Before breakfast ride to the end of the island

It’s been 90 photos since the last post, and that’s after editing out the foot and finger shots. For some odd reason one looks forward to getting back to the condo for a long rest, but that might just be after a particularly active week, if you could include both weekends. In eight days of cycling, Strava has logged 754 km and the map shows tracks on both coasts, with a mid-week climb just to get some vertical in the mix.

As per usual I have no idea where the weekend rides are going, nor what to expect the feature or event will be.  This weekend it was “camping on an island”, so who could pass up that chance since the island was unfamiliar.

Turns out we rode 130 km to take part in a 20 km rally with 300+ riders kicking off the annual Laanta Lanta Festival in Old Town, Koh Lanta.  Gathering at a small college on the north-western corner of the island, we rode en masse along the east coast to the leeward “old town”. None of the photos captures the spectacle of a 20 minute swarm of cycles passing along a two-lane coastal road between villages, rural communities and into Old Town.  You’re constantly reminded of the spectacle uniqueness, when most everyone along the side-lines is holding a camera, with mouth open in awe or cheering.

Koh Lanta is one of the tourist hot-spots, where the more adventurous of the thousand upon thousands of Thailand tourist per day venture. We never wheeled by anything remotely exclusive or touristy looking, nor any of the brochure-worthy white beaches with rows of umbrellas, white and soon-to-be tanned European “foreigners.” They were only evident on wayward scooters, song-tows and vans paused on the roadside.

Not until we arrived in Old Town did one realize that we were involuntary “extras” in this larger than life village “movie set.” My aversion to being part of tourist throngs was pegged the moment the sun started to set and the festivities commenced.  This density of tourists is only reached in the Bangkok Arrivals terminal or at something like the New Year Chaing Mai Night Market. (Sure, Chinese New Year gathering in Trang had crowds, but that was locals.} The costume department worked overtime fitting out this crowd of foreigners on holiday.

Surely the night market in Old Town is a regular event, however for the Laanta Lanta Festival the entire town became the Studio set, with just about every flat spot or store front a venue for food, shopping, entertainment or art.  The famous restaurants set up whole “gardens” of dining, the various indigenous peoples marched in the parade and had booths to promote their ethnicity or handiwork. At least four performance stages were set up on the “lot”, one with the requisite three jumbo-tron screens giving you live action video if you can’t get close enough.

As in many of the coastal communities the primary population seems to be Muslim and in the 5-block double-sided phalanx of food stalls there wasn’t any MuPing to be had, but just about all the other Thai food on sticks or in cups and Styrofoam take-away containers could be had.  It wasn’t hard to replace the 4,092 calories Strava logged.

Walking along with the meandering throng, grazing the food stalls, didn’t quite pull in the entire cast of characters, tattooed European tribal millennials, and bit actors.  Only once you found a un-retail-covered flat spot to pause and let the extras flow back and forth could you envisage  this was just one continuous “take” like the filming of Russian Ark. At first it was easy to use the Disneyland metaphor, but the rides were few, only a traveling ferris wheel and kiddie train.  This is the set for the “foreigners holiday vision” of Thailand. All the kitschy trinkets, the side-walk pubs, restaurants and food stalls, the bars with lonely guitarists and jazz trios covering well-known and trite tunes.  The foreigner frenzy finding “Thai clothing,” clown pants, or jewelry (which no-one in Thailand wears anymore – except in parades or on stage) to take home as souvenirs. However, it’s their party and both the Thai entrepreneurs and the foreigners like this movie or theme park.  A symbiotic relationship.

House front porch where we “camped”

Our group, some 18 or 19 riders from Trang, split into two groups: one snagged a house on the water with deck large enough for six tents and the other half went to the temple grounds and camped there.  We all grazed and “acted as extras” in town for a couple of hours after showers and bucket washing our lycra, but were eager to bed down for the following day’s 150 km ride home.

We got up early to watch the sun rise across the northern end of the Straits of Malacca with it’s tidal mud flats, and were among only a handful of people where there were hordes just hours before.

Deck over the tidal basin

House interior where we “camped” on the deck