On the 5th we spent the day in Khlong Thom again, there was quite a lot of rain still as the tail of Pabuk passed over North of us. Nothing else to report for the 5th, even a complete lack of pictures.

Now today the 6th is different, waking up to clear skies and the temperature already near 30 °C, Pabuk has well and truly gone so it was time to pick up our original route again, off to Koh Lanta.

The start of our cycle once across Route 4 follows quiet roads for about 15 km, back through rural Thailand, everyone shouting hello as we pass, the young children waving at us.

Then on to 15 km of main road but even this was not busy but did have a good shoulder all of the way.

A short distance from the ferry port you pull in and buy tickets to get across to the island. They cost 50 baht for two people and two bicycles. There are several ferries taking cars and passengers across, you drive straight on (or ride in our case) where they wait a while for the ferry to fill up then leave. There is no timetable just wait until one goes.

It is only around 2 km across to the island where you get off and follow the main road, we say main road but it is very quiet indeed. We pass a collection of birds in cages with their owners, this is Thai Bird Singing Competitions. Please read this fascinating article all about it www.thephuketnews.com/bird-singing-competitions. In case you are not a clicker of links, each singling round lasts 20 to 25 seconds and the judges listen for how many time each bird sings in that time, eliminating as they go along until a winner emerges. There is big prize money to be made and winning birds are worth a fortune. This was only a local competition but there are national one’s attracting huge crowds.

Then we were ready for the second ferry on to the main island only to discover there is a bridge across now, so over we go and hello Koh Lanta.

A tandem passed the other way and we stopped to chat, a couple from Germany who have take 5 years off to cycle the world (2.5 years to go). https://www.bisgenfunddannlinks.wordpress.com if you want to have a look, hint use Google translate as it is written in German.

Into town we went, ending up booked in to The Jetty Place for 800 baht, a large very clean room, air conditioning, comfy bed and right on the jetty front road where there are restaurants and bars galore you could not wish for a better spot.

In the afternoon we had a coffee in the very nice Not A Toy Cafe and ate a lovely and very reasonably priced meal at Catfish Resturant and also had a stroll up to the beach area and the pier.

Then generally did very little.

The Strava route today.