Take a break and then a rest after

We've had ourselves 6 days of riding now. We find ourselves plenty of little shops selling snacks along the way--jackfruit chips, chocolate soy milk, sweet sticky rice--and clean water stations too (insert 1 baht, put bottle under spout, and out comes an allotment of reverse-osmosis filtered water). The moist heat and relentless sun would be unmanageably unbearable if it weren't for the delicious breeze from pedaling, the occasional clouds, or the stops for iced thai tea.

Although the iced thai tea is mostly a can of sweetened condensed milk, so green tea is preferable.

We are taking a rest period starting tomorrow! We are going to Koh Kood, a small island off the southeast coast. A Thailand Island! (just say that a few times--isn't it nice?) We find the ferry tomorrow morning and plan to stay for a few nights if we can manage it.

We are staying in Trat tonight: an adorable ferry-hopping town with a board-walk along the river, plenty of charming affordable guest houses, and some signs in English. Yes, this is a touristy place, but unlike Bangkok, hawkers are not banging down our ears, and it is very pleasant to be here. Alleys wind from the night market to the wee coffee shops, lined with flower pots and parked motor bikes.

Let me tell you, after having a number of nights off that proverbial beaten path, being able to read signs for guest houses is a real treat. In the small towns we have to go through the theatre production--for an increasingly enlarging group of bemused roadside Thais--of acting out that we need to find a guest house ("sleep"=face against hands) and pointing questioningly to various streets. Yowee I wish I spoke Thai, but it is a tonal language where each sound has 6 possible renditions.

I had a bag of sweetened yucca root and a piece of fried chicken (I know, healthy, but I ate greens for breakfast) at the night market, padded about in the purple sunset dancing with chirping swarming bats, and now am heading to my cozy 3-dollar-a-night bed.