9 November 2014
- A3PPABT9: U Thong - Ayutthaya Bicycle Track
- General data:
- We started our last trip of this bicycle tour at the Khong Thongthip Resort in U-Thong and ended the ninth bicycling day at Tony's Place in Ayutthaya.
- Technical data of the trip was as follows: Total Distance: 94.94 Km; Moving Average: 22.6 Km/Hr; Overall Average: 18.6 Km/Hr; Maximum Speed: 30.6 Km/Hr; Moving time: 4 Hr 11 Min; Stopped Time: 55 Min; Total Time: 5 Hr 6 Min.
- Number of participants: 2 (Pat & Steve)
Finally the last bike day of this 9-day tour. We hit the road already at 0615 Hr, keen to arrive in Ayutthaya before noon. U Thong was a Dvaravati walled city located on the west bank of the Chorakhe Samphan River having in earlier times its estuary in the Gulf of Thailand. Excavations revealed that the city was abandoned because the river changed its course in the eleventh or twelfth century. Its citizens relocated to Suphanburi. We biked through a part of the old city as the Malai Maen Road cuts a corner out of it. At the northern tip we find the modern clock tower of U Thong and here we turned east towards the Tha Jin River, south of Suphanburi.
The hills were now far behind us and we biked through the rice fields of the Central Plains. Shortly after 0900 Hr we stopped in the middle of nowhere to bite a snack. Steve's crank started to moan more and more and we started to fear his bike would go the spirits.
We crossed the Tha Jin River near Ban Mae Thiang. From the bridge we overlooked the festivities at Wat Suan Hong were preparations were made for a boat race. The Long Boat Racing Festival is a yearly event during the Buddhist Lent period since olden times when the waters are at their highest level. The long small boats are dug out of one single auspicious tree and its crew trained many weeks prior the event. The custom dates back from the Ayutthaya era. We viewed the colourful spectacle from upon the bridge for a while.
At the crossing with the main road in Ban Mae Thiang we stopped at the 7-Eleven to fill up the bottles as we were nearly half way and I took the occasion to buy a couple of oranges at a market stall. From there we made another two stops in the Bang Sai and Sena areas. We arrived at Tony's Place at 1115 Hr. The end of an epic bike tour of 800 Km in 9 days.