to Sakon Nakhon before sunset.
Luckily for us, Route 22 was smooth and level with a generous shoulder. After being on high alert over the last 2 months keeping a vigilant lookout both ahead and behind on narrow or zero shoulders, a long day of nearly 100km without stress wasn’t nearly as tiring. However, it did burn up calories.
We rolled into Sakon Nakhon just as the sun was setting and couldn’t find a cheap hotel. Finally we came across the Majestic Hotel, which would cost us 1000 Baht per night. Out of exhaustion and hunger, we almost took it on the spot after learning that the room includes a free buffet breakfast. I rationalized that since I could break even at the buffet breakfast table by eating 700 Baht worth of food, the Majestic Hotel would be within our budget. After Cher put the amount in terms I could comprehend, I agreed it was too much and we were directed to a cheaper option.
The cheaper option was 560 Baht at another majestic looking hotel, which also included breakfast. With fantasies of ravaging the buffet, we both greedily accepted, disregarding that we could have had a cheaper rate without the breakfast. We went to bed with high expectations for the breakfast and we woke up with higher expectations in the morning. We rushed to the lobby like kids on Christmas and quickly found that Santa had only left an “American breakfast” with 2 sad eggs and some toast. And of course, in reality, no one had promised us a buffet breakfast from the beginning.