Heard the call to pair but didn't get up for another hour when the gods started. When into the office bit of the GH and as Mary's family was having breakfast I was given some as well. It was just egg and rice but tasted good. Spoke to a Thai guy with curly hair about the island he had grown up on it was not far from Coh pan-ang. Peter joined us and I said I wanted to higher a motorbike and he said we should explore together. I said OK, so after breakfast Mary took me over to a place that hired bikes.

It was quite nice riding on the back of her bike with her between my legs, dodging through the traffic. You left your Passport as security against the motorbike and that was about all. If the bike got damaged you were expected to pay for it, no mater whose fault it was. They didn't ask for insurance or to see a license. It cost 200B a day (24hours) for a 110cc step through Suzuki and for this money you got a free plastic helmet that wouldn't do much in an accident but was compulsory on the mainland and it did give you some feeling of protection. I followed Mary back to the GH. The only rule of the road I could figure out was doesn't hit anything else.

Met up with German Peter and we headed south. Peter looked like a German soldier from WWII what with his plastic helmet. I think he thought he was on an Autobahn at times, he roared off down the road at top whack, about 110Kmh, which is fast if you haven't been on a bike for over 17 years and that was only a 50cc one limited to 50Kmh. I could imagine Peter speeding over the steps of Poland on his bike, quite a strange site, but he was obviously having fun.

We got down to a little village near where the river entered to Gulf of Thailand. There was a big Wat with the same Sea Goddess that I saw the Captain of the Night Boat praying to, on a hill. We walked up to it and talked about what we both wanted out of this trip to Thailand. I told him about the BTCV and he talked about his time doing community work instead of military service back in Germany. After we got board of the Wat and its colourful chickens we went into the village centre that had a sign just out side of it saying "Entering City Limits, Slow Down". Peter went into a shop to ask directions; even though everyone was quite friendly we weren't able to get any useful info. In the end we just zoomed out of town like a couple of Bikers, that we weren't!

We ended up at a Nature Sanctuary and after looking up the bikes walked down a sandy path to the beach where we came across a European guy trying to knock down Coconuts with a very long poll. His wife looked on with amusement, as did a Thai guy. We wished him luck and walked on.

Sat on the beach and through stones into the sea. We both agreed that this is what life is about. I found out he was a part time Landscape Gardener who gets 7 weeks holiday a year and as its winter now and things are a bit slow, his boss gave him another 3 weeks of unpaid.

Got back on the bikes and headed south again. Not that we had much of a choice, as there was only the one road. Stopped for an ice cream being sold by a man pushing a handcart. Peter insisted on going up a dirt track and into someone's front garden to eat his ice cream. It had the usual assortment of chickens and dopey dogs. Before we had finished our ice creams, an old woman came out of the jungle, which was her back garden and asked us what we were doing on her land in Thai. Peter tried to talk to her but in the end she made it quite clear we were to "get off my land". Almost like being on an English Farmers field but I did think she had a point, as I wouldn't have liked it if it had been the other way round. Peter said how rude he thought she was, I just kept quite.

Rode past an "Important Battleship" called Chumpon after the town. I would have liked to look round it but Peter wasn't into "war stuff". Wonder what he would have said if I told him how he looked in his bike helmet?

Peter and the girl

After a little while, the old monk showed us a locked cave. He told us to take off our shoes as he opened it up. Inside was a god statue of the Sea Goddess and some other religious people. Another Monk came in and started to light fires at the back of the cave. The smoke rose to the top of the cave but then as more smoke kept being made and it had no way out except through the door we came in, it started to descend filling the cave as it went, nice.

There was one statue near the entrance that looked a bit like Father Christmas, with the white beard and every thing. The finishing touch was the Deer by his side. Could it be a Rain Deer? Gold cords connected all the statues together. It the smoke was getting to us, we left.

We went down to the beach for some fresh air. The old monk followed us down and opened up a concrete shed built into the side of a cliff. Inside he showed us a coffin looking box with, to our relief, food and cooking implements. This shed only had a lock on the out side and we gathered that monks were locked inside to meditate until someone decided to you out. A young teenage monk came to join the three of us. I asked if I could get him to take a picture of the old monk and us together but the old monk said no.

He then said we should climb up the cliff, I didn't fancy it but Peter did and climbed up the steep rocky hill and disappeared. After about 10 minutes of not hearing him, I decided to find out what had happened to him. The old monk`s BO was getting a bit much as well. I climbed up where Peter had gone but didn't find him. I heard talking so followed it down on to a beach where there was a young Thai couple having a bit of fun. They stopped when I dropped in on them. Well the path was quite steep and once I had started down, there was no way I could stop, until I landed on the beach. I said hello and they smiled and laughed, so I don't think I startled them too much. Peter came down the same path as me, about 5 minutes later. He said he couldn't find anything of interest and thought the monk was having a bit of fun with us.

The sea had dropped and we followed the couple back along the beach to the Wat. The old monk asked if we wanted to spend the night but we declined. We had had about as much of the old monk and his Wat as we wanted. It was possible to have too much of a good thing. We jumped back on the bike ad sped off, with the old monk waving after us.

Peter took a wrong turn and I had to really gun it to catch him up and shout out to him that we had gone wrong. We went back the way we came, past the battleship, past the village with the Sea Goddess on the hill and down the fast road. Peter started overtaking cars doing about 120Kmh to get passed. I held back a bit because I didn't feel safe going at this kind of speeds but decided that if I were to stay with him, I would have to go faster that I was. Doing 120Kmh on Thai roads on an 110cc bike is quite exhilarating one moment and shit scary the next. What with pot holes and other vehicles just pulling front of you and your motorbike only having a bicycle break to slow you down.

Just before we got into Chumpon we came across a market. I was glad for the rest! I got some "delicious" chocolate biscuits from a woman that spoke good English as a present for Mary. Peter, not to be out done, bought 3 different bags for her, as well. I had some spicy sausage with cabbage and sweet hot source for 20B V good. We saw a man making little pancakes on a hot plate attached to a handcart and we both had some for desert. Not bad, and only 1B each. We walked a bit farther down to where a guy was doing a DJ type of thing. We figured out that he was taking the piss out of us "farang" but was finishing each sentence with "but that's nice" in Thai and that was to signify that it was only in fun and not to cause us offence. We both wished we could understand more Thai, as some of the ladies on the other stalls would laugh at his comments.

Climbed back on the bikes and got back to the GH just as it was getting dark. Gave Mary the biscuits and she told me that there was a day boat leaving for Coh Tao tomorrow at 7:30, so I got her to come with me to hand back the bike and get my passport back. She gave me a lift back on her bike and as I sat behind her my legs astride her, my mind started to stray again. Mary and I talked for a little while when we got back, she told me she liked Peter but liked Englishmen more and that she would like me to teach her to speak English. She was a very nice girl and I couldn`t tell if this was a euphemism or not. As I knew she lived here at the GH I decided to be the perfect gent and after about and hour of talking to her said I needed to get up early tomorrow and was very tiered out from today, so was going off to bed. She didn't ask to join me and I didn't know if I was disappointed or relieved. Went out like a log as soon as my head hit the pillow.