We woke and packed up in our pleasant hotel watching the sun rise over the river. Then on to the bikes for a day which started on small roads and ended on a much more major road. 

The morning started along the small roads weaving along the south bank of the river Ping.  After a few kms a car pulled over and a woman jumped out waving at us. Wondering what we had done wrong, but she was just being kind and handed over a bag of food with lots of bowing and words that we interpreted as welcome to Thailand. We passed fields of rice in various stages of planting, sugar cane, cassava, oranges and other things we could not recognise. 

30km (at least on the flat) is about our ideal time for a stop.  By that point we got to the town of Khlong Khlung and found a smart cafe which did excellent coffee.  After this we fairly zoomed off; driven by cafine.  Soon though the choice of small roads disappeared.  We crossed the bridge to the north side to avoid the main highway 1 but the road we had to join proved to be quite busy.  This side of the river was much more industrialised, and we passed huge factories and a massive plant for processing sugar cane.   It belched out huge amounts of smoke, which did not help the air quality.

As usual there was a wide shoulder but we had to navigate motorbikes coming the wrong way – and the convention seems to be that the person who is on the right side of the road has to move out – into the path of the traffic of course.  

Picking routes in Thailand can be difficult because it is not always clear whether a road is a tiny back road or a big main road. We use Kamoot but that depends on an algorithm which is based on the records made by other users – and there are not too many other Kamoot users in Thailand.  

The road remained flat and the wind was low, so we pushed on for the 30km until we reached the outskirts of Kamphaeng Phet,a modern city surrounding an ancient historic site. This is about half way between Bangkok and Chiang Mai so a good place for a day off to see some culture, plan and recuperate. 

We stopped at the “three Js” guesthouse which was very relaxed and feels like the right place to stop for a couple of nights.

In the evening we went out to a colourful, thriving night market where stall after stall was stirring up delicious smelling food. We plumped for one that seemed very popular for a plate of fried noodles.   That was pretty good but who knows precisely what we were eating.