January 5th: Wat Pa San Tom to Wat Phon Chai – 42 km

Day 84

Waking up to heavy dew settling on our sleeping bags, tent and everything uncovered, we were looking forward to a short day.

Our love/hate relationship with gravity granted our wish as we found out where all those missing downhills to our uphills went. Cher broke our speed record today on one particularly straight steep downhill topping out at 56 kmh / 35 mph.

We arrived in town early and although we felt that we could go much further we decided not to brave it due to the next 30 kilometers of highway’s resemblance to a line drawn by a toddler during an earthquake.

Route 210 is a scenic drive. At times the trees and grass appear as if they could come from any North American forest and at other times there are rubber trees, coconut palms, and papaya trees.

We were quite confused about how the hotels or “resorts” are priced around here and today was a perfect example. We stopped at 4 places. The first offered private bungalows, wifi, and air-conditioning for 350 Baht. The second which was of about the same quality was 600. Just 100 meters away was a newer one which charged 700, but 400 if you wanted to camp on a steep slope with no shade. However, just across the street we came to our current place which is 400, with all the amenities and free coffee and use of a microwave. We’re not sure how camping and a private room are on par with each other and maybe we’ll never know.