Anahm After spending the night in a cabin at the Mon Daet Noi Homestay I got up at 6am but the rain was coming down so I decided to have a snooze, by 8 it had started to settle so we packed up and headed to the onsite restaurant and got a big breakfast.
The lady made us a huge portion of rice and fried veg with mushroom, tofu, cabbage, carrots and a nice blend of spices, perfect way to carb up for the days cycling ahead. We grabbed a couple meals for lunch from here too because it was so good.
The owners of the homestay had kindly let us keep our bikes in the restaurant so they’d stayed dry through the rain, so we brought them out, got all the panniers and tent bag racked up, it was close to 9am when we set off which is late for us as we’re normally on the road for 6am 🤷🏻♂️.
The Sky was still grey as we rolled out of the homestay, a quick stop at the supermarket for some drinks and snacks, and thanks to the owner we also got some ponchos, before hitting the road.
A couple of kilometers down the road the clouds opened up and we had a huge downpour or heavy rain, got the ponchos on but we still got wet but decided it was pointless trying to seek shelter from the rain as we were already wet, so we pushed through within about 20 minutes the rain settled and we quickly started to dry out. But an hour later the rain started again and this continued for most of the day.
Most of the day was spent cycling along the 1349 which was a proper tarmac road 😀 there were still quite a few hills along the way but the climbs were much more gradual and we didn’t have any dirt tracks.
We found a picnic bench along the way where we stopped for lunch that we’d brought from the homestay.
Towards the evening we got to Porwa Pizzeria in Wat Chan, but as we got there the owner was locking up and was on her way home. After enquiring about alternative restaurants with her, she decided to reopen if we could wait 30 minutes, which we agreed to. She made us some delicious freshly baked vegan pizzas, a great treat at the end of a long day of cycling.
After we’d carbed up on Pizza we continued cycling for a few more kilometers before getting to the Pine Forest Camp site in Wat Chan where we stayed for the night. It’s a paid camp site but it is a beautiful site with facilities including an onsite restaurant.
Although it rained most of the day, the cool rain is sometimes a relief from the intense Thai heat and part of being outdoors is to embrace the elements. The road conditions were a treat compared with what we’d experienced the last few days, we had eaten well so energy levels were better and we got to have Pizza as a nice treat, overall a great day of cycling.
