January 12, 2026 to January 13, 2026
No Need to Rush
Samut Songkhram to Phetchaburi
Dear little friends,
Not gonna lie, Bruce isn’t a morning guy. I’m the one that passes out cold at 9 pm, just as he’s hitting his stride, and reluctantly waking him up at 6:30 am when I go take my shower. I came out of the gross bathroom, the one with zero ventilation that we had to keep closed up all night because of the sewer gas coming from the floor drain, which we covered with the wastebasket that I had to remove so I could take that aforementioned shower.
Bruce was lying in bed with a hand over his eyes. The night before he had been noticing a very toxic smell from whatever they cleaned the room with. The room contained an air purifier, so he’s probably not the first person to be sensitive to it, anyway, I had sort of slept all right but in the morning he was completely miserable, with a burning throat and other miseries.
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“Let’s ditch this dump”, I greeted him. Miss Merry Sunshine, that’s me. We grimly dragged ourselves out of this hellish room and loaded up and rode down a few wrong way blocks to the river pier. Nothing like a short ferry ride to lift one’s spirits. It cost six cents per person, three cents per bike.
After a few miles we were forced to get onto highway 35 for a short while, but escaped after a couple of miles and onto a road that had some of the last restaurants and such for a while so we stopped for breakfast, despite Bruce claiming he had no appetite. I think the food helped a little though, and while we were there a couple of older-than-us bike tourists rode by wearing red shirts. Oh, and two separate convoys of enormous tour buses, one going toward the beach, the other coming back. It’s hard to describe the scale of these buses.
It became readily apparent as we slowly escaped the pull of the outer limits of a megacity that Bruce was not doing so great. Yes, he still pulled short to take photos but this part of Thailand is famous for being kind of strange, pancake flat, few trees, vast acreage of salt farms, where they pump seawater in to evaporate in the sun. It’s still a little early in the evaporating season, it wasn’t that long ago that torrential rains had flooded neighborhoods that still sported abandoned sandbags.
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Yet the whole salt farming thing is new to us, there was a pleasant tailwind, we stopped for salt farms, we stopped at a bizarre overbuilt coffee shop, but the shine was definitely off of our boy.
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At one largeish inlet was a bridge so steep it could have been in Vietnam, so steep that we walked our bikes and at the top was a lone bike tourer, a Brit that lives in Denmark. We had a fun conversation with him but the sun was beating down on us all, and our goal was Phetchaburi or bust.
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Those last few miles were tough on me and worse for Bruce. Fortunately our guesthouse was a sweet little place in a very quiet neighborhood at the town’s outskirts. Once we were there, Bruce collapsed, and he was one sick guy. He definitely had a fever and just needed to go to bed, any plans we may have had to call into a bike repair shop were shelved for rest and hydration.
He definitely wasn’t up for dinner so for the second time this trip I ordered some pad thai using Grab and half an hour later the characteristic green jacketed delivery guy was pulling in. This is a game changer for me, honestly. There are times when we are too ill or exhausted to go out seeking food, and having it delivered was completely awesome.
There wasn’t much to be done but let Bruce rest and see what meds we have on hand that could give relief. He has a habit over here of getting some minor cold and then having night coughing for weeks afterwards, and it was looking like this might be the case. A rest day tomorrow was in order, for sure.
So the next morning, we strolled out into the yard and sat down to an absolutely lovely little breakfast provided by the owners. We had khao man gai (chicken rice) and khao tom (rice soup), fruit, orange juice, and coffee. Delightful and restorative. Two Czech guests came down and ate alongside us and we ended up yakking with them for a couple of hours.
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The internet was being pugnacious and the owners had called the service providers but it was hard to do much online so there was a day of real rest for both of us. By evening Bruce was able to get on his bike and we found a 7-Eleven and brought our food back to eat in the room. Some days are like that, and we were lucky to have such a nice little place to land, with kind owners that speak English, a dorky cat for entertainment, a soft bed, and time on our side, no need to rush anywhere or make any reservations, just get better, or at least, good enough to ride.
Hey little friends. I interrupt this breathtaking trip report to talk about what our family and friends in Minnesota are enduring right now. Bruce’s siblings and niblings all live there, so do my kids’ cousins and uncles and aunts. Scott and Rachael Anderson’s son and grands live there too, as do some of our CycleBlaze friends.
The terror that Ice is wreaking there now is so beyond the pale I can’t properly express my horror and outrage and grief about it. But I’m going to say this: Minnesota, I had no idea you had it in you, but you do. Standing up for your neighbors, using raw, rank courage and good will and generosity and fortitude. Man, I’m so damn proud of you all. Hang tight, stay the course. We’re in your corner. We love you.
Today's ride: 29 miles (47 km)
Total: 1,071 miles (1,724 km)
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