Bikes, Buses, Boats, Beaches and Beer, on a Budget - Noddy's (mis)Adventures in Asia

BACK TO THAILAND, A CRAZY PLAN IS HATCHED - PATTAYA TO UDON THANI BY SCOOTER

DAY 1 - PATTAYA TO PAKCHONG

So I’m back in Chonburi, Thailand, still with Noi, and both of us have moved in with my Canadian mate in a nice new resort village, complete with 2 pools, gym, many restaurants and other shops. It’s nice to be almost ‘settled’ somewhere for now, I love my time on the road but it feels good to have some place to call ‘home’, if only for a while.

3 weeks after being back though, another friend of mine needed to do a visa run to Laos and so an idea was born to ride our scooters all the way north to Udon Thani, a crazy notion that became a reality and turned out to be an absolutely amazing experience. Capp, my friend, was doing it for his visa - I was going simply because it sounded too ridiculous an adventure to pass up.

After very little preparation and a rough guide on our phone GPS, we set off into unknown (to us) rural Thailand with backpacks, scooters, nervous anticipation, excitement and basically no clue as to how we would fare.

We left East Pattaya, or the ‘Darkside’ as it is known, and made our way to Highway 331 I think (this will be a rough guide, but we are working on printing our exact route from gpx points). Then it was a quick blast across on 304 over to 319 which took us through the town of Prachinburi.

Obviously we had passed many smaller towns and villages along the way, but this was the first major town we had come across. Due to the main bridge on our route still being built, we had to find our way through elsewhere which proved to be… well, a little weird.

If you have spent time in Thailand, or Asia in general, you will notice that there are always people around, especially in a bigger town/city such as this. Yet here we were, riding through the centre of what appeared to be a ghost town?!

It was actually quite spooky to see all the buildings and vehicles around but absolutely nobody in sight, we were almost expecting zombies to come slowly groaning around the corner at one point!!

After some twists and turns down side streets we came to another bridge, this one was able to be crossed, but better still, we had found people again!! It really was a bizarre feeling riding through a town like that with not a soul around.

Prachinburi looked like a good place to check out for a day or 2, but Capp was on a tight schedule to get to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, where many long term residents go to do their visa’s and paperwork, and so after a few snaps we were on the road again.

Not too far outside Prachinburi, you arrive at Khao Yai National Park, a place I had passed by a few times previously, but on the major highway further East of here, heading north or over to Isaan. This time we would ride through the park itself and some of the most beautiful scenery you could hope to ride past.

There was lush jungle, roadside monkey’s, waterfalls, a beautiful lake that we stopped at not far from sunset and some spectacular mountain-top view points. It had been a big day already but we had to make it to our planned destination for the night – Pak Chong.

On our arrival into town we had nothing booked, so ended up at this funky little bar called ‘The Scooter Club’, of all things! It was a very cool spot to unwind for a while, they have some really eclectic and interesting decor.

After stopping for a couple of hard earned beers, from about 9 hours in the scooter saddle, we found a place called Pakchong Phubadee Hotel.

It was great value at 240 baht per night for a fan room, plus close to night markets and many other restaurants. We found a great place for dinner and a few drinks before calling it a night, we still had another 2 big day’s on the road to make it to Udon Thani.

All set to go