Leaving Hua Hin feeling a lot more relaxed, we continued down the Gulf coast on our way to the fabled southern islands. The less than scenic Highway 4 was soon forgotten as we turned off onto small country roads and wound our way through a picturesque landscape of coconut palms and crescent-shaped bays. During a brief return to the highway, we also cycled our 10,000th mile (16,094th km), an incredibly special moment for us, although it was impossible to fully comprehend that our legs had pedalled us that distance from our front door in Brighton.
Our next stop was a sleepy beachside fishing town called Prachuap Kiri Kahn, nestled in between two spectacular headlands. After a slight wobble on arrival, when we went around in increasingly irritable circles trying to find our guesthouse, we soon settled into the laid-back vibe. Large amounts of shellfish were consumed, washed down with local whisky; short unloaded cycles took us to a beautiful secluded bay where we wallowed in shallow, bath-warm waters; and the discovery of a Buddhist buffet resulted in our tofu consumption increasing dramatically.
Our only vigorous activity involved a short, but intense, climb up to a temple crowning one of the headlands. This gave beautiful views of the surrounding area, but was slightly marred by the presence of a troupe of irritable monkeys whose main pleasure in life appeared to be defecating all over the holy site. Do not be fooled by their benign expressions!
After several laid-back days it was time to potter off again on our bikes. While more relaxed, we both felt an underlying pressure pushing us ever onwards. This was something that had subtly built up since leaving Brighton, both from a mixture of deadlines - meeting our families in Greece; avoiding the snow and ice in Central Asia; the limits of our visas - and a self-sustaining propulsion that had been created by cycling eastwards for the majority of the last 16 months. While we constantly promised ourselves a cycle-free “holiday” once we reached the southern Thai islands, we still found ourselves regularly calculating how far we could get if we continued our five-days on, two-days off schedule, giving rise to compelling possibilities such as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Indonesia. It therefore came as a shock when we were brought to an abrupt standstill just outside the little town of Ban Krut. After cycling down a particularly bumpy unpaved track, which we had followed in the hopes of uncovering a perfect beachside camping spot, Jonathan noticed that his bike felt very peculiar. When we pulled into a small roadside guesthouse his worst fears were confirmed: the rim of his rear wheel had cracked beyond repair.
Initially we weren’t too perturbed by this, as we had specifically chosen 26” wheels in case of this eventuality. They are the standard-size wheel for mountain bikes the world over, and a quick trip to any bike shop should have resulted in a new rim or wheel. Our main problem was that we were on the periphery of a tiny town which, while not lacking in delicious seafood cafes, most definitely did not have any bike shops. However, after a WhatsApp conversation with our Thai saviour Suparp, we were soon on a train to the nearest city, Chumphon, wheel in one hand and the details of a bike shop that could rebuild Jonathan’s wheel in the other. 6 hours later a pair of deflated cycle tourers were returning home still clutching the offending wheel, having been told by the bike shop owner that in fact our spokes were the wrong size and they would not be able to help us after all.
The only option left to us now was to get the train to the larger city of Surat Thani in the hope of finding a suitable wheel there. To do this meant missing out on cycling the part of the Thai coast we had most been looking forward to, but we gritted our teeth and tried to forget about the perfect, empty beaches that we would now be missing. Arriving in Surat at about 4am, our befuddled brains thought that it would be a good idea to walk the 12km into the centre of town, rather than put our bikes into a van and be driven. Several hot and irritable hours later we arrived at our guesthouse, after receiving a death blow to our plans – a bike shop owner had informed us that during the 16 months that we had been away, Thailand’s mountain bike scene had converted from 26” to 27 ½” wheels, and nowhere in town would have the part we needed.
It was finally time to enact the very last option available to us. We contacted a specialist bike shop in Bangkok who would build Jonathan a brand-new wheel using the exact parts he wanted and then, with the help of Suparp, have this shipped to Surat Thani. The whole process would take a couple of weeks. Our unspoken plans to be pulled along by our own inertia to Malaysia and beyond now officially came to an end. And it was a relief. Now that the choice had been taken out of our hands, we could finally relax without any guilt that we weren’t cycling, taking our time to explore the Thai islands, and anything else that might take our fancy. Leaving our bikes safely stored at the Surat guesthouse, it was with some excitement that we boarded a ferry to the island of Koh Tao, renowned for its snorkelling, scuba diving and secluded bays. As the ferry pulled up to the island’s main port, flanked by long white sand beaches rimmed with coconut palms, small bars and beach shacks, we smiled at each other and both let out an internal sigh of relief.
We had one big blow out: a mind-numbingly drunken night on the main strip where we released the pressures that had built up over the last few months. Fuelled by buckets of rum and coke we danced the night away covered in fluorescent body paint, and even managed to make friends with another couple from Brighton. Hangovers were nursed on the beach and in our little wooden beach hut, where we had the pleasure of hosting another excessively large gecko.
The following day we embarked on a sweaty hike, climbing into the treeline before dropping down to a bay that could have featured in The Beach, the only human habitation consisting of a cluster of wooden shacks tumbling their way down a hillside to the sea.
We spent a gorgeous week here – snorkelling, swimming, reading and generally pottering about. A highlight was snorkelling with a giant green turtle as the sun set across the coral reef. Another sweaty hike brought us to an even more secluded bay where we spent another week lounging in a beach hut, joined by a kitten with an appetite of epic proportions.
The bay was stuffed full of tropical fish whose imaginative names we were gradually teaching ourselves – Titan Triggerfish, Sergeant Major, Purple-Spiked Unicornfish and, our personal favourite, the Harlequin Sweetlips.
The days flew past, and we soon realised we needed to renew our visas by taking a quick jaunt into Malaysia. Deciding on a trip to the Malay island of Penang primarily because of its legendary cuisine, we booked a through-ticket and soon found ourselves squished onto a night ferry with a couple of hundred complaining gap year students.
Three mini-buses later and we were in Penang, staying in a characterful guesthouse in Little India, and stuffing our faces with all manner of edible delights. We were so enthralled with the food - especially the vegetarian curries which we ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner – that we were loath to leave and ended up staying for 10 gluttonous days. However, it wasn’t just the food that kept us. The main city of Georgetown was just cool, in a surprisingly East London way, with lots of street art, boutique coffee shops and cultural events.
We spent one night at a pop-up cinema, where a free French movie was being screened which charted a man’s journey from a Parisian banlieue to the top of Everest. Much of the island is monsoon forest, and we attempted to burn off our excessive calorie intake by hiking the network of trails which crisscross Penang, coming into contact will all manner of amazing wildlife along the way, including the beautiful and fairly rare Dusky-leaf Monkey (not pictured).
After saying a sad farewell to our culinary home, we arrived back in Surat Thani in time to pick up Jonathan’s new wheel from the post office and were back on our bikes the very next day. We had decided that, rather than continuing southwards, we would turn around and cycle back from Surat Thani to Ban Krut, where Jonathan’s bike had broken, giving ourselves a chance to see that part of the coast and also giving our trip with a sense of completion. Feeling incredibly refreshed and happy to be cycling again, we had only a single day’s ride however before we stopped again. Several months before we had decided to do a 10 day meditation retreat at a centre located about 50km north of Surat Thani, and a course started the following day. Having already seen the schedule we knew the retreat would test us – a 4am start, no talking, no dinner, no entertainment (even reading), separated from each other, and spending our days meditating and listening to lectures from Buddhist monks – but the reality proved even tougher than we could have imagined. It was hard to be in the same place as each other but not be able to speak or touch, although we did develop a fairly sweet routine of walking around the lake at the same time each day so that we could smile at one another as our paths crossed. The retreat was also more religious than we had anticipated, and the enforced solitude meant that Harriet developed a slightly bizarre conviction that Jonathan was on the verge of becoming a Buddhist monk. This conviction was fuelled by seeing him gazing intently and, Harriet thought, rapturously, upon a Buddhist painting during one of our lectures. When we finally met up again, Jonathan revealed that the intensity of his gaze had in fact been a desperate attempt to stay awake in the muggy afternoon heat!
Released from the retreat, we sat and talked for 8 hours straight, sharing the thoughts and emotions that had built up inside us. It had been a wonderful, if extremely challenging experience, and we did notice a change in ourselves: setting off the next day, we noticed that we were more aware of the environment around us, and more content in the silence of cycling, forgoing the usual natter that ping-ponged between us.
However, our Zen-like attitude started to flake around the edges as the day warmed up and the great sweating began. Around 11 am, as the burning sun became unbearable, we pulled off into a nondescript roadside motel. Feeling peckish after our cycle we checked out the attached restaurant, and were soon tucking into big piles of rice, egg and vegetables. Our appetites were only mildly dampened when we realised that the tomato ketchup we had mounded onto the sides of our plates was crawling with live maggots. The offending sauce was promptly spooned into our napkins, and we finished off our meal having a very English debate about whether it was better to tell our friendly hosts about the wriggly critters and risk offending them, or keep quiet and hope they noticed of their own accord. Typically, option 2 won out.
The following morning we meandered along the coast accompanied by little owls, blue magpies and bats, and were treated to a stunning sunrise.
After a nasty, steep, little hill we dropped down to a small fishing town where we checked into a lovely riverside guesthouse and wiled away the rest of the day relaxing on the wooden veranda and pottering along the beach.
One more day’s cycling brought us to the town of Chumphon, the location of our first ill-fated wheel adventure. With a few extra days to spare, we took a boat back to Kho Tao for a final session of island life. Returning to our secluded cove, we spent a final few bucolic days looking out to sea from our terrace and snorkelling, this time being treated to the sight of a Blue-spotted stingray and, incredibly, a Black Tip shark, gliding past us as we held our breaths and each other’s hands.
Saying farewell to island life, we returned to the mainland and set off on the final three sweaty days of our trip. As we peddled along we kept trying to internalise the fact that we were finally coming to the end of our 18-month cycle tour, but our brains would only allow us fleeting glimpses of this reality. We had been away for so long that cycle touring was now absolute normality for us, and the thought of any other way of life was extremely hard to comprehend. Equally, so much had happened in the last year and a half that only rarely did our brains connect the thread that joined our departure from Brighton on a cold February morning to the palm-fringed coast we now pedalled along. And when it did, the feeling was so vertiginous that the mental door quickly snapped shut again.
Our first night was spent camping at the head of a glorious bay, a spot only somewhat marred by an inordinate number of biting midges that ravaged our legs, arms and feet.
But the beauty of the place was undeniable: as the sun gently dipped its feet in the sea, we ate our dinner watching the green lights of squid-fishing boats gradually appear on the horizon. The following day we continued through the lush green, picture-perfect landscape that straddled the beach-fringed coast, and finished in one of the most idyllic camping spots of our entire trip: an enormous stretch of white-sand beach dropping down to the sea, utterly deserted apart from us and our bikes.
As we cooked our dinner watching a rose-pink sunset, accompanied by the occasional crab busily throwing sand out of its hole, we tried and failed to comprehend that tomorrow we would pedal the last full day of our adventure.
As pink turned to an inky black, we thought back to all the different skies we had sat under, sunsets we had seen and strange places we had erected our little canvas home over the last 18 months
Waking up early, we began the final 17km of our trip in contemplative moods. In similarity to the first cycle after the meditation retreat, we were acutely aware of and took joy in every sight, smell and sound around us. Jungle on our left, white sand and sea on our right. A line of palm trees in-between were the only spectators that witnessed this seminal moment. Then all too quickly we were in Ban Krut, rushing down to the sea fully clothed to sanctify the end of our trip. As we bobbed around in the aquamarine waters, staring up at the perpetually blue Thai sky, our worldwide wobble came to an end.
