Hot Ride to Sukhothai…

I planned to leave Pattaya as early as possible to ride to Sukhothai… Willi had about a three to four hour start on me, but knowing him, he would probably only get going at his usual 10.00am, so I figured that if I left at 8.00am, I would gain two hours right off the bat…

Willi had told me that he could do 95 km/h (down a mine shaft, maybe…!!) and with the great roads here in Thailand, I had to assume that it was possible, so expected to nail him down after about 500 km or so…

Leaving Pattaya, I set off to chase Willi down...

My plan to leave at 8.00am were thwarted somewhat by a very friendly Russian named Igor, who strolled up to the bike just as I was loading it, and proceeded to keep me answering questions for the next half hour…!!

He was genuinely interested in the bike and our journey, and although I was itching to be off, knowing that Willi would probably still be horizontal, made me relax….just a little…!!

I arrived at Nakhon Nayok two and a half hours later, in half the time it took Willi to get there the previous day...!!

It was blisteringly hot and very humid, as I made the wide loop out towards Prachin Buri to avoid Bangkok… Once off the highway leading to Chon Buri, we got out into the countryside, and on good roads, mostly devoid of traffic, I gave the Big Fella his head, letting him gobble up the kilometres like the greedy boy he likes to be…!!

We stopped in Nakhon Nayok to refuel, and I received an sms from Willi to tell me he was “north of Sing Buri”, and probably about two hours ahead of me…

"Looks like Willi has done more grocery shopping...!! Er sorry, ...wrong scooter...!!"

Amazon Coffee Shop in Nakhon Sawan...

Where I took stock of my position and tried to work out where Willi might be...

Just after Nong Khae, we turned onto the main highway that runs all the way north to the Burmese border, blasting through Sara Buri and then Sing Buri ( The Thais like their Buri’s, it would seem…!!)

With the bike running sweetly underneath me, I sat back and watched the countryside flash by…

Miles and miles of rice paddy fields, mango plantations and other crops that I could not identify…

Small wonder when you’re doing 140 km/h…!!

I stooped a few times to drink water, taking my jacket off to cool down, and pouring a good deal of the water over my head… I was melting out there…!!

I stopped for “lunch” at the Amazon Coffee Shop, and found that while they make great coffee, they do not serve any food…!! I settled for a packet of home made biscuits and then hit the road again…

If anything, it was even hotter than before…!! The hot air blasting into my open visor had the hairs in my nose shriveling up in protest, and my sinuses as dry as a bone in no time…

Entrances to many towns in Thailand are decorated like this... This one is Kamphaeng Phet...

After India and Nepal, driving here in Thailand is sheer bliss… Drivers stick to their lanes, and even use their indicators…!! Except for the busy towns, there is no need to drive as defensively here as you need to in India, where to get a drivers license, all you need to do is prove that you are an escapee from a mental asylum, and slip a few Rupees under the table…!!

We refueled again in Kamphaeng Phet… I downed a litre of cold water while the Big Fella took on 22 litres of premium…!!

Gotcha...!! Just north of Kamphaeng Phet, I came across Scooterman, looking as overheated as I felt...!!

Late afternoon and Sukhothai just half and hour away... It had been a long and hot ride...!!

A few kilometres outside town, I came across Willi…

He was standing opposite the ruins of a large temple, but I was too hot and bothered to take any photos… It was getting on for 5.00pm, and Sukhothai was still 80 kilometres away…

We started out together, but after ten minutes, Willi dropped too far behind me… He had vaguely described the turnoff to the Historical Park west of the city, where we would hang a left to avoid going through the town of Sukhothai itself, so I decided to ride on and wait for him there…

I arrived at the turnoff at 6.oopm, and watched the sun setting over a large paddy field while I waited… I figured that Willi would be about ten to fifteen minutes behind me…

After half an hour, he was still nowhere in sight…. Calls to his mobile went unanswered… I began to worry that something may have happened to him, and ten minutes later, just as I was getting ready to ride back and look for him, he called to say he was already in Sukhothai, and asking if I had checked into the guest house yet…

I flipped my lid…!!

Perhaps it was the volatile mixture of relief that he was OK, coupled with the annoyance of having waited forty minutes in vain, while the sun went down… It was now completely dark, and I was still 18 kilometres from my destination…

My response to him was mostly unprintable, especially seeing that he had never given me the name of the guest house we would be staying at, and that by looking out the front door, he would not see a big BMW parked there…!!

I was well and truly peeved…!!

Waiting in vain for Willi to arrive...

I rode into the darkness, down a narrow country lane, bordered by paddy fields and small farmhouses, until I came to the western edge of town and then followed the main road leading to the historical site and the village that has sprung up around it…

It was pitch dark when I arrived and it took another ten minutes and a few irate calls from me to locate Willi… I eventually found him standing outside a coffee shop near a large sign advertising a guest house…  I had ridden past him in the dark…

I parked the bike, loosened all my gear, and with my tank bag in one hand, and my helmet and gloves in the other, I walked across the road, ostensibly to check in…

When Willi told me that this was not where we were staying, and that the guest house he had checked into was actually a kilometre back down the road, that was the final straw for me…!! I was hot, tired, and had been on the road for nearly ten hours…  And now I had to reload the bike…!! A hush fell over the coffee shop at the language that I used to explain what I thought of him…

While Willi got onto his scooter, I reloaded the bike and then tore off after him… The Big Fella must have been as angry as I was, because for the first twenty metres or so, his front wheel never touched the ground…!!

Charlie Boorman would have been proud of us…!!

©GBWT 2011