Heeled by Hills
We biked out of Ayutthaya on time today at around 5.45am, which is when its first light in Thailand. It wasn't too bad getting out of Ayutthaya and I swear that I was biking at around 25km/h after plugging onto my MP3 player. Music is every bit a source of motivation for me. But after a while, it just didn't quite work anymore.
The hills got hiller and hiller. Its like 30 degrees slope for about 300 to 400m. I climbed the first 2 hills with a couple of stops, cos it was just super hot (like 39 degrees celsius recorded on my Suunto Vector). By the 3rd hill, I just had to stop. There was a nice little dingy sidewalk food stall. We sat there and I had like 2 Fanta oranges, besides 1 full litre of water after. Jason had like 3 beers to go even! That's how hot it was out there. After sitting there for about half an hour, there was an excellent proposition to just eat there. Which was GOOD, cos the 2 ladies who run that joint really can cook a mean fried rice. Either that or I've actually gone beyond starvation stage 1.
The hills just got worse and worse. Think somewhere along the 5th hill, there was a petrol station where this nice cafe owners told us that there was a home-stay just 2 to 3kms down the road or another around 8km down. I thought that I can actually do the 8km one. But by the end of another km, I was so busted that I started walking with bike in hand. I just couldn't spin anymore, simply for the fact that I was already on the smallest of my gears and I can't bike in a straight line anymore. My bike computer recorded something like 7km/h. The hard shoulder on the highway was too narrow as well. So it was futile trying harder. I walked somewhere like a few more hundreds of metres where finally...
The homestay appeared. Man, am I glad to see it.
Today, we've done 96.75km. Location now: Muaklek (a small town 30km off Saraburi). Time taken: 5 hours 36 minutes.
Its going to be even more hilly tomorrow. Jason figures that my fitness would kick in soon. Maybe we'd get lucky to arrive at Nakhon Ratchasima (the next big town), which is some 103km with oodles of hills. So NKR or bust! (think my legs will bust first tho...)
The hills got hiller and hiller. Its like 30 degrees slope for about 300 to 400m. I climbed the first 2 hills with a couple of stops, cos it was just super hot (like 39 degrees celsius recorded on my Suunto Vector). By the 3rd hill, I just had to stop. There was a nice little dingy sidewalk food stall. We sat there and I had like 2 Fanta oranges, besides 1 full litre of water after. Jason had like 3 beers to go even! That's how hot it was out there. After sitting there for about half an hour, there was an excellent proposition to just eat there. Which was GOOD, cos the 2 ladies who run that joint really can cook a mean fried rice. Either that or I've actually gone beyond starvation stage 1.
The hills just got worse and worse. Think somewhere along the 5th hill, there was a petrol station where this nice cafe owners told us that there was a home-stay just 2 to 3kms down the road or another around 8km down. I thought that I can actually do the 8km one. But by the end of another km, I was so busted that I started walking with bike in hand. I just couldn't spin anymore, simply for the fact that I was already on the smallest of my gears and I can't bike in a straight line anymore. My bike computer recorded something like 7km/h. The hard shoulder on the highway was too narrow as well. So it was futile trying harder. I walked somewhere like a few more hundreds of metres where finally...
The homestay appeared. Man, am I glad to see it.
Today, we've done 96.75km. Location now: Muaklek (a small town 30km off Saraburi). Time taken: 5 hours 36 minutes.
Its going to be even more hilly tomorrow. Jason figures that my fitness would kick in soon. Maybe we'd get lucky to arrive at Nakhon Ratchasima (the next big town), which is some 103km with oodles of hills. So NKR or bust! (think my legs will bust first tho...)
posted by me.lis.sa at 5:45 AM
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