Day 110 — Hua Hin to Sam Roi Yot - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

December 21, 2025

Day 110 — Hua Hin to Sam Roi Yot

Marilee here.

First full day of biking in Thailand! I have to confess — I was nervous. I’d heard a lot about crazy drivers, stray dogs, dodgy roads. And most of all I was worried about the heat. How would we (mostly me!) cope with 30+ heat over a full day of riding?

Fortunately we had an easy introduction planned — just 40km down the road from Hua Hin to the beach town of Sam Roi Yot. And, in a very marked change from our Japan cycling experiences, the expected elevation gain was only about 100m. What? No 800m sweaty climb followed by a screaming switchbacking descent? Well OK, maybe I can handle the heat if this is the kind of biking we’ll be doing.

Part of our heat-management strategy for Thailand was to get an early start, while the air was still relatively cool. But seeing as we didn’t roll into our hotel from the train station until after 11pm the night before, we weren’t exactly leaping up to greet the dawn.

And once we managed to get moving , sometime after 8am, we had the issue of coffee to deal with. Since this country clearly takes its coffee more seriously than Japan, we really didn’t want to miss an opportunity to enjoy it. So hitting the road was further delayed by lingering over coffees and pastries at a little roadside cafe.

Eventually we got underway, and after zipping through the main tourist area of town and past many big resorts, we struck gold: a dedicated cycle path paralleling the highway.

Nice to see the Japanese love of a big mascot is shared here as well.

We enjoyed several kilometers of cruising along the cycle path until it ended, as all good things must, and then we detoured onto a series of secondary roads. The day before, in the train station leaving Bangkok, the french cyclist we chatted with had told us there was a surprisingly small number of bike tourists here — but the evidence on the ground today was very different. Every few minutes we were either being passed or passing someone else on a bike — and many of them with bags, clearly out for a while. We may have seen more touring cyclists in a single morning here than during our whole time in Japan.

We stopped mid-morning for second breakfast and a chance to sit in the shade at one of the many roadside open-air restaurants. When we pointed to the meal a man at the next table was about to dig into and said “we’ll have two of those please”, his English-speaking Thai companion taught us its name. Now we can order Pad krapow moo Kai dao anytime we want. And since it is spicy ground pork and rice and Thai basil with a fried egg on top, we’ll probably want to use that phrase a lot!

By early afternoon we were cruising on a beachside road down the coast — and when I say cruising, I really mean “being pushed south by a tailwind so strong we barely needed to pedal”.

But even easy cycling is still work, and I was definitely feeling the heat. Here is where Heat Management Strategy #2 came in: more frequent breaks. We are too inclined to just keep going, to push on, even when we’re sweaty and tired and thirsty. In this climate that’s a dangerous tendency and we’d agreed to try to mend our ways. So when our route took us to a beachside road lined with little restaurants, it was time for a drink in the shade.

Oh and we’ll have fries with those cokes. Why not!

The next surprise around the corner was a tiny national park, protecting a headland of tall limestone cliffs, laced with water and wind-carved caves and arches. Beneath the cliffs was a beach with fine sand like powdered sugar, shallow calm water, and many happy families splashing about. It was very tempting to dig out the bathing suits then and there, but we soldiered on.

Fishing boats in the next bay along our route.

We pulled into our guesthouse at 2 o’clock, after what, to our heat-addled brains, felt like an endless hunt up and down the beach road at Sam Roi Yot but was actually probably less than 10 minutes. The Blue Beach Resort was off the beach, up a little laneway and very discreetly signed — but we found it, our bungalow had air conditioning, there was a small pool that we immediately plunged into, and a porch for our bikes. In other words, perfect! There was also a long magnificent beach across the road….

This boat was just visible in the distance.

The bikes resting up for whatever the next day has in store for us.

Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 4,915 km (3,052 miles)

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