February 25th: Don Yang to Chumphon – 56 km
Day 135
We took Route 4021 to 3253 to 2301, all back roads today.
Everywhere we looked and smelled we witnessed the bounty of the jungle. We saw jack fruits, persimmons, tomatoes, durian, papayas, coconuts, bananas, and pomegranates. We were amazed by the variety of fruit that grows seemingly year round and with very little effort. Much of them appeared to be wild and were mixed in with weeds along the side of the road. When there weren’t fruits there was a wall of dark forest which bordered the road, giving us shade well into the late morning. We ascended and descended small hills, sometimes with small curves in the middle and a light breeze blew when we didn’t move fast enough to make our own. We reached our goal for the day before we even felt that we had begun. In short it was perfect.
Perhaps we hit upon some well-kept secret we shared with another pair of touring cyclists we passed, or maybe we were just lucky. We arrived in Chumphon and at the first place we stopped, we found some nice clean little bungalows, with wi-fi for 350 and called it a day. We could have gone further but sometimes when the day has given so much we find that it is best not to get greedy.
