zannetan

Woohoo~ One more day! And I’ll be on my way to Maldives! 

Fingers crossed for good weather :p

Started the day with breakfast in the resort’s restaurant. A typical western buffet with some local dishes. We rode the scooter out for a ride after that and found a small road which leads to the Ban Niang beach. The whole stretch of beach is so clean. It’s rated 4/5 stars! We took a stroll along the sea shore and dipped into the water once in a while.

The cafe restaurant we settle with made me their coconut cocktail drink (coconut juice and flesh, rum, pina colada and ice blended together) and it’s super tasty! The papaya salad is just as good.

We found the bazaar on our way back. Apparently, the bazaar only opens on mondays, wednesdays and saturdays and closes by 7 pm due to lack of light once the sun sets. It was the highlight of the day. We shopped and ate and took plenty of photos.

It was time to try the swimming pool and our new underwater camera- seashell. The water is so cold, we spent more time getting in than staying in. We then walked down to the beach with books to read on the sun bed. The sky drizzled for a while before being sunny again.

The plan is to do an oil massage then ride out for dinner before heading back to shower. And so we did.

Great local food, dirt cheap.

:)

After arriving the Phuket airport, we needed to find our way to Khao Lak. Khao Lak (which is the other way) is in the province of Phang Nga and is 81km from the airport. We went about looking for a taxi with the best rate. It’s crazy paying them 1800 baht to get to our hotel. So after some bargaining, we managed to get a return trip with private car for 2800. Our driver (Mr. Song Chai aka uncle Pork) is very nice! He chatted with us and helped us call our other hotel to prepare pick for us. We stopped mid way to have lunch. Uncle Pork brought us to this local chicken rice stall which he claims is very very good. Better than the one in Phuket. He also bought us fried bananas and sweet potato after lunch for us to try.

The first thing I saw once I reached Baan Krating Khao Lak Resort was the sea! After checking into our private bungalow, we strolled down to the beach and explored the resort. After which, we rented a scooter from the resort and headed to town.

Since the scooter is running low on gasoline, our first stop will be to the gas station. It cost us just 70 baht for a full tank! We also paid another 20 baht to get our tyres checked :P (talk about singaporeans getting so kiasi).

The waterfall is our next stop. Since there’s about 3-4 waterfalls, we went to the first one we saw. It was a ride through some residential area. And after about 3km, we were riding on sand and gravel. With rocks. And it got better. We were practically riding up slopes like the one in MacRitchie. I felt like I’m dirt biking, but with a scooter. Halfway through, we decided park our bike and hike uo instead. It was a wise choice. There was no way any car or bike could reach there. The waterfall was about 10-15m tall.

We went to take a look at the naval ship after our ‘hike’. The ship weighs 500 tones and is enormous. And right now, it’s sitting on some plot of land. Apparently, this ship was washed 2km from shore to mainland during the Tsunami. We also got to see images of the crisis then.

Good thing Thailand doesn’t really celebrate Xmas. So we managed to get to the bank to exchange some more currencies. After some grocery shopping, we headed back to dump our goods and catch a cat nap. Or rather, I dozed off :p

We zipped out again to get to the cape at the top right of Khao Lak to catch the sunset. It’s also the site where the beach is hardest hit by the Tsunami in 2005 so they have a building erected to commemorate the victims. We happen to be here around the anniversary of that uneventful day. On 26th December, there will be many people turning up at the beaches to pray for their loved ones who died in the Tsunami.

During our foot and back massage, the cute massuer saw a mosquito bite on my right thigh and helped scratch it once in awhile for me. LOL The Thais are very warm and friendly people :)

It’s Day 2 of my trip and I’m loving it!