Well, everything was going smoothly...

We went down for breakfast at 8:30am. Not quite as special as the breakfasts we had at the last place, but still sufficient... scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and fruit. Right after breakfast, our host Pohn told us that they had to make a trip to the Myanmar border, and that we were on our own and to make ourselves at home.

He had left three older bikes out for us to choose from, and said there was no charge.

We relaxed for the rest of the morning and it was 11:30am or so by the time we set off on the bikes.

It's definitely an easy area to bike ride in.

The bikes were fine, other than mine was too small... I guess there aren't many Thai people with long legs! But, everything was going smoothly. We started up a very small incline heading up towards the national park, so I downshifted... when all of a sudden the rear wheel locked up solid and I came to a stop!

I looked down, and derailleur had lodged itself in the spokes of the rear wheel! The chain was jammed in between the sprocket and the spokes. And everything looked very bent!

I poked around at it and managed to get things a little bit back into shape, but I couldn't get the chain unjammed. There was a local guy harvesting something nearby, and he came over to have a look. No English, and of course we only speak two words of Thai. With hand signals etcetera, we managed to get things a little better, but we still couldn't get the chain unstuck. We needed some tools! He took off on his scooter and came back five minutes later with a flat screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

Our new Thai friend trying to fix the bike.

That got us back on the road. I could only use one gear, but at least it was a middle gear. Things were so bent, I'm surprised we got it working as well as we did with such basic tools. I gave the guy some cash for helping out, and he seemed quite happy with that.

It was good enough to get us another couple of kms to the Srilanna National Park.

We paid the 100 baht ($2.90 USD, $3.85) each entrance fee, and locked the bikes up to go for a walk.

Much of the park includes this reservoir that was created when the dam was completed in 1985.

We went for a walk on the 1.5 km (0.9 mile) "nature trail" which turned out to be a paved path wide enough for a car. You are also allowed on it with bicycles or scooters, but we didn't see a soul the whole way.

Big leaf from a tree!

Ruth, reading an information sign at a viewpoint.

Lots of greenery.

There was a different 5 kms trail that followed the shoreline, but it was closed because they were doing some construction right at the beginning of it. Shame, because there really wasn't much more to see in that part of the park. We could have done a boat ride, but they wanted 600 baht ($17.50 USD, $23 CAD) so we passed on that.

Instead, we went to the cafe for lunch. It has a nice view of the lake, and prices were reasonable.

We ordered a cashew chicken dish and a vegetable stir fry, and then split them.

Total cost including two bottles of water was 228 baht ($6.70 USD, $8.80 CAD).

It was actually a really good meal!

Arrived back at the guesthouse to find there are more guests! A guy from Netherlands with his Malaysian girlfriend. They both live in Singapore now. 

We're heading out to explore on foot this morning.

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Nice price drop on this Shark Cordless Stick Vac for Pets.

And in Canada...

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