As headlined in the last Blog: We couldn’t buy some of the behind-the-travel-poster experiences we’re enjoying.  Last Sunday’s ride was another case in point. [Incidentally this was the same day 11% of Thailand was shutout from voting in the latest national referendum. Even in Thailand “all politics are local.” The opposition leader is from a neighboring province, & we were at last to learn our province (state) was one of the two largest provinces in the south to boycott the election. Once we realized there was no political division in Trang, we rested more comfortably.] 

Only ten riders started out and after the obligatory photo op, the first stop comes quick. Forgetting to take a photo of my new favorite breakfast, I’ll just have to tell you that rice porridge with pork balls and poached eggs with spices and cilantro was A-Roi !

Second stop was dual purpose:  food and culture. One of the regional communities was raising funds to expand their Wat (temple complex).  We rolled in like invited dignitaries, were directed to VIP parking (easy to put 10 bikes directly next to the food tents) and treated to the works: tours of their sacred cave and it’s holdings – Buddhas, a 25′ reclining Buddha, ancient relics, the grounds for monks and existing buildings, dance recitals from pre-teen girls dressed in beaded animal cloaks complete with tails and, yes, all the food you can eat. Pictured is just one of the food lines of 5 or 6 available, all featuring different specialties.  Favorite beverages, bottled waters, sweets and [Hooray!] ice cream cones filled out the fare.  Here’s a photo I asked permission to take, a contrast in traditional and new technology. I’d hoped it was an iPad but it was only a 7″ Samsung tablet that he was using to take photos of the event.

We spent the next hour, more slowly with filled stomachs, rolling thru rubber plantations and communities, then turned off to a totally isolated waterfall park where we stripped

down to bike shorts and swam in the pools below the falls. Two more hours on paved asphalt roads, where I swear we only saw one pickup and a lorry the whole time.  Marvelous riding in dappled light on curving roads with mild rollers, just enough to break up the daze.

Still another food stop before the grand finale of which I was totally unaware.  Thinking we are going home early because it’s only 4 PM, we come out of the back roads and head down a highway back to Trang.  Wrong again.  With only 12 km on the mile posts to Trang, we veer right on to still another vacant asphalt road, but this one has a dirt intersection with a climb to the top of

a rounded karst.  On top is 5 years’ worth of construction on a 12-level above the mountain-top temple.  We all dismounted for the first 100′ and most walked the remainder. What was so special about this visit was that besides a handful of workers changing scaffolding and two resident monks, we had the entire site to ourselves.  We climbed raw stairways to the main levels, viewing still crated and uncrated antiques and relics right out of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies; lounged on the monks’ sleeping mats; and totally spontaneously decided to climb the inside scaffolding 8 stories up to the second-from-top level.

I asked about dinner, because last week I’d promised to bring Stanna to dinner, and was told that we’d stay until sundown.  However just before sundown, and after all the inner exploration, we scaled back down to ground level and the construction shacks where we were invited to finish off any and all of the monks’ food tributes. You should know that monks are supported by donations, either their mornings spent traipsing around cities with their begging bowls or for those monks in farther locales by Thai’s seeking “merit” by bringing food daily to them.  Monks only eat once a day about 11AM and the rest of the food is for whoever happens by the temple; in this day’s case it was only us.  It’s customary (we’ve partaken at least twice before) to rifle thru whatever is on the tables or benches, and the riders displayed not a timid gesture in pawing thru the bags and stacked Japanese lunch pails. I called Stanna and told her we were supping on the mount, she’d have to fend for herself.