Satun to Trang

I got a late start leaving Satun late on purpose. I had a few stops planned on the ride but didn't want to arrive at my hotel in Trang prior to check-in time.

I rode for an hour and stopped for a fill up of both the bike and myself. I wasted a bit more time and then back on the road. I was not that far along and the sky opened up and started dumping sheets of water on me.

I stopped at one of those road side shelters that I think are used by people waiting for public transportation. After about 20 minutes I thought it had let up so headed out again but it must have only been a brief pause and the sky let me have it again.

I was stopped at a traffic light next to a gas station and a restaurant. I went into the restaurant and dripped all over their floor for about an hour. I stayed in the restaurant until I needed the toilet. I walked across the parking lot to the toilet and regained any water I had dripped off in the restaurant.

After the toilet I didn't want to drip all over the restaurant again so took off on the bike. I have had a few days of heavy rain on this trip but had not had issues with deep water in the road before so it was really slow going but after about 30 minutes the rain let up and was only a light rain for the remainder of my ride into Trang. I gave up the idea of stopping to play tourist and it also well after the check-in time when I arrived at the hotel.

I had dried off by the following morning and the sun was shining. This is my route plan for seeing the Trang Sites.

My first stop was at the beach of Hat Ratcha Mongkhon. Some Thai people had a tent setup back under a rock over hang or maybe it would be considered a cave. I tried not to disturb them while walking around on the beach taking pictures.

The tent seemed to have come alive while I was wondering on the beach so exchanged a quick hello before riding off on the bike.

I had pasted this lighthouse when going to the beach but stopped for a photo on the return journey.

My next stop was at the Hat Pak Meng beach.

I enjoyed the statue of dugong that is the landmark of Pak Meng beach.

I had marked Chao Mai Beach as a stop and it was a pretty beach a little off the road and nothing else around.

When I was at Chao Mai Beach I didn't know there was a National Park by the same name. I pasted the park headquarters as I was headed to Ling Beach (หาดหยงหลิง) and couldn't get to this beach without paying the park entrance fee so removed it from my route.

I kept seeing signs for Yao Beach so added it in to take the place of the one I skipped.

I got something to eat and drink at Yao and just enjoyed the lovely view of the Andaman Sea.

My next stop was at Mot Tanoi Beach (หาดมดตะนอย). I just see beaches on the map and add some of them to the plan without knowing anything about them. This was the case for this beach and it was pretty but I don't think it sees many tourists. I snapped this picture on the way to the beach.

I rode on down the muddy and sandy path and found what I think is Mot Tanoi Beach.

I had rode past Khai Botanic Garden (สวนพฤกษศาสตร์ทุ่งค่าย) yesterday because of the rain but this day I didn't go in due to the dual pricing. I live in Thailand but do not get the local price at tourist sites. Some of the times I have paid the tourist price I have felt like I havebeen ripped off because the site seemed way over priced. Now it has to be something I really want to see for me to pay the inflated price. I might be missing some good places but this dual pricing seems wrong.

The Chao Pho Muen Ram Shrine (ศาลเจ้าพ่อหมื่นราม) was also a planned stop that got skipped due to the rain but this one I did visit when the rain was gone.

Trang Clock Tower (หอนาฬิกาตรัง) was not on my original plan but saw pictures of it at my hotel and I have been to a number city's clock towers on this trip.

I was riding to my hotel and pasted The Dugong Circle (วงเวียนพะยูน).

I had set a goal for this year to visit the remaining Thailand provinces that I had never visited. When I arrived in Trang I had achieved that goal. I have now been in all 77 Thai provinces or as Google keeps saying 76 provinces plus Bangkok.

This is the first country I have reached this type of goal. I have only been to 49 of the US states. I also have never visited one of The Netherlands provinces even after living there for 15 years but never really thought about it until I left.

I am happy to say I have visited all the Thai provinces but still have things I want to see in Thailand, so the journey continues.

Betong to Satun

This is the route that google maps gave me for going from Betong to Satun.

I took 2 days to make this ride. I had planned a more remote route but having encountered some roads that scared me on previous rides I decided to take the safe route.

I headed out from Betong and turned right to avoid going through the center of town on what Google showed as alternative route until I wound up at the Malaysian border.

I guess I need to be a little more careful when picking my routes when close to a border. I turned around and made my way to route 410 and headed north staying in Thailand. Not sure about taking the bike across the border but I don't have a re-entry stamp in my passport so would require me to get a new Thai visa if I left the country.

I spent a night in Hat Yai to break up the ride and then the following morning I continued on to Satun.

Satun is not really on the tourist trail. When I was trying to plan what to do in Satun most everything I looked at only had the island of Lipe and I am not much of an island person. The only tourist attraction I had planned was the Satun National Museum and it was closed the days I was in Satun.

I clicked on Tam Malang Observation Tower (หอคอยชมวิวตำมะลัง) on Google maps and decided it would be a good place to visit.

I have spent a lot of this trip looking at the Gulf of Thailand on the east side of Thailand but now I was on the west side of Thailand and was got to look at the Andaman Sea.

After walking around the pier at the site I proceed down the raised walkway through the mangrove forest and to the tower.

I climbed up the stairs to the top of the tower thinking I would get a good view out over the Andaman Sea and this is the best view I had.

While I was sitting in the tower catching my breath from the stairs I decided to do some searches on my phone. At various coastal locations on this trip I would look up and see a raptor flying high above me with a brown body and a white head, it reminded me of a bald eagle. I believe what I had been seeing are white-bellied sea eagles. Following are a couple of pictures I downloaded off the internet.

When I was descending the stairs of the tower I noticed some branches shaking in some nearby trees. When I got to the ground I went over to see what the movement was and saw a troop of Dusky Leaf Monkeys.

I couldn't capture a good picture or video of any of the monkeys but this is the best I got.

I made my way back through the mangrove forest and rode back to the town of Satun. I found a hotel and then a laundromat before going to the night market for an evening meal.

Narathiwat through Yala City to Betong

This is the link for the route I took from Narathiwat through Yala City to Betong.

I made my way to the city of Yala and rode past the City Pillar without stopping or knowing for sure if that was what it was. I stopped at the Yala Clock Tower (หอนาฬิกา), snapped a picture and figured out it was the city piller in the middle of the last traffic circle.

I tried to add the main Mosque in Yala to my route plan but somehow got Google Maps into some kind of freaked out state. When starting the route the map it would switch to some location a long ways away from where I was. I could zoom out and see the route and where I was but if I hit re-center it would zoom in to some random location.

The directions at the top of the screen seemed to working so I followed them but ended up at Wat Kuhaphimuk (วัดคูหาภิมุข) and not the city mosque.

Wat Kuhaphimuk was a planned stop so I just visited it and skipped a stop at the mosque.

Wat Kuhaphimuk has a lot of stairs up to a cave temple. Not sure it was worth climbing the stairs but I got some pictures.

I had seen a YouTube video that said Route 410 between the city of Yala and Betong was one of the best motorcycle routes in Thailand. I had rode about 60 or 70 kilometers of this route and had a turn coming up so thought I was almost to Betong. I thought there has been some pretty scenery but not really an amazing ride.

I had misread my GPS and still had about 60K to go to Betong and that 60K was a really fun and pretty ride. My phone had me turn onto route 4363 and then route 3006 which ended connecting back to route 410. Not sure if taking those roads saved me any time but those roads had very little traffic and was a really fun ride.

I did this ride on a Saturday and encountered large groups of riders on route 410 before turning off the main highway. When I returned this way 2 days later I made a point to stay on route 410 and it was also a fun ride but with more traffic even without the weekend riding groups.

I didn't take any pictures on the ride south but stopped at a view point on the ride north. These are from a section of 410 I had bypassed on Saturday for this photo.

I spent two nights in Betong and this is my route plan for the Betong Sites.

I had planned for stopping at the Betong Clock Tower (Betong City Centre) (หอนาฬิกาเบตง) and the World's Largest Mailbox (ตู้ไปรษณีย์สูงใหญ่ที่สุดในโลก) later in the day but went right by at the start of the day. Here are the photos.

My next stop was at the Winter Flower Garden in Betong (สวนหมื่นบุปผา เบตง) and is was a great ride to get to the entrance. Once I was there I just didn't feel like going in for some reason.

I snapped a photo near the entrance and then stopped again above the gardens and snapped another.

I rode on up to the entrance to the Piyamit Tunnel (อุโมงค์ปิยะมิตร) but again decided not to go in. I think I have become a bad tourist. The tunnels site is the top tourist site in Betong and I had no interest in seeing it. I did take a picture from the road.

I really enjoyed ride out to and past these tourist sites even though I didn't go in. It was a lot of fun on these twisty roads through the mountains.

I made my way back into town and made a stop at Phra Mahathat Chedi Phra Phuttha Thamma Prakat (พระมหาธาตุเจดีย์พระพุทธธรรมประกาศ).

In Betong I also stopped at Wat Phothisatto Chao Mae Kuan Im (วัดโพธิสัตโตเจ้าแม่กวนอิม).

I had time left in the day but had visited all the stops that I had planned. I guess when you skip going into places you save a lot of time. I sat in a coffee shop and looking at Google maps came up with an idea of a loop to ride and another temple to visit.

I rode over to the start of my planned loop and found a muddy mess of a road and abandoned my loop idea.

I headed out to the temple I had found on the map. I missed a turn so backtracked and then missed another turn and was riding down a small road that was not on Google maps. This non-mapped road had some pretty views.

I went on down this road until the pavement stopped and kept going until I got to a section that looked to be used very little and was very steep. I decided this was a good place to go back the way I came.

I think on my return I found the missed turn to the temple but decided I had done enough exploring for the day. I abandoned visiting this temple and called it a day.

The area around Betong was really pretty and I was happy I made the trip to the southern tip of Thailand.