Breakdown on the Way Home

While in Krabi I had to decide what to do next. I had thought about going to the The Phuket Vegetarian Festival but it would not start for almost a week. I could find a place to stay for a week or I could be home in less than a week. I decided to head home.

This is my Route Leaving Krabi

I decide to take a bit of the long way going via route 401 between Phang Nga and Surat Thani. I heard that this route going by Khao Sok National Park was one of the best route in Thailand. The section around Khao Sok was pretty but I think the highlight was the the last 10 or 15 kilometers of Route 4 in Phang Nga before turning north on route 4090.

I was having a good day of riding and thinking about where I wanted to stop but once at the outskirts of the town of Chaiya in Surat Thani my bike decided it was time to stop. It seems I had got an oil leak at some point and I am not good at checking the oil and the only oil light that the bike has is when it is time to change the oil so I ran it dry and the engine seized up.

I was pushing the bike and some sort of shop asked me what was the problem. I tried to tell them the motorcycle was broken and with the help of google translate asked if they knew of a motorcycle repair close by. With it being a Sunday not a lot was open but a guy at the shop went off in search of a motorcycle repair shop that was open. About 10 or 15 minutes later a guy showed up on a motorcycle and pushed the bike with me on it to his repair shop.

He spent some time looking at the bike and quickly knew this repair was going to take some time. He had me hop on the back of his bike and he took me to a hotel a couple of kilometers away. We had exchanged details of a messaging app common in Thailand called Line and he messaged me later that he would need to check on parts the following day before being able to guess on the repair cost or timeframe.

This hotel was sort of in the middle of no where but they did have a menu with a phone number and I was able with my little bit of Thai to call and order some food even without really knowing the name of the hotel. The following day I paid for the room for another day and walked to what I thought was the closest place to eat but turned out to be about a 4 kilometer walk with temperature of about 35c or 95f so was not enjoyable.

I received a message with a price break down for the motorcycle repair and what he wanted as a deposit to start the work. I said OK to the price and transfered the deposit which was about 1/2 of the price of the total repair. He said it would take at least 3 days to do the work. I messaged back that I would be going to a larger town and message me when the bike was ready and I would return.

I had mixed feeling about me breaking the bike. I was not happy about the breakdown but when I look at all the places I have been I could have broken down in a lot of places that would have been a lot worse. I felt really lucky to have brokendown somewhere that had such nice people that helped me.

The hotel I was staying at helped me get to the train station and I took a train to Chuphon where I stayed for the next 5 days and did a lot of nothing. The guy doing the work on my bike ran into a couple of problems but messaged me and told me the bike would be ready in the afternoon so I caught the afternoon train and took the 2 hour train journey back to Chaiya. With my crap Thai and using google maps to show the driver I found a motorcycle taxi that took me to the repair shop. The guy doing the repairs was putting the last few things on my bike when I arrived.

You can see my bike at the shop and a bit of the repairman's head on the opposite side of the bike.

I paid the remaining balance for the bike repair and even though he had other issue with the bike he charged me what he had originally quoted me. I gave him a bit of a tip for all his work and head back to Chumphon where I had left all my stuff. It was about a 2 hour ride and I was very nervous the whole way but it all went well and the bike is still running great after all the work.

The following day I did the long ride from Chumphon to Hua Hin. I got some rain on and off throughout the day but cleared up by the time I got to Sam Roi Yot Beach, where I made a bit of a pit stop before going to my hotel in Hua Hin.

I spent 2 nights in Hua Hin and decided to see a couple of the beach close to the city that I don't think I have visited before. My first stop was at Khao Takaib Beach. I had watched a video on YouTube that said this was the best beach around Hua Hin. I visited a lot of beaches on this trip that I thought were much prettier.

I saw another beach on the maps and headed south to Khao Tao Beach.

Hua Hin is a city with a lot of expats so I decided to look for some Mexican food while I was in town. It is the one food I seem to miss living in Thailand and found a place for lunch I really liked and will visit again the next time I am in Hua Hin.

The last day of this trip was another rain filled day of riding about 4 and a half hours going from Hua Hin to my home in Kanchanaburi. Even with the breakdown I would say it was a very good trip but am happy to be home.