Thailand 2

Vacation. For me, it's always been hard to relax, to take a vacation and really enjoy it. Guess I am tense that way. Still, to arrive way early in the morning, just after sunrise, and feel the 35-degree heat blasting down with palmtrees of the jungle swaying all around you and the gentle seasurf rolling across the beach, that helps a lot. The Apsara Beachfront resort left something to be desired, for sure. The rainforest is aptly named and rain will quite often crash down unlike anything we are used to in Scandinavia. And it eats buildings up. The locals tend to have very waterresistant houses, putting energy into the lightweight roofs, while walls are very often totally non-existant. A hotel can't really have that luxury, since we tourists tend to keep valuables and a sense of privacy with us, no matter where we go.  The first room we got lasted for the day. During the night, we slept very poorly and awoke to strange, pattering sounds. Vendela thought the room was swarming with cockroaches. "Fortunately", it turned out that it was flooding. Water was coming down from the a/c and not the occasional drop. Instead, pooling and running down the walls. We contacted the hotel management and their solution was to send a cleaner up to wipe it up. Problem solved. If you ignore the wet spots. And the puddling that once again takes place. With some assistance from Fritidsresor, the travel agency, we finally got our room switched. 

Swimming in the ocean in a place like this can't be ranked high enough. I have been travelling a lot through the years, and sampled many a beach, but this… The sand was really like baking powder, it was THAT finely ground. And the water was HOT. Cooling down wasn't really the easiest thing to do, since the water was over 30 degrees in itself, approaching body temperature. There was a flag system with a lazy thai slouching out and swapping flags at random in the morning, leaving them for the rest of the day, so we paid no real heed to that. However, two things to be aware of. The first, at Apsara, once of the local rivers drains into the sea, creating some nasty undercurrents. Sometimes, we went out to have a swim and coming back, we would need to cross the river, which had then turned REALLY strong. It did provide some good waves to bodysurf, though. The second danger would be the jellyfish. We caught a few of the buggers on tape, size of hubcaps from a car, with tentacles you wouldn't believe. Everyone who swam in the ocean got stung. It felt like little stings that singed a bit, and nothing more, but it was a bit bothersome. The locals blamed the jellyfish, but I am not entirely persuaded. I am thinking something along the terms of a microorganism. If I get the energy, I might do some research into the matter. 

What would be really interesting to do in the heat? Well, the natural answer is perhaps apply sunlotion and sloth on by by the pool. But see, they had these interesting muay thai-exhibitions on the hotel, complete with the whining music and the immense physical power of the combatants. Inspired, I couldn't contain myself from talking to Ben-Ben and Bank about it, and we set up for an hour of training at the hotel for only 500 baht!  I half expected to be taken to a rotten little thai-gym where far too many armpits had spent far too many hours, but no. Three guys turn up, and they intend to work out in the blistering sunshine, in the middle of the pool-area. In retrospect, perhaps they were testing me, but I am not the one to back down. When in Rome, you know… 

What else to mention this time? Perhaps a little visit to one of the local markets? This wasn't the big one, that they have three times per week in Khao Lak (or rather in Ban Bang Niang, by the Tsunami Memorial). This was a smaller one, more for the local populace, close to the bus station. This is where you would take the bus to Phuket or Bangkok (Bangkok is 12 hours away by bus). We visited on the way to a nature reservation. It was called the Bang Pling Nature Reserve, located just by Supaporn Resort. I really don't know if the locals that drove and guided the tour were aware of why we were laughing… The local markets are made up of a great mix of locals, smells, dead animals of all kinds and photo-ops. Even though the hygiene has greatly improved here on the markets, that still isn't saying a whole lot. "Turnip, you say? Let me just push ol' sleeping Tom here to the side…" For the sake of refrigeration, they even carried ice nowadays. Mostly used for chilling beer for the tourists, rather than say… chicken meat. There are a lot of fun things to try at the markets, if you're feeling adventurous. Why not a stirfry of mixed bugs? Four different sizes, ranging from fingernail-sized larvae to beetles the size of a child's thumb? And choose a good topping! 

 The final picture I am adding today is of a local taxi, the extrapolation of the tuk-tuk of old. These newer, bigger lorries are called something else but tuk-tuk still rings so sweet in mind that I will continue calling them that. This one here was parked outside the market, and the style of it is nothing less than fantastic. You sit in the back, crammed in, sunshine or tropical storm, with nothing resembling  a seatbelt. If the driver has to slam on the brakes or hits something, you slide towards the front and hit the spiky metal ingots on the wall behind the driver, managing to impale yourself. If hit from behind, there is no door locking you in, so you will be naturally flung out of the vehicle onto the road, where rescue services can get to you easier. But this specific taxi made the charts with the addition of the somewhat politically incorrect picture on the side, of a dude carrying off a seemingly unconscious woman. What is this, the rape wagon? Or grocery cart, harvesting organs for the market? One does of course not exclude the other…