The long road to PARADISE
will be one of the trip’s other highlights besides the ride – the food. It turns out Tick is a former chef and Woody is also a foodie, both obsessed with finding the best meals in each place we visit. We’re quite happy to let Tick take the lead and order food on our behalf, which pays off handsomely as the trip goes on.
‘‘Cycling is a hobby,’’ says Woody at one point. ‘‘Eating is a full-time job.’’
And eat we do. Starting off the first day with an 85-kilometre ride, we quickly learn that this trip will have us working up big appetites. We stop at roadside stalls and tiny cafes during the day, in areas where tourists are few and far between.
Grasshopper provides the bikes, helmets and a support van for the tour, which carries our luggage, snacks, drinks and repair kits. The van is also an option for any riders who feel like they need to take a rest. I resolved not to give in to temptation and resort to this, but after the first day I’m not so sure I’ll be able to make it.
While the roads, both paved and dirt, on the journey are good, it’s the heat that gets to me. The tropical sun beats down amid the humidity Thailand is famous for, and we sweat buckets throughout the day. Our guides ensure we drink plenty of fluids, typically with the addition of a local electrolyte powder called, amusingly, Stronk. (Later in the trip, when we’re all getting tired, we encourage each other to ‘‘Stay Stronk’’.)
From Surat Thani we head to the scenic Ratchaprapa Dam before heading into Khao Sok National Park. Here the landscape begins to change, becoming more rugged and we begin to see signs of the limestone peaks for which this part of Thailand is famous.
The cleverness of the structure of this trip means that the further we go, the more beautiful the scenery becomes, and the better the accommodation gets. Starting from a town and region that is not particularly popular with tourists means the initial hotels are more on the rustic side, but when we hit Khao Sok National Park we spend the night in the beautiful Our Jungle House, a series of private villas (some of them elevated treehouses) on the banks of a river and flanked by a huge, sheer cliff face.
From there, we head towards the coast and Khao Lak. The morning starts with a 6km climb, the hardest part of the entire trip, but is also one of the highlights. While it takes us an hour to make it to the top of the hill, it takes just six minutes to come down the other side, an exhilarating, curving journey we do at top speed.
Our rest day, day four, comes not a moment too soon. We arrive at a large resort in Khao Lak and have two nights here, allowing us