Last day of cycling already! - Pailin to Thailand (44km)

Its hard to believe its the last day of cycling already! Suddenly, the time seems to have gone by so quickly and we're now in the final few days of the holiday. So today, I get to tick off country number three in my amazing Indochina adventure, with our bike ride and transfer to our final destination in Thailand. After a fairly poor nights sleep (I was woken up at 1.30am by a cockroach running up my arm!) punctuated by more vivid dreams, and a breakfast of omolet (sp!) and bread, it was time for our final ride. Today's route would take us to the Cambodian-Thai border via 16km of similar (if not quite so awful) roads as yesterday - cycling today was hard work as my legs were like jelly and there was very little juice in the tank to start with! But again, as yesterday, I just put my head down and got on with it and also tried to enjoy more of the scenery this time, as I didnt have to keep such a close watch on the roads!! After about 50mins cycling, we arrived at the border where we had to say good bye to Mr Veng and Mr Polo and our Cambodian steel ponies. It was a fairly easy process to get our Cambodian departure cards all stamped up (again, the same intricate rubber stamping process!) before walking the short no-mans land bit to the Thai arrivals post. Here, we had to fill out another Thai arrival/departure form to get our visa, along with showing a copy of our airline ticket out of the country. But, again, all very straightforward so within the hour, we were all done and transferred across and saying hello to Mr Tam and Nick, our Thai Spiceroads local guides. Our shiny new bikes were already waiting for us and, along with the tarmac roads, it was cycling nirvana!! The only kicker was that the whole 36km in Thailand was over rolling hills, some of them very long ones, so it didnt take long before my legs were burning as hard as my arms had the day before! On one particularly evil hill, it seemed as if my legs were spinning round but that I was hardly moving!! The scenery, though, was beautiful so I just took my time, went at my own (snails!) pace and worked my way through it. We had one rest stop where the nibbles de jour was some wonderfully succulent and juicy fresh pineapple - made a very nice alternative to the full of crap Choco Pies I seem to have become addicted to this trip!

At around 11.30am, we arrived at our destination - no idea where it was but the vans were there, waiting outside this shop that served us local Thai iced coffee and orange-coloured iced tea. As per the local custom, again, was all sweetened with large dollops of sticky condensed milk but was very tasty and just the job after all those hills!! Then it was time to hand back over our bikes (my arse had completely given out after yesterday - not helped by the fact that my cycling shorts seemed to be mounting a mutiny against my nether regions, so I was quite happy to call it a cycling day by this stage!) and get in the vans for the transfer to our beach resort. We stopped at a place called Chantaburi for lunch and a Thai seafood feast (good job I've been breaking myself in on the seafood over the last 6months - fortunately, no tapeworm sushi to contend with this time!) before the final hour in the bus to take us to the Seashell Village in Leam Sing.

RESULT! The beach and resort is absolutely gorgeous and I completely lucked out with my room with my random key pick landing me a little cabin directly on the beach, built right next to the water. Whoo-hoo!!! Its the perfect place to relax, unwind and reflect on what's been a quite incredible trip. There's been so much that's happened over the last 2 weeks that its going to be great to go back over this blog, remember all the highlights and take time to organise all my pictures and memories. I've got quite a lot to think about, going back home, so this is going to be a great place to work through all those decisions. So, thank you, Spiceroads - this last place is a perfect way to end the tour!!