April 27, 2012
We started on time, not really knowing how far we’d get! It always takes a couple of hours to get out of Bangkok…no matter how hard we try it’s just too confusing and trying to avoid the damn Motorway is a serious task! Taking the highway is really no fun so we decided to take the coastal roads. We passed through fishing villages of curious kids and colorful boats, shrimp farms, and random national parks. Thailand has done a real good job with their national parks. They’ve maintained them but I guess to do that they have to charge the almost standard 100-200 bhat per person! The other great thing about Thailand that has made it so tourist friendly is the number of signs that denote temples, parks, waterfalls, statues etc. So it seems like there is always something to see. We first hit Hua Hin which is the preferred place for Bangkok beach go-ers to come. We felt it was way too expensive and didn’t feel like paying for something that was not worth it. Even though we were literally melting from the heat, we kept on and made a quick stop for a drink made of coconut, green jellies, cane syrup and crushed ice (like a drink version of Malaysian cendol!) which gave us the boost we needed. We took some roads into some villages that looked promising but found them kinda dirty and without places to stay or camp. Eventually we hit a town called Prachaup Khiri Khan. It was pretty quiet but had small guest houses facing the ocean. One in particular caught our eye, it was called Nigi’s Guest House. The 3-story townhouse/condo was painted in vibrant oranges, yellows, blues and reds with Buddhas and Om’s in every corner. Being exhausted from the heat we took the topmost room which had a view of the ocean front. The view definitely made for a setting to chill out for the evening. Just one thing, it was still damn hot. That night we turned over and over sweating and even with two fans within a foot from our bed, we could not get relief! I tried to make myself pass out by watching episodes of my beloved Bravo shows that were (surprisingly!) on Thai tv. We decided that the next day we definitely would need some air con or we’d go mad!
To be honest, we probably could’ve made it to Krabi (on the Andaman coast) if we had taken the highway but we thought we’d enjoy the east coast a bit too. The next day we set out early and found that we were definitely getting to the heart of south Thailand as more mosques started to appear and everyone thought we were Malaysians. We passed an amazing stretch of beach but we felt it was too early in the day to stop! We ran across two amazing RVs on steroids. There were some European people traveling just as we are except they literally have their whole house on wheels! Thinking we’d call it an early night since we didn’t have enough sleep the night before, we started to look for some place to stay around 3pm. Everything was overpriced, old, and unclean. So we came to the conclusion that we’d camp. By the time we found somewhere to camp, it was getting dark. We found a restaurant that seemed to have some decent land next to it for us to pitch a tent. The family that owned the restaurant agreed to us staying there and we started to build our tent. I don’t know if we were delirious from the heat or we just plain forgot, but we rode the bike onto the sand next to the tent. There were mosquitos flying in every direction and having a buffet at my expense…Nick never gets bitten! We reluctantly smothered Odomos (it’s the best stuff!) on ourselves only to find that sand stuck to us with the cream and the sweat. Not a fun feeling. We downed a couple of rum and cokes and ordered some food in a hurry since I was still being devoured by the mosquitos. Once we finished, we headed back to the tent and realized that we pitched it in the wrong direction. We should’ve pitched it so the breeze off of the ocean can flow through the mosquito nets. Too tired and not ready to battle the sand again, we headed to sleep. It was another long hot night! I kept having dreams of being swept away in the tent with high tide. The morning turned out to be a sand-fest when we tried to take the bike out! It took us about and hour and a half to dig the wheel out and try to figure out how to get the bike out of the deep sand! What we needed was man power…only no one was awake yet. Eventually the ladies of the family that owned the restaurant came out. I really didn’t want to ask them to help pull the bike out of the deep sand so early in the morning. I asked if their husband/father was around and that was a no go. Instead they all decided to come and help us. I’m not sure where they were pushing from but with all of us pushing the bike we got it out in a minute. Which made us draw the conclusion that living in the Western world has made us soft…not the first time we’ve realized that. We learned a lot of lessons that day 🙂
