Ban Krut is a little known and visited resort town, but has enough going for it to make for a quiet and peaceful seaside stay...
Trevor and Chenty arrived in Ban Krut after a bothersome start in Bangkok…
His GPS took him on a few detours of the city, sending him off on the wrong exits and back and forth across the southern side of the city until he managed to get onto the road heading south down the peninsula…
Phil's train arrives at the tiny station of Ban Krut...
He was more than a little hot and bothered by the time he pulled up outside the hotel I was staying at… We got his gear off Big Red and then hurried across to the station to meet his son Philip who arrived a few minutes after we had settled onto the wooden benches adjacent to the platform of the station…
I had not met him after his arrival in Bangkok, and had not seen any photos of him either, but when the strapping young man wearing a muscle t-shirt and a red cap stepped off the train, I immediately knew he was the guy we had come to collect…!!
We headed directly to JJ's to have a burger and beer lunch...
After a brief introduction, we loaded his backpack onto Big Red, and Phil climbed up behind me on the Big Fella and we took off towards the beach and our hotel…
The Big Fella is equipped with a “stepped saddle” which means the passenger sits higher than the rider… When the rider standing only 5′ 7″ in his socks, and Phil weighing in at a good 20 kilograms heavier and almost a foot taller, things were bound to get interesting…
Rounding the very first corner, it felt as though I was carrying a giraffe behind me…!! The bike wobbled crazily, and I had to give the throttle a good squirt to get the darn thing upright and heading forward again…!!
We headed straight for a local eatery, where I as calmly as possible suggested that Phil switch places with Chenty… My suggestion was accepted with good humour, and I believe a flash of relief crossed Phil’s face when he realised that the remainder of his trip to South East Asia would not be spent in a hospital bed…!!
After a few kilometres of riding with Phil on board, he swapped places with his much smaller and lighter mom, and took his place behind Trevor...
Can you imagine someone twice as big and much taller sitting behind me...!! Comical...and nerve-wracking...!!
We rode along the coastal road, exploring the area and trying to decide whether to hang about in Ban Krut for another day, or continue riding south and heading for a place that was not as deserted…!!
Riding along the coast with Chenty... Smiles all round...!!
Breakfast included smiley toast...!! Nice touch...
After a swim in the lake-like conditions across from our hotel, we decided to pack up and head for Koh Panghan Island the next day…
Ban Krut was a little too far off the beaten track and we were probably the only tourists in the area…!! We were looking for a little more excitement than we were likely to get here…
After breakfast the next morning, which was brought up to our rooms, Trevor, Chenty and I headed south again, while Phil caught the bus that would take him further down the coast to the ferry port of Hua Krut, and from there across the Gulf of Thailand to Koh Panghan Island…
He was looking forward to meeting a few of his friends who had already spent a few weeks on the island, and expected us to meet up with him again the following day… As it turned out, we were able to get onto the island only a few hours after he did…!!
Rather than take the highway directly to the car ferry port of Don Sak and from there to Koh Panghan, we opted to turn west near Chumphon, and ride towards the Burmese border, before turning south again to Ranong…
Instead of taking the fast track to Surat Thani, we opted to head for Ranong to see more of the interior...
We stopped at a small waterfall and had a quick lunch before going further south to the turnoff which would take us back across the peninsula towards Lang Suan on the coast…
You can tell from this photo taken when we stopped for lunch, that conditions were hot and sticky...!!
We were on the western highway that led directly south to Ranong and Phuket... Soon after Ranong, we headed due east and into the mountains...
The ride over the mountains was a great change from the very flat rides we had made over the past few days… A small portion of it was under construction, but for the most part it made for an exciting change…
It wound through dense forest, passing through a few small villages before intersecting with the main highway again…
We were able to use our new video cameras to film the ride and discovered that our remote controls were interfering with each others cameras…!!
When Trevor switched his camera on, his remote would switch one or both of my cameras off…!! Frustrating, to say the least…!! We would have to find a way to avoid this in future, or run the risk of “losing” footage which we thought we were recording…!!
We zoomed down the highway on the eastern coast, riding a lot quicker than we had planned to, and before long reached Surat Thani… Earlier that morning we had thought to spend the night here, but changed our minds and headed for the ferry port of Don Sak, about 50 kilometres away…
We arrived to find that luck was running with us, and managed to buy tickets on the last ferry leaving for Koh Panghan that day… We had covered more than 500 kilomteres since leaving Ban Krut, and after a very short wait, got our bikes onto the ferry…
Waiting for the ferry at Don Sak... We had made it in the nick of time...!!
GB gingerly takes the Big Fella aboard...
The ferry had clearly seen better days, and chugged across the Gulf of Thailand at a steady 19 km/h…There was a small restaurant on board where we were able to buy various snacks to while away the boredom of the trip… We spent most of the time on the upper deck, until it got dark, then retired indoors to chat with some of the other passengers bound for the island…
The BMW / Touratech Boys...!! GB gets to see over Trevor's head for a change...!!
We passed Koh Somui on our starboard side, surprised at the size of this popular holiday destination… We hoped that there was a feryy service from Koh Panghan to Koh Somui, so we could get a look at this island too, but were to discover later, that no such service existed…!!
GiGi knew exactly where we were heading...!!
It would take three hours to get to Koh Panghan and after spending most of that time on the open deck, I was more than eager to be off the rust bucket ferry and onto some solid ground...
The ferry finally docked in Thong Sala , the main town on the island… We had watched the sun go down a few minutes earlier, and left the ferry in the gloom of early evening…
Riding off the ferry in the dark of a Koh Panghan night...
We rode along the main road, looking for a place to stay, and ended up doing a little off-road riding, ploughing through a muddy section between buildings and venturing down sandy paths that led to sparely lit hotels and back-packer haunts, before finally finding our way back to the main road and on a concrete road leading to a quieter part of town…
We checked into Beck’s Resort, which looked to be a good place to base ourselves… But this decision was made in complete darkness, and by early the next morning, after discovering that not only was the beach situated in water barely a few inches deep, but the service levels at this resort left a heck of a lot to be desired…
We packed up and left to go in search of Phil and a better place to stay…
©GBWT 2011
Leave a Reply