ToST III - Part 8

Leaving Hat Yai...

We had half the day free.
Some of the guys had decided to sleep in while a few of us headed to the city area in search of late breakfast.
The hotel offered food at its restaurant and pub.
This is just an average fare and since we've had so much to drink the night before, it was just right to load up on coffee and some light snacks.
Sin suggested the porridge shop near the old Lee Garden hotel on Niphat Uthit 3. 
The place is very near to the Emperor Hotel where we stayed on ToST 1.
It took us less than 15-minutes to get there and we got down to business by ordering some porridge and steamed chicken.

A view from the hotel's window...

Late breakfast

Prepping for the long haul back to Kuala Lumpur..

I've put a broadcast on what time to meet before departure.
From the breakfast place downtown, we rode back to the hotel, parked the bikes outside the lobby and went back to our room to pack.
While chilling out, I managed to re-pack some of my stuff including a couple of food and toiletry items.
I like the travel-sized shampoo and body shower gels that are sold in Thailand. And at one particular wholesale mart, I found them cheap.
While we were resting in our rooms, Pat broadcasted a distress call over the Facebook messenger. He had a flat tire again.
The bike shop fellas really screwed up his Surly Long Haul Trucker.
And by 12:30pm sharp, all the guys were gathered around the lobby. 
We rigged up the bikes and rode out towards the Tune Hotel in Hat Yai where we had our lunch at the Koay Teow Lueah (Boat koay teow) shop. 
For the third time, this became our regular makan place.. 

The tasty and spice Kuay Teow Lueah 

The owner of the shop preparing his noodle dish...

Riding to the train station.. 

A successful tour with the 2008 Dahon Speed P8

Roger, keeping an eye on the bikes...

Inside the sleeping berth on coach L8, Express Langkawi

We unloaded our panniers and started working on bagging the bikes.
This time round, I decided to carry my trunk bag and panniers. The Speed P8 was much lighter on the carry-on cover.
At the train station, I collected 100 baht from everyone to pack dinner. This, with some light snacks and drinks was purchased from the Robinson's department store nearby.
Michelle and I worked on this while the guys waited at the train station..

Waiting at the LRT station in KL Sentral 

Job well done! 

Setting up the bikes for the ride to Michelle's parent's home.. 

Enduring the 14-hour train ride..

Given the choice, I would prefer the bus service. They don't take that long to get to Kuala Lumpur from Hat Yai. Its also pretty comfortable and the travel time is much shorter.
On the train, we need to lug our bikes and luggage to a platform where two coaches and an engine awaits.
It departs at 4pm Thai time and arrives the next day in KL Sentral at 06:30am.
The good thing about this trip was the return tickets that we bought in advance. 
This means, no fart face and stares from passengers whose seats we had taken up.
But the fact remained that people actually smoke in-between the coach and when you take up the front row (So that we can keep an eye on the bikes and luggage), you have to put up with people coming and going through the door.
We are immune to this and endured the long ride to KL.
Strange as it seems, the air-conditioning was not cold on the ageing coach.
As the train approaches the Kuala Lumpur railway station, we parted ways with Pat and Sin.
The remaining ones alighted at KL Sentral.
I waved goodbye to Andrew Ng and Roger excused himself to visit the toilet.
Michelle and I lugged our bikes to the LRT station and boarded the ride towards the Paramount station.
We parted ways with Roger and wished him good luck on this trip to Cambodia in the following week.
When we got off at Paramount, we set up our bikes and rode to Michelle's parent's home in SS3, packed up again and drove back to Subang Jaya.
Upon arrival, our dogs were happy to see us with their tails wagging.
The ToST III has been an interesting trip.
We've enjoyed Thale Noi the most and the stay in Ranot and Sathing Phra was an eye-opener.
Towards the third-quarter of this year, we will be planning a fourth tour of Southern Thailand and are looking forward to realizing it...

ToST III - Part 7

The journey to Hat Yai..

We've had a great time in Songkhla. 
This time, we had a proper and working air-conditioning and great food.
We met up at the motel yard and prepared the bikes for its journey to Hat Yai, which is roughly about 40km away.
The plan was to have breakfast and we discovered that there is a road parallel to Songkhla's route 407. 
This inner road exits at the 408 intersection and while we were cycling to look for food, we found a Chicken rice shop and decided to have our makan there.
It turned out that the owner had worked in Japan for 10 years and spoke fluent Japanese. He tried to strike a conversation with Sin Tai Lim and it was quite amusing.
And on the quality of food, I must say that this shop has one of the best chicken rice around Songkhla.
During our stay in Songkhla, we discovered a few good eating places and the usage of a bicycle had opened up plenty of avenues for sight-seeing. You won't be able to see such places if you drive or in a tour group.
After the good fill, we rode down the 407 and began our journey towards Hat Yai on the 408.

Dawn in Songkhla

Roger

Pat

The chicken rice stall

A decent breakfast

Helmet failures.. 

First puncture..

Mid-way down the road towards the 408, Michelle said her rear tire felt funny.
I told her to pull over and checked the pressure. 
It was slowly leaking air.
On the Dahon Speed TR, you would need a special tool to remove the nuts that is holding the wheels on the fork.
This is a tedious affair and it's very time consuming.
I removed the wheel and took out the inner tube. Felt around and found a piece of wire that pierced the outer wall.
There were pebbles and glass fragments embedded on the tire wall, but this was not enough to go through the puncture-protected layer.
In my humble opinion, the Schwalbe Big Apple tires are the best touring wheels around. You can't ask for more. Although it rolls rather slow, the Big Apples would get you there and back.
I set in a new inner tube, inflated it with my Biologic seatpost pump and we were on our way.
The one thing that annoyed me was the fact that some of the guys went out on their own and were waiting some five kilometers away.
I was also quite pissed off when they made no effort to call us with the Thai cellphone line.
Lucky for us, we located them at a coffee shop, chilling out from the heat.
All of them were having their brew, I walked off and got myself an iced coffee from a stall at the end of the row.

Fixing the flat

Resuming the journey

Into Hat Yai...

We were cycling on the 408 and on the other side of the road, the landscape was totally alien to me. 
It took me a while to realize that we were cycling on the same route when we did the ToST I last year. 
There were a couple of rolling hills along the way and this was no issue as we maintained our speed at 13km/h and slowly climbed and rolled down towards the junction leading to Hat Yai's city centre.
At mid-day, the sun was up and it was getting really hot.
After taking a right turn towards the Sena Narong Military Hospital and Route 4 leading to Hat Yai's Big C hypermarket.
From there, Pat led the way and got lost. I seriously didn't know what the hell he was doing, cycling in circles.
We made our way towards Niphat Uthit Road 1 and found a Vespa dealership that also sells bicycles.
Here, we met the owner Khun Paul who was nice enough to talk to us. The guys spent some of their Thai baht here by purchasing some bike gear.
I bought two Blackburn lights and the most decent find was a Blackburn Super Flea. This was a score as it's not available in Malaysia.
We also installed a double kickstand that cost us about 650 baht (RM65).
I was quite annoyed by one of the store clerk when she demanded my full name and phone number. 
For the kickstand, I paid her with coins and made her count every single shilling.

An advertisement for the Songkran festival in Hat Yai

Leaving Songkhla

Rolling into Hat Yai

Pat, leading us nowhere.. 

Every Baht counts.. 

Installing the double kickstand

At the Vespa dealership

With Khun Paul at the bicycle shop

Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles...

After checking-in at the hotel, we visited another bike shop in the downtown area.
This was the trendiest store in town, and also the worse bike service dealership.
We met the owner last year, but he couldn't recall ever seeing us.
Michelle said she was annoyed with the fact that the guy was completely oblivious to our presence and the fact that we spent so much money shopping at the store.
"What an ass! Stupid businessman..," she said.
I wasn't really bothered with the guy's business model. We didn't spend at all and as the day became hotter, Pat decided to leave his bike for service, something which he had regretted.
The shop specializes in Surly bikes, but the quality of their service really sucks as Pat had his bike returned with a double puncture. It seems that the moron who tuned his bike had fucked up the rim tap in the wheels.
We continued riding around Hat Yai and decided to get back to our rooms for some rest.
The guys went out on their own and we met up for dinner later in the day.

At the trendy bikes store downtown..

Sin, with a girl who works at the Roasted pork shop

You can't separate Pat from good food!

Dinner at the Elephant restaurant.. 

A hundred and two bottles of beer throughout the tour!

We had dinner at the usual Elephant hot pot restaurant.
Sin made the order and we splurged on the good food and beers.
Our beer consumption had totaled to 102 bottles throughout the journey and after a good fill, we staggered back to our rooms to get a good night's sleep..