Got a bit of a traditional Thailand tourist experience today as I attempted to make my way north from Patong to Khao Lak, an area along the west coast of Thailand. I decided to take the bus, but I needed to get back to Phuket town to catch the bus going north. So I took a small city bus from Patong to Phuket, but it didn't drop off at the main Phuket bus station. Instead, it dropped off a couple of miles from there, where, before I was even off the bus, I was approached by multiple tuk-tuk drivers offering rides to the bus station. You might think that with many drivers and one tourist, I might be in some sort of position of power, but stranded with all my luggage miles from where I needed to be I felt more like the cow being lowered into the pin of Velociraptors in Jurassic Park. I agreed to $1 for the ride to the bus station, but I had to agree to a stop at a store, knowing that the driver would get paid for bringing me there. The stop was one of the famous gem stores that I'd read lots of warnings about as tourist traps and to be avoided. So after feigning interest in some (likely fake) gems, we were off to the bus station, where I waited another couple of hours until the next bus was leaving for Khao Lak.
About 7 or 8 hours after I left Patong, I finally made it to Khao Lak and checked into my guesthouse. Khao Lak seemed a bit like a ghost town - definitely not much in the way of nightlife there, which wasn't too much of a surprise given that it's not really known for nightlife and it's wet/low season. So the most exciting part of the night was hanging out with some newborn kittens at the guesthouse. Sorry, no photos, but they were ridiculously cute.
Day 97 - Saturday, April 28
Most of the stuff to see around Khao Lak is a little spread out, so I opted to rent a moped for a few days. I wanted to check out the beaches, which is the primary attraction to the area. So I rode up and down the main highway that runs parallel to the coast, shooting over to the beach at various points to check it out. The beaches were mostly empty too, and at nearly all of them, I had the whole beach to myself. But it wasn't exactly beach weather, as it was cloudy and seemed on the verge of rain most of the day.
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
I also came across a pretty cool two-level waterfall while buzzing around on the moped as well:
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
I'm going to take a moment to ramble about Thai food for a bit. I love thai food. When living in the US, I ate Thai food all the time, and it was definitely among my favorites. So I was very much looking forward to the food in Thailand, and it hasn't been a disappointment at all. Great restaurants are all over the place and most meals are in the $3-5 range. I think the one drawback to food and accommodation being so cheap is the effect it's had on my diet. With hotels so cheap, I've stayed almost exclusively in hotels (as opposed to hostels), none of which have kitchens, so I haven't bothered cooking for myself at all, as I did a lot in NZ and Oz. But even if I did have access to a kitchen I probably wouldn't do any cooking, because supermarkets are virtually nonexistent and the ones that are around don't really sell meat and things that I would use to cook. The only meat I've seen for sale is usually unrefrigerated in open-air markets, and that's kind of sketchy. And then when you add to that the awesome food at cheap prices, preparing my own meals was never really given much consideration, with the exception of cereal for breakfast of course. Can't not have my cereal. So anyway, other than breakfast, I ate out every meal. As a result, my diet is quite a bit less healthy than when I was preparing my own meals. I also think I've eaten my body weight in coconut milk. As a result, I think my pants have gotten a little tighter since I got to Thailand. I'm not done rambling about Thai food yet, but this is a really long paragraph so I'm going to start a new one.
So one thing that I've noticed about Thailand is that serving sizes are a bit small. Or perhaps the US portion sizes I'm used to are a bit large. The latter actually seems more likely based on comments I've heard from other travelers, with those that have traveled to the US almost all commenting about how large the food portions are there. So I guess we're just a nation of gluttons in America. Those that know me, know I can put away some food, so I'm certainly no exception. Anyway, with the Thailand portions being a bit small I generally either ate 4 or 5 meals a day, or more frequently, ordered multiple main courses at restaurants, which often ended with some small Thai kid who worked at the restaurant staring open-mouthed at the giant Farang (Farang is what they call white people) with four plates in front of me, eating as much as his whole family probably eats for a meal.
So going back to Saturday in Khao Lak, I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at about 10 and had been keeping my eye out for a good place for food all day, but hadn't seen anything that caught my eye. It was about 330 when I left the waterfall to head back to the town I was staying and I was STARVING. So imagine my excitement when I was cruising down the road and saw these signs:
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
It was cloudy most of the day, but the rain didn't come until early evening and continued for most of the night. Wet season indeed.
Day 98 - Sunday, April 29
I was originally only planning to spend 2 nights in Khao Lak, but I was enjoying finally having the freedom of having my own wheels and ability to go and explore wherever I wanted to for the first time since leaving SC, and there were a few other waterfalls that were among the biggest attractions in the area that I hadn't yet seen, so I decided to stay another night and spend Sunday exploring some more. Khao Lak Lam Ru National Park borders Khao Lak and contains the aforementioned waterfalls and some nearby hiking trails, so the plan was to spend the day checking it out.
I was pleasantly surprised to see blue skies when I woke up, and was thinking that it might finally be a day without rain after quite a bit of rain in Patong and Khao Lak over the previous several days. It was about a 25 mile ride over to the town of Kapong where the farthest of the two waterfalls was, so I started off heading that way. Unfortunately, the blue skies soon disappeared and were replaced with rain clouds and some light rain. Light rain wouldn't really be a big deal if I was hiking or just walking around as it might provide some welcome coolness, as the water fights did in Bangkok. But when riding a moped without a windscreen or sun glasses and lots of exposed skin, light rain tends to feel like thousands of flying needles when moving at any reasonable speed. So I opted to park on the side of the road and try to wait it out as it looked like it might only be a small cloud. My dry spot on the side of the road and my noble steed:
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
Unfortunately after I left and started heading back towards Khao Lak the rain started again, and this time it didn't look like it was going to be something that could be waited out. And it just kept raining harder and harder. Twenty-five miles from your hotel with only a moped at your disposal and no rain gear is not really the ideal place to be in a serious rainstorm. Add to that that I was hungry and there didn't appear to be any restaurants nearby, and it wasn't the best situation. It rained all afternoon, so I'm glad I didn't decide to try to wait it out. Stupid wet season.
I think this was the last day that the LCD screen on my camera worked, and so from this day until at least May 11th, my camera only operated in a point and guess mode, which can be quite frustrating. Unfortunately, it makes me less inclined to take pictures and means pictures are often not ideal, so just keep that in mind for the remaining Thailand posts. I plan to replace it in Malaysia - probably with a waterproof one, which is what I really wish I had brought with me in the first place and would recommend to anyone considering a similar trip.
Day 99 - Monday, April 30
My moped was due back at 11am, so I opted to wake up early and go check out the other waterfall I had wanted to see - Chong Fa falls, which is a cool 5-level waterfall with a hiking trail along the side of it that allows access to each of the levels. It just wouldn't be right if I robbed you of any of the levels, so here are all 5 of them:
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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| From Thailand - Khao Lak |
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