Ayutthaya to Saraburi

by Roy on January 20, 2013

DAY 49 – We got directions from a local Chinese guy after eating breakfast and began making our way to Saraburi on the back roads. When we reached the limit of the directions we had got from the Chinese guy, we asked a policeman who gave us a garbled set of instructions.

Not overly clear on the way, we arrived at a main highway, which we needed to cross in order to continue. Suddenly the same policeman appeared on his scooter and escorted us to the underpass u-turn where we were able to cross the road and continue on our way.

I chosen the road as I believed it would be quieter, as my map showed it as being a small white road, probably equivalent to less than a B-road in the UK. It turns out this must have been a shortcut of cut-through as we shared the road with a constant stream of traffic in both direction. Fortunately the drivers were mostly courteous and gave us plenty of room as they passed.

We came to the end of the cut-through and turned onto another supposedly smaller road, the 3056, which turned out to be even worse! Luckily I spotted a row of houses which had their own concrete road which ran parallel to the road we were on, so at the first opportunity we crossed a rickety wooden bridge and reached this concrete road. What a difference. We shared this road with only the occasional scooter and bicycle, far more pleasant than the cars and lorries!

As we continued, the 3056, the railway line and our concrete track all ran parallel. All to soon this road ended, however we continued onto another ‘white’ road on my map. This road did indeed turn out to be quiet, with only the occasional 4×4 passing.

We continued almost parallel with the railway line all the way into Saraburi, where we rode straight to the area of the station. From there we asked a few motorcycle taxi drivers and were given directions to a hotel on the main street. As we looked for it, Yami rode straight past but I noticed the word ‘hotel’ out of the corner of my eye. We checked into a large but well worn room in the large but well worn hotel for 190 baht.

Saraburi doesn’t have much to offer in the way of tourism, but we had a wander around the main central area, where we stumbled upon a large, well stocked bicycle shop. I needed to change my chain (I had bought one in Bangkok) and rear brake blocks, so I got them changed, and the bike serviced at the same time.

Not much else to report, we had dinner in the local market and ate some pastries – the local delicacy – which were very good, before settling in for an episode of Breaking Bad!