Day 142 — Phang Nga to Krabi - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

January 23, 2026

Day 142 — Phang Nga to Krabi

After a couple of weeks off the bike, it came time to have a full day of riding.

Today’s journey would be a loop back overland just past where we had stayed with the kids outside Ao Nang. We had all returned to Phuket by boat, and now the two of us were completing the circle over land prior to moving on further south.

The word of the day was “karst”, as in the limestone karst formations that protrude through this part of Thailand like massive sandcastles left in the rain. They are dramatic and spectacular, and the reason for 18 bajillion tourists a year to visit this area to go to postcard perfect beaches, take boat trips and boot around on scooters (including us). As we pedalled along we were provided with many reminders that the turn to “James Bond Island”, scenery featured in the Man with the Golden Gun, was coming up. We had seen some of this scenery from the boat from Ao Nang, and no doubt, the karst islands are an amazing natural wonder, though at this point they’re pretty overwhelmed by international tourism. Today’s ride would be through similar spectacular limestone protuberances inland.

Our ride yesterday was on highway 4, which was both busy and boring. Today we managed to find routes on more secondary roads to get to Krabi, though some of these were still busy — it’s a busy part of Thailand — and included a short stretch on the highway.

The other word of the day was “hot”. We are still struggling with the heat as it creeps above 30 after midday. Another word of the day was “ugh”, as we were both still struggling with the tail ends of colds. Distance, some climbing, heat, phlegm, ugh. But, Karst formations!

As mentioned, we did manage to scope out routes on secondary roads, which kept us mostly off highway 4, which was busy and lacking visual interest and worse, shade. The scenery was often spectacular on these secondary roads, as we skirted along through massive karst formations. Many pictures are below.

Our game plan for dealing with the heat didn’t really pan out today however. We did get a bunch of kilometres done in the morning on the strength of an omelette breakfast at our guesthouse. The general plan is to get a bunch of distance done in the morning, take a decent lunch break, then poke away at the remaining distance with many breaks in the afternoon. Today however we struggled to find a lunch option. There were what looked like food stalls from time to time, but with no one eating or cooking at them. We did eventually stop at a place that had a fridge of drinks and an ice chest, but it took a while to rouse the proprietor from their nap deep within the house. So we kept going.

We ended up back on highway 4 eventually, which was busy and hot. At one point we recognized the corner we were at as the turnoff towards Ao Nang where our bungalow we shared with kids was located. At that point, it was a handful of kilometres to our destination, so we pushed through the heat fatigue to just get there. Not the best tactic, really, but that’s the headspace you get in.

Our bungalow for the evening was at a resort on the outskirts of Ao Nang where they were still actively land clearing to add more units. I did get to walk past a tree being felled by a dude in sandals with no PPE, and a whole cast of characters a few feet away from him as he chainsawed his way through a sizeable tree. I was only about 30 feet away myself. In BC that’s a high risk violation and automatic fine.

We had a swim in the pool, and as we couldn’t face leaving the resort to find food, got takeout from Grab (Thai Uber).

So, spectacular scenery, but kind of a tough day overall.