The road to nowhere

Heading south , our next point of interest was to visit the two dams in central western Thailand in the region of Kanchanaburi.

To get there we kept on following the usual road further west on our map, doing so we biked across two rather interesting and desolated regions: Uthai Thani and Suphanburi.

Not much going on in there for sure, just the heat wave staying with us those extra days (that seemed to last forever). We followed one regional road after the other 1117, 1072, 3504, 3456, 3438, and so on, trying to keep as east a possible. Every 50 kilometres a new intersection and the only chance to get some supplies or snacks, since there's barely anything along the road. These intersections are often turn offs to national parks wich explain the abundance of shops -people stock up before getting to the park. Unfortunately for us, visiting them wasn't an option, they where all on a dead end road, sometimes up in the mountains, and too far from the main road for a one night stop.

Dusty intersection along the way, many of them!

Some shoots of the road to nowhere, pretty desolated
 but still beautifully.

So called "house truck".

A couple of days we had to push some extra kilometres to find accommodation some others we just camped at police stations because nothing else could be found. Tree days passed and no sign of a market, fortunately every evening we encountered a village fair but couldn't really rely on it to be at our next stop every night. Started to eat "pad pak" (fried vegetables) at road stop along the way, its faster and easier than cooking our self but the portions are seriously small to fill you after a day on the bike! Some may say, there is a limit to how much of it you can eat, often being the only vegetarian option, but for me there is actually no limit if i need to fill up!

Eventually, one morning, we reached town of Ban Rai which, for some reason, was very well alive. First we hit the market of course, the feeling of having a choice about our meals once again was great, we got a shake and some snacks and sat around for a while watching the quiet town life passing by.

Its nice to take it easy once in a while, but couldn't wait around all morning or the heat would get to us, so we finished our snacks and took one last stopped at a petrol station to buy some ice to put in our bottles, in an attempt to keep the water cold as long as possible, it has the tendency to turn into piss pretty fast down here! 

Finally arriving at town of Ban Rai where we got welcome with  flags!!!

Finally bananas, shakes and sticky rice, luxury!!!

A knocked down sing is welcoming us on the nasty 4031.

Cycling some kilometres out of town we where looking for a tiny secondary road pointed on the map, a little Gray line zig zaging on the paper, we could guess it meant we had some mountains to do, but these kind of roads are usually the best to ride on, being quiet and crossing beautiful landscapes. 

Yes, it surprised us i must say...got at the turn off and the road was just a dirt track! We didn't know what to do and though that it could turn out to be funny to see where and in wich conditions it would take us. Going on for a few kilometres it turned steep and pretty much unreadable right away, the wheels where skidding on the loose surface and the many holes weren't gonna do any good to them too.

After the first hair pin turn a cloud of smoke was covering the path, it was a Forrest fire. The air was thick and since we were forced to push the bikes, we didn't exactly have the speed to go through it fast, so we had to leave them behind and run through it to have an idea if the track was passable or we had to give up and turn back.

And the fun begins...

Pushing through the smoke, 

Fortunately the smoke cloud was only a few meters long and going over another turn, the wind brought it in another direction,so we quickly pushed the bikes over and kept on going, still no cycling though...

Pushing on the loose surface....

After 3 kilometres more, at least, we hit a down hill and shortly after that, the sealed road once again -it was a relief for our bones with the smooth feeling of the asphalt. Soon we started encountering villages again and riding up and down again trough the hills. Lunch time was very well past and we lied down exhausted and crashed under the first shade until four o clock. The plan was to ride 15 km more that day and camp at a police station in a lost village, but once there we found out that accommodation was 20 km further down the road in our direction and the thought of a real shower and a bed gave the extra push to get there. We even got rewarded with the usual town fair, third day in a row, we really felt lucky and after a day where it seemed like we never stopped, finally we went to bed. 

And finally on the top!

All you get out of outdoor life is dirty feet and black stuff in your lungs, great!

But it was all worth, especially when you know that
at the end of the line a shower is waiting for you.