On Monday night I laid down in my guesthouse bed in Khao Sok deeply concerned. Concerned? Scared would be more appropriate. The next morning we were about to go north. The plan was to travel by land from south to north, towards the border with Cambodia.
What was planned the next morning was a long ride by local buses to Prachuap Khiri Khan, a coastal town which is about three hours drive south of Bangkok, and 9-hour by bus from Khao Sok, our departure point in the morning.
When we woke up, we were still quite dazed from the night sounds of the jungle. I did not sleep well at all and generally was preparing for the worst, for a horrible day, I mean.
We had breakfast in the guesthouse, loaded ourselves and our backpacks on the back of the pick-up truck of the guest house, or as named here quoted from Agoda “the hotel shuttle vehicle” Ah-yeah sure… In my opinion, the guest house owner was already happy to get rid of us and dropped us off with the last remainders of his Thai politeness on the main road leading from Phuket to Surat Thani where we waited for the bus. I am saying is that I think he was not really into seeing our faces much longer, because he insisted on taking us to the bus at eight in the morning, when the bus was supposed to arrive at nine. What the fuck.
We sat down on the side of the road on our mochilas like the true backpackers we did not know we were. At nine the bus actually arrived. While waiting we managed to see two mini-buses of tourists set off. It is way more expensive than the local bus and keeps you in the tourists bubble, and we are here to get out of the matrix, not to get into a different kind of one … or at least try to. So we took the bus with all the locals. There is air-con in buses in Thailand, at least on the one we took, and Thai music in the background and everyone is very nice. Thais smile at our children, we smile at every Thai baby we see. Other people’s babies is always great and the mommy that was sitting behind me with her baby amused him by joining the sweet soft songs that were playing on the radio and it was lovely.
The mystery was the trip itself. Surat Thani to Khao Sok took 3 hours. The way back took only two hours. Weird. But I did not complain. The bus driver dropped us off not exactly in a station but next to a store selling touristic minibus tickets. We did not fall into the trap and crossed the road to the official central station itself, where we bought the bus tickets to Bangkok, stopping in Prachuap Khiri Khan, our destination. It costs less of course and we even managed to swiftly cross the street and buy for the first time in Thailand – street-food, hurray! I had no idea what I just bought but it turned out very nice. It was rice stuffed with banana and baked in a banana leaf and also a banana fried with coconut pastry, really tasty, one for each of us and all together – 50 baht.
On the bus itself we had reclining seats, air conditioner, Thai music and a TV with an American action film dubbed in Thai (not too complicated plot, there are the good guys, there are the bad guys, they fight among themselves and at the end the good guys win) and a stewardess in the form of lady boy who served the passengers a bun stuffed with sweet beans cream, a bottle of water and a juice in a carton. A short stop on the side of the road yielded a little bit more of nice street food and after about 6 hours we found ourselves back on the main road from Surat Thani to Bangkok, with a map we downloaded from the internet, instructions how to reach the guest house, and no idea how to actually get there, or where we are right now.
Getting lost is part of the deal, isn’t it? So when we got off the bus, again it was not in an official bus station, and two local police officers helped us cross the street and offered us their services as a taxi to the guest house. Apparently, in Thailand traffic officer’s salary is not sufficient. But the map on the site of the guest house read that the bus stop is only 500 meters from guest house, and here I remind us all that we did not get off the bus at the station, but rather somewhere on the highway. So when we said to these “officers” that we would walk there, they looked at us kind of strange. After walking about a mile, we realized why. No one could tell us where the guesthouse was, because in fact we were quite far away from it…
We realized it was time to stop and recalculate our route. The One left us with all the bags in a small local restaurant and walked all the way back to get a “Taxi”, which was basically a pickup car of the local police … It took us to the guesthouse, absurdly overpriced of course. To be sure, it really was not in a reasonable walking distance from the place where the bus dropped us off…
When we arrived, The One got in to check whether it’s indeed the right place. A minute later he came back and said, Look, this is the right place, from here we ordered the room on the phone yesterday in Khao Sok, but this is the strangest place I’ve ever seen. We entered. And within five minutes I realized we arrived at surreal, sweet, cool, adorable, perfect for us place, and we’re going to stay here more than the one night or two we originally thought we would.
There was no one at the reception of the guest house. Now after a night here, I look again at the reception desk and think to myself, damn well of course there’s no one here, I do not think anyone ever sit here in the reception, but – in half a minute approached us sweet English guy called John and said, “Hi fellas, I came here yesterday, so I guess I have been qualified to show you around, I think your room is room No. 3, let’s get to see the room and on the way I will explain to you how things work here …”
A glance at the whiteboard hanging at the “reception” provided the insight that, according to the price listed, it is indeed the room we ordered. Another look at the other board hanging at the entrance explains that if you are coming and there is no one, feel free to check yourself in and choose between one of the vacant rooms on the list. Makes sense.
Maggie’s Guesthouse, Prachuap Khiri Khan
John gave us a short tour around. We settled in the room – a huge room with large windows with mosquito nets, an ordinary fan and ceiling fan, wooden floor and lovely wooden furniture and even our own fridge. Showers and toilets are shared, and how lucky I did not know it in advance, because I might have disagreed to book in this guest house, and we would have missed the coolest spot we discovered so far on our trip, a place just gorgeous and perfect for us, and after Khao Sok the showers here are wonderful even though they are shared.
There is a communal kitchen equipped with all the necessary tools, so this morning for the first time we ate breakfast that we cooked by ourselves! Scrambled eggs and toast with butter, and coffee and chocolate and great happiness!!!
There is a sweet garden with resting areas, cool living room, large dining table and power spots to charge our computers (important!). There are people from all over the world – British, Germans, Russians, we finished our dinner last night with the children asleep upstairs and us drinking beer and chatting with a charming German couple from Berlin. And this morning passes slowly while I’m working a bit and writing this post. The children study under the supervision of The One on the plan – the fresh market, we crave for a fresh vegetables salad and it seems to me that it is exactly what is going to happen.
Fresh vegi salad from the fresh market in Prachuap
In between, I still did not tell that last night we had dinner at the lovely food market in the town, really close to us. Finally – street food – as everyone have been telling us, with great variety and interesting and fun, and of course amazingly cheap. We had a family dinner at a cost of perhaps two courses in restaurants we dined in so far in Thailand, that were by themselves quite cheap.
A few hours later *** ***
Oh, have I already mentioned anything about the great Wi Fi here? And the great market where we bought today loads of fruits and vegetables, and ate a fresh salad and a pineapple I cut with my own hands? And that a minute ago the children returned from town where a festive parade took place in honor of the birthday of the King of Thailand? And that in the afternoon we went The One and I for a walk to explore the surroundings, while the kids stayed in the guesthouse and played with Feudor, 4-year-old son of Anastasia of St. Petersburg, help themselves with an Uzbek dish she prepared, played memory game and hide and seek with John, the sweet man whom we met upon our arrival while we found a nice rye bread in a small Italian place in town ..? I am in lovvvve.
I am looking inside myself and trying to understand and why I am so happy here. I think it is all together. You can do laundry independently in the machine of the guest house (30 baht), feed us vegetables and fruit from the fresh market which is a five minute walk from here, have dinner eat supper in the awesome and diverse food market which is a five minutes walk from here the other way, chat with nice people from around the world (there is a one bit strange Japanese, adult Englishman who is even stranger, and Nok the manager of the place said she would get us a scooter with a cart to rent and we can travel with the kids to the beach) and relax relax relax.
Ahhhhh lucky I did not know in advance that the showers are shared. Life has wonderful surprises!
