Hurray! We've actually arrived at Ayutthaya at sometime near 3pm. It was... NOT 79km at all. (At least not with all that deviation off road I did, swerving from side to side thanks to traffic.) It was actually 81.6km. Here's the good news, we actually pedalled something like 4 hrs and 11 minutes.

We started off at 6am this morning. So what the heck did we do between 6am till 3pm?

There was me trying to gain balance over the bike with all that 26kg of pannier load on my bike.

There was me actually developing a headache from overheating. Something new really, since I thought I'm good working with heat and all... considering the Outward Bound background.

Fortunately, Jason's got a trick up his bag. Its called ice-creams at petrol kiosks. So thank you to Esso, Shell and the likes! After a 1 hour long break where I basically had lots of Fanta orange juice and ice-cream, I was stocked up and good to go again.

The heat was really getting to me. 37 degrees celsius. Little shade in sight. And there was relentless pushing by myself to get to the ancient city of Ayutthaya. (cos the earlier that we arrive... the longer the break. Or at least that's what I usually tell the kids to motivate them).

We had a pretty long lunch break at one of those petrol kiosks again. Sitting in air-conditioning actually makes you forget how warm it is actually out there. Same theory goes for sitting in a nicely heated place to forgetting how freakin' cold it is out there. In fact, I even forgot to pay for my meal! Hahaha... Yes, that's how bad the heat is.

While sitting at the petrol kiosk, Jason shared with me why he is actually vegetarian or opts to take as little meat as he can. One of the things he realised while on this 12 year long project was that it takes up a lot of earth's resources just to rear cows, pigs, chickens and the likes. You know how forests are cleared for grazing grass that cows eat? That's the kind of thing that he's talking about. He's not a tree-hugger fortunately. And I still eat meat freely. Tho I must say... This may be one of the few opportunities for me to go vegan for a while. Maybe I'd just try harder.

I was glad to arrive in Ayutthaya, tho the main town is a good distance away from the highway. So we have a nice spot to stay at... Tony's place. The room's are clean and actually pretty well decorated. Its only 400 baht a night! Can you beat that? And it doesn't smell as musty as the last rooms we had in Bangkok. That was crap. This is good.

Speaking about the highway, did I mention that the drivers here are a lot more pleasant than those in Singapore? Nobody actually tries to shove you off the kerb by coming really close. Nobody honks at you and thinks that their grandfather owns the road. That's how pleasant the drivers are. Tho there are the weirdos who honk for fun actually. I should have brought one of those funny vehicle signs and stuck it behind my bike. How about “HONK if you are HAPPY?”

So sitting in the air-conditioned hostel room now really makes me forget that I'm away from home and all. Food's good so far, even tho I tried eating grubs :P NEVER ever go buy phat thai from one of those roadside stalls. Yanting was right. You are better off getting phat thai at any cafes. You pay around THB70 (3 SGD) and you get actual seafood in your phat thai. As versus the 80 cents version, where you eat crap and you feel crap-ised after.

I'm hungry now. Time to go look for food.