A-venture in Khao Lak

So, after a night in sleazy Phuket, we headed for serene Khao Lak. Khao Lak was one of the worst, if not the worst, towns destroyed by the Tsunami in 2004. When I came 3 years ago, the after-effects of the Tsunami were still pretty obvious, with items of clothing left hanging on trees, and abandoned buildings everywhere.

When we arrived in Khao Lak, the town looked completely different. The one-lane main road was now 2 lanes, and there were lots of ‘Souvenir’ shops along the street, together with Pizzerias and supermarkets. A bad sign – for us, as it equals ‘TOURIST TRAP’.

The hotel we wanted to stay at was fully booked and we were recommended to go to the hotel next door. Our ‘bungalow’ costs THB 1,400 per night (CHF 45), which we thought was pretty ‘basic’ for us. At least it had air-con and hot water, and a charming mosquito net over the bed. “We could do this”, we naively thought….

Our 'basic' room in Khao Lak (at least for our standards) Funky bathroom tiles

After a meal of green curry and fried rice, we treated ourselves to our favourite dessert, Pancake! We do have a picture this time but somehow managed to delete from the computer so, unfortunately, we can’t (yet) show u what our favourite dessert of Banana pancake with chocolate and condensed milk looks like. Pascal was dying for the pancake and looked so deprived that the Thai lady was laughing at us as she made us our dessert.

Our scary visitor

When we got back to our little bungalow in the (mosquito) jungle, we were greeted by a HUGE visitor insect/bug/beetle flying thing on our curtain. I was screaming in fear, and Pascal was running around the room looking for a bucket and ‘tools’ to capture the bug with. After about ½ hour of screaming, crying and lots of banging around – we managed to get (or rather throw the bucket with the thing in it) out of the room. We could not shut the door faster. That thing was scary! Am surprised our neighbours did not come knocking on our door. We both concluded that we are not made for ‘backpacking’ or going ‘basic’....

The next day, whilst I went diving (had to d a diving refresher’s course since my last dive was 1.5 years ago)– Pascal hung out on the yellow/brown beach of Khao Lak. He was not very impressed. I was secretly happy as this means that he is now spoilt by the white, sandy beaches of Asia and will no longer tell me that Mallorca qualifies as a good beach destination- *shock horror*

Dinner was fried noodles and springrolls from a stall and a can of beer outside 7-eleven – whilst being entertained by a drunk Finnish who spoke little English. When he eventually understood that we were from Switzerland, he wouldn’t stop saying “Kimi Raikkonen”…at which point we had to leave…

At 8.30pm, we left the Dive Center with the other 10 ppl for our 4 nights Boat-trip around the Surin and Similan Islands. Not before popping a seasick pill!