Thailand islands, beaches, and parks, part 1

It has been such a huge contrast riding in Thailand after nearly three months in India. Suddenly there are cycle lanes on many of the roads, well-paved shoulders, quiet country lanes with no traffic, no honking, and only a few motor bikes riding the wrong way against traffic. Life on the road seems amazingly civilized here, and yet I remember how chaotic I thought it was last time I cycled here over two years ago. Perspective is a funny thing.

Phuket Town

Before getting back on our bicycles, we had one more day in Phuket Town, where a friend from California joined us.

We hiked up “Monkey Hill” to get up and close with the nearly-domesticated monkeys that locals and tourists have been feeding for years. Steve loves them, but I keep reminding him that the wild monkeys we see elsewhere can be mean and bite and steal water bottles and other food. A monkey bite means two weeks in the hospital getting rabies shots. But these guys were super sweet and tame, spoiled by endless bananas and peanuts.

Our wonderful hosts at In Phuket House, a budget hotel in Phuket Town, this sister and brother couple went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed.

Phuket Town is full of Sino-Portuguese architecture.

Also some beautiful temples with crazy intricate carvings.

Chinese red lanterns are a sign of prosperous business; here is one of the more fancy ones in the Chinatown of Phuket Town.

The sun glints off the golden outcroppings on the temples. Buddhist temples feel very approachable and welcoming, very peaceful, clean, and open. We’ve been told that many temples will allow cyclists to camp on the grounds if you ask nicely. We are regretting a bit sending our tents home, as it’s becoming clear that Thailand has some fantastic camping opportunities in temples, parks, and beaches.

On the road to Khao Sok National Park

In Khao Lak is this police boat, a monument to the tsunami of 2004 that killed hundreds of thousands in Thailand, India, and throughout Asia. The movie about the tsunami, The Impossible, was based and filmed in Khao Lak.

Randomly on the side of the road are piles of discarded spirit houses, known as spirit house graveyards. Doing some reading and asking around, what we can figure out is this… When Thais build a house on some land, they also build an elaborate miniature house called a spirit house, to appease the spirits whom they are displacing from the property. The spirits take up residence in this house and don’t bother the people living in the main house. When you need to discard a spirit house, there’s a very complicated and elaborate ritual that has to take place to keep the spirits happy (usually involving building the spirits an even nicer spirit house to inhabit). But some people ignore that ritual and discard of the old house in these spirit house graveyards. These graveyards are seen by many as haunted because the very unhappy spirits living in the houses have been forcibly relocated. Spooky!

We didn’t see any elephants…

Our adorable bungalow in the middle of Khao Sok national park.

We did a little hiking on the trails.

Lots of bamboo. There’s lots to see in the park, waterfalls and streams, but it was too late in the afternoon to start a serious trek.

The landscapes through the park are stunning.

Rubber is a big product of this area, and we rode through endless rubber tree farms.

A huge dam in the park and the hydro-electric generator. A lot of people hire a long tail boat to tour the lake, but it was too late and too hazy/rainy to make it worthwhile.

Dam selfies!

This year will mark Steve’s 50th in July!

Finally we are starting to meet other cycle tourists. This is Tim from Florida, also on a long-term tour.

And a woman from Germany who started at home 9 months ago.

We spent a rest day in Surat Thani, where we relaxed and enjoyed the night market and waited out the rain before catching the ferry to Ko Samui. More about that in the next blog!