Epic Road Trip (Episode 11) - The Chumphon Misadventure

Hello Hello Hello.....time for another Epic Road Trip.

This time there's no more 'FLASHBACK', this trip happened this past weekend (13 - 15th Sept)

The plan was to go to Chumphon and stay somewhere at their beach resort. The trip from KL to Chumphon is around 1050 km, which is what we will cover on the first day

As usual, we assembled at the Damansara R&R along the NKVE highway at around 2:30 am and left at 3:00 am. Here we were joined by a friend who will be doing her (i repeat, her ) first endurance ride after switching from her Honda CBR600RR to a BMW F800GS.

Our next stop is Tapah R&R where we were greeted by another friend (this time a he :P) who will also be doing his first endurance ride with his newly acquired Ducati Multistrada 1100S.

The journey along our North-South highway was smooth considering there were not that many cars during the early morning hours. We reached Sg Juru R&R at around 6:30 am and we stopped for our Fajr/Subuh prayer.

We proceed north to the border, stopping at Changlun to settle our insurance & white card. We arrived at the border quite late at around 9:00 am and managed to cross about 45 minutes after. It is then breakfast time at our usual place at Dannok. Distance covered so far, around 480 km.

After the heavy breakfast, we made our way north around 11:00 am. As I mentioned before, there were two of us with their new bikes and first time riding long distance. I therefore reminded myself to take it easy and also reminded them that we are riding at a foreign country so don't ride as if you are riding in Malaysia.

Our first stop was a Cafe in Phatthalung. The Cafe was attached to the Petrol Station. The owner designed the cafe well. It was beautiful, plus the coffee was tasty. Nice! :)

I initially wanted to stop by and have lunch at the Petrol Station restaurant, HOWEVER, the restaurant was newly renovated and is not yet open. So, I did the next best thing, try to find a restaurant along the way. Instead of a restaurant, we found this Muslim village where the locals took us to a stall and they served us with a freshly cooked meal. yummmyyy!!!

Amazing hospitality by the Thai people! :)

After filling our stomach, we stopped by at the local Mosque for our prayers and to refresh ourselves.

We left the 'kampung' (which was somewhere near Phatthalung) at around 4:30 pm. It was quite late and we reached the next fuel stop at Thung Song around 5:30 pm. I suggested to the group to split the journey and stay in Surat Thani, but the lot of them wanted to continue to Chumphon, so as the tour guide, I obliged! :)

After another stop around 80km from Surat Thani for a short nap, we soldiered on to Chumphon (another 270km to go) as per the majority voices. It was already dark, raining and lorries were the king of the highway. The road were badly paved with potholes here and there (which I think speed up the damage of my fork oil seal), we rode at a 'careful' pace and reached Lang Suan at the famous 'Kangaroo PTT' at around 8:30 pm.

After Lang Suan, we continued to Chumphon, arrived there at around 10pm and we decided to proceed straight to the beach which was another 15km from the town. To cut things short, there was a bit of a 'technical glitch' with the GPS and we couldn't find the Resort. We backtracked our way to the city and tried to find a muslim restaurant.

We managed to find one, had our dinner with whatever they have left as it was already 11:30 pm. I talked to a local who was eating there and understood english. She pointed us to Nana Buri Hotel, which I've read on the internet. The hotel received good ratings and right on, for the room they offered, we only paid 600 baht! Amazing! Since everybody was tired, we went straight to bed.

WE MANAGED TO RIDE 1100KM IN ONE DAY (well, about 21hours). BRAVO TO THE FIRST TIMERS! YOU GUYS DID IT! :)

The next morning, everybody was feeling refreshed. We had our breakfast and packed our stuff. Initially we wanted to go to our first resort, the one we originally planned. However, we saw that Nana Buri Hotel had a branch called Nana Beach Resort. We unanimously decided to go there.

Since Nana Beach is about 17km away, it took us no time to get there. It turned out the Resort we were looking for was there as well! How about that? ha ha.

Anyways, Nana Beach is a very nice looking resort. We checked in and everyone was happy because our holiday can finally begin!

After settling in, it's time to eat. However, there were no halal restaurant along the beach. So we did the next best thing. We bought whatever we can from the nearby convenient store. Cereals, bread, milk, etc. Some of us even bought durians! :)

Later that evening, it's watersport time! Thank you to my wife for the special gift she bought me for this trip. A brand new floater for me! :)

We started off at the Resort's swimming pool....

 

.... and we then proceed to the beach! :)

This is one of the special moment of the trip. My friend Bob offered to carry me from the beach to the resort which was about 70-80 meters away because he saw that I had a difficult time putting the leg back on due to the wet socks (from the pool earlier). A true friend he is! :)

The next day, we were all set to ride all the way to Dannok. Before that, picture time!

 We stopped by at an Amazon Cafe somewhere after Surat Thani.....just before the DRAMA

Okay, now comes the DRAMA! The finale for our misadventure. As we were filling up for petrol before Nakhon, a guy came to us and he told us that protesters were blocking the road ahead! I've known about this issue between the rubber farmers and the government as four days ago, they blocked the highway along Surat Thani. However, we were again amazed by the amazing hospitality of Thai people as he guided us through trunk roads and we avoided the protests. How cool was that? Will you do the same to a complete stranger?

As at today, the 17th September, the situation has yet to calm down. We are thankful we got back home safely. Below is the picture taken from www.bangkokpost.com:

 You can read more about it here:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/370159/police-hope-to-convince-protesters-to-end-rally

So, that is how this ride became one of my 'Epic Road Trip' :)