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.