This week’s Travelsonabike2 bicycle touring on this day post comes from Thailand on the 2nd-February-2012, and I’m caught in a rain storm.
Thursday 2nd February 2012 Saraburi to Samut Songkhram. 117 miles.
I made good progress this morning and was in Bangkok by midday. And, as usual, got lost. Although I quite enjoyed it today. My diversion took me through Chinatown, and all the lanterns were still up from the Chinese New Year. I did get a few strange looks, though, when I cycled through a pedestrian zone. Whoops!
Just as I was heading out of Bangkok, there was one hell of a thunderstorm. When it started, I was pretty pleased. After all, it was so hot and muggy it cooled me down. It also washed most of the dust from the bike that I’d accumulated in Laos. And one of the delights of cycling so close to the Equator. There’s no need to bother with waterproofs. It’s so warm everything just dries out so quickly.
My joy didn’t last. The rain just got heavier and heavier, and I had to take shelter under the awning of a shop, along with several scooter riders. The rain was so hard it was impossible to see across the road. Along with the rain, the wind got up, and there were some deafening claps of thunder and flashes of lightning everywhere. It was almost biblical.
The Suns Out
After about fifteen minutes, the rain started to ease off. But where was the road? It had disappeared under about a foot of water. The water was flowing down the road like a small stream. But about a mile down the road, you would never have known it had rained. Everything was bone dry again. I had one or two more showers this afternoon, but nothing as heavy as that initial one.
The last twenty miles today were tough going. There were salt flats as far as the eye could see. And nothing to stop the strong wind blowing off the sea. But maybe the wind wasn’t that bad. It was more that I’d cycled a hundred miles. I was glad to finish. Although that wasn’t as straightforward as it usually is.
The first hotel I stopped at was in a sort of motorway service area, so I didn’t even have to divert off the road. But the landlady wanted me to leave my bike in front of the hotel, with nothing to lock it to. Needless to say, I didn’t stop and continued on. Luckily, I found another hotel just down the road and the bikes in the room with me.
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