Day 1 - First Ever Bicycle Touring Nakon Si Thammarat 17 Oct'13

This is my first ever bicycle touring adventure. I must thank Sam Cheong for inviting me which I wanted to do it for quite sometime.

There were 4 of us in this tour comprising of Sam, his wife Michelle and Roger Teoh. We started from Pudu Bus Terminal at 10pm on the evening of October 16, 2013 which means that we had to sleep in the coach. 

By 7.00am (Thai time) we managed to clear the immigration check points and continued our bus ride to Hatyai. 

Just before 8pm we arrived at Hatyai.

 Street foods in Thailand is always interesting and tempting, we have some plain noodle soup and it was awesome.

The stall was near the bus terminal where we will continue our travel to Nakhon Si Thammarat.

This was the van we hired to Nakhon Si Thammarat where we could load our bicycles without any worry as to compare to boarding a local bus. We paid 1,850 bahts for the rental.

As excited as ever for a new venture of another milestone....

12noon - Sorry friends... we couldn't hire you and we have our own bicycles but I love their trishaws.

The room rate at Thai Hotel was reasonable 500bahts per night.

Though the hotel is old but it's well maintained and after all we just wanted a good sleep and will be leaving the hotel in the wee morning.

1.00pm - I love this gang everyone of us love to eat and we went out checking for popular food near the hotel. By the way the hotel is located in the Chinatown and food is abundance.

A local man recommended us this shop near Bangkok Bank for a meal of their famous chicken rice.

We had Hainanese Chicken rice, noodle and satay and it was a satisfying lunch.

After a good meal we went walking around the area visiting places like the train station. This station is cleaner than the one in Hatyai.

Food is everywhere unfortunately we could not try every nice food that came along....

2.30pm - I made new friends, they have 3 wheels I have only 2 small wheels but we have one thing in common we pedal!!!

2.30pm - Now it was time to discover more of Nakhon Si Thammarat, one of the most ancient cities in Thailand. 4 folding cyclists with helmets roaming in in the city of Nakhon Si Thammarat is not an every sight so we were there to show off ..... hehehe it was fun!

A renovated temple called Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan was the highlight of the day.

Some say it was built in 311 but some recorded as 13th century...as for me that is a very very old temple.

This part of the world is not popular to foreign tourists as we hardly see any  foreigners loitering around.... 

We move from one corner to another with our bicycles....

Apparently this is the most important temple in South Thailand.

Nakhon Si Thammarat and her amulets (Sam-po) and other related products sold in the temple.

The North Gate (one and only one at the North wall) of the ancient fortification City Wall....it was well restored and good for photography.

Mosque was also seen in the city.

Another mosque seen during our roaming in the city.

The sight seeing continues .....this is somewhere in Chinatown where we stayed.

4pm - Another view of the City Wall.

5.30pm - First happy hour of the tour!

Their Thai coffee was excellent...kopi "O" kaw kaw...

The interior of this kopi tiam is nice and conducive.

7.30pm - I was advised to wash my clothing daily as I had only 3 tee shirts & 2 shorts for the entire trip.

Cloth line using a nylon string for fishing. Another good tip from a seasoned traveller.

A dinner in Chinatown at the roadside....tai chow... It was good, cheap & delicious.

All hApPy and a good Day 1.