Day 3 - Prachuap Khiri Khan to Nakhon Pathom

Day 3: Prachuap Khiri Khan Nakhon Pathom It was 6am when I was awaken by knocks on my door. Reluctantly, I got out of bed. It is time to conquer the mountain mountain. We had to leave our bicycles behind to take a 1km+ walk over to the mountain. I was already feeling tired before the start of the climb. I picked up a long stick which was essential to ward off overly aggressive monkeys. I estimate that we past over 100 monkeys big and small along our climb up 390+ steps to the top. The last few flight of stairs were particularly tough. The view at the top was magnificent and worth all the climb. But there were some unhappy faces, they were exhausted.

After a photo shoot and prayers at the temple, we decented and went back to town for breakfast; a street store selling omelette and soya bean milk.

At 8.40am, we went to the train station to enquire about train tickets for our onwards journey to Nakhon Pathom. We wanted a 1pm ticket. However, we were told that the next train will be at 10.30am. Otherwise, we had to wait till 3pm. Not wanting to wait unnecessarily, we opted for the 10.30am train. The train ticket cost 48b but it is free for Thais. It cost 90b to load each bicycle up the train. I wonder who came up with such a lousy pricing scheme. We arrived at the train station at 10am and the train arrived at 10.30am as informed. After loading the bicycle up the cargo carriage, we realised that the entire train was packed. We had to sit in the cargo carriage; on cardboard laid on the train floor. What an adventure! It's a 4h30m train ride to Nakhon Pathom.

We arrived at 5pm dirty and sweaty. 35 degrees Celsius in the heat with the sight, sounds and smells of Thailand.

We managed to find a nice new hotel 'The Proud Exclusive Hotel' for 880b a night.

After settling down and having a much need bath, we rode our bikes to the biggest and tallest Chedi in Thailand for some prayers. It was magnificent standing at 120m in height and over 500m in diameter at its base.

Next we went back to the train station to enquire about train tickets to Bangkok. It was unfavourable as only the 7am or the 5pm train available. 7am is too early as we wanted to have a better rest in our nice hotel. The 5pm train was the same slow 3rd class train that we took yesterday. We were in delimma. We managed to seek some help from the motorbike taxi riders. They introduced us to the songtheaw taxi (pick up truck). After some negotiation, we settled for 1400b to bring us from our hotel at 12pm to the Bangkok train station. We felt that the fare was reasonable to bring us (4 pax + 4 bicycles) from the comfort of our hotel to Bangkok which is 60km away. We paid a 100b deposit to confirm the deal. On the west side of the chedi, there is a large food centre with many hawkers selling street food. However, these hawkers seem hawker stores seem to operate in clans/gangs. You cannot buy from 1 store and bring it to the next store to eat. This makes it very difficult for groups who want to enjoy the food of various stores together. The food was ok buy we didn't enjoy it very much. And so we rode back to our hotel to rest a little hungry. Lol.