Week Thirty Three / Four

Thailand – Khao Lak:

Our new hotel is called Bandhari Hotel and it is in the heart of Khao Lak. Whilst not as plush as Cape Panwa it is still very pleasant, on the coast with a nice pool complex and excellent dining facilities- with the added bonus of a short walk to the town which is flooded with the usual. Markets, Taylors, Laundry shops, tour operators, 7- Eleven’s and of course restaurants, typical Thailand.
These two weeks brought with them a pleasant surprise, with the collapse of the chance of a trip with Kingy Laura was high and dry for the half term holiday so with just three days notice she flew to Phuket and we collected her from the airport for what was a fabulous 5 day break – well for us anyway! It was nice to spend a few days away with Laura without the interference of an earthquake! On the Monday morning taking full advantage of the car we hired to go to the airport we set off for a local beach which we had discovered a couple of days earlier when out on a moped. It is called White sand beach Khao Lak – worth looking up. There we lounged around and enjoyed the local cocktails looking across the white sand and onto the Andaman sea, taking advantage of what was now becoming a rare sunny day. On the issue of the hire car we managed to hire a Toyota Hi-Lux fully insured for £22 per day, we didn’t want a car that big but that was all they had in the shop, and it turned out to be a blessing. You would not have believed the rain and thunderstorm we drove back through on the Monday morning at 01:00 with Laura from the airport. I think if we had a small car we might have been washed away or lost in some of the puddles, or lakes, at the side of the roads that night. So a big thanks to Budget for their help with the car hire.
It is true that the weather has turned a little worse this week. Rather than what we expected – mostly sunny with a rain shower every afternoon, which is typical of this time of year here, we had mostly rain with a little sun here and there. We are not complaining as we are lucky enough to be away for a long while, but is was sad to see the other holiday makers on a 2 week stay watching it rain all day, thankfully it always remains warm. Despite this we always found plenty to do. As it was always warm we would sometimes just sit out the rain by the pool chatting to people we met there, or we would sit drinking coffee and chat to Laura about all the things you miss out on when your daughter lives 6000 miles away.
Wendy and I were also keeping up our swimming every day, this was helping Wendy with a long term shoulder / arm problem she had and just helps a little with keeping some form of fitness. I am sure we will look back on this blog in years to come and laugh at how little seemed to occupy us for so long on this trip, but heck we feel we deserve it, at least for a year or two.
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t include a few words about the 2004

Tsunami especially as the area worst affected in Thailand was where we are staying now, Khoa Lak. If we cast our minds back to the famous footage on multiple newsreels where a tourist films a young family playing on the beach when the tide rushes out and the sea seemingly disappears, before you see a breaking wave on the horizon, with people still not realising the terror about to strike. Well that was our beach here a Khao Lak. It is also the area where the true story of the film ‘The Impossible’ happened. We teased many melancholy first hand accounts from our older waiters here, all had lost family in the disaster. The hotel itself, being one of the older hotels in the area was here at the time and was struck by the tsunami, in fact the only remaining part that survives is a large tree which sits between the bar and restaurant. The bar now being called the ‘big tree bar’ and being something of a monument and highly esteemed locally.

One afternoon we visited the local Museum to the tsunami, which is located just 2 km from our hotel, next to a naval ship 813 that was washed some 2km inland on the wave. The ship had been off the coast of Khao Lak guarding a Thai prince who was on holiday on a yacht off the coast at the time. The prince and the yacht were lost but the navel vessel survived albeit the crew were all lost. Seeing the size of the ship and the distance it is from the sea helps you understand the magnitude of the event it seems incredible that anyone here survived, but as is so often the case in mass disasters there are always a few ‘lucky ones’. A walk along the beach, and area around the beach reveals the older trees with marks on them from where they were struck by debris carried by the waves, all in all it is very moving and you can’t help but admire the fortitude of the local Thai people who still work here day in day out with this in their memory.
Onto somewhat lighter subject and we met a great couple from Stoke on Trent, John and Shell, who have been a source of so much fun during our stay. They always see the funny side of every situation and the whole situation is so much better as John bears a passing similarity to Karl Pilkington – forgive me John, (A UK TV show an

Idiot Abroad) with a little more hair. Shell is the sort of person who can turn the ordinary into a great laugh. A simple example being, she is herself a trained masseuse and sets off one afternoon for a whole body massage in an all in one swimsuit. Seemingly overlooking that to facilitate the massage she would have to remove the whole thing. She arrived back looking a little flushed and telling tales of being starkers in the massage parlour – and we are not talking a top spa here more like market stall – and having all sorts of bits massaged. We were laughing so much almost made ourselves ill. Simple things please the simple minded – I know.
Saturday night saw the four of us head off to Moo Moo’s Ladyboy bar, what an experience. The show was shambolic the Ladyboys had to mime to a series of songs, trouble was they didn’t seem to know the words. Then the production team must have been asleep half the night as the music would often stop whilst the dancers were all waiting on the stage to start. Thing was that it fell into the category of

being so bad it was brilliant. We all sang along to the songs and watched the Ladyboys dancing their heart out. When it was all over it was time for pictures with the stars. It was a scream and we all loved every minute of it.
Before we knew it our 12 days at Khao Lak were over and we were back on the road again. As I look back at the time in Thailand so far it is clear that they are becoming a much more sophisticated society than just a few years ago OK large parts of their society is still as chaotic as always – and that’s the part we both still love, but the tourist industry is now much more slick and its starting to become similar to the Spanish holidays of a few years back. Slick tour operator firms now attend hotels and push their trips and ‘attack’ you on your first day after arrival etc. etc. With this new more efficient model comes higher prices. Gone are the days of a meal out costing around £8 and a beer costing £1, oh no, now dinner for two eating Thai not European, will cost around £25 with drinks on top. Now don’t get me wrong it is still cheap but not the give away charges of a few years ago. The world is truly getting smaller. And we are still loving it ?