Journey to Khao Lak

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After having checked out from the hotel at noon and having a rice dish for brunch at a nearby Thai restaurant we start to think about today's agenda. The plan is to arrive in Khao Lak a bit up the coast north of Phuket island and before we've really given it a lot of thought the answer appears in front of us in the shape of an old little man who offers to drive us around Phuket for the day, and drop us off in Khao Lak for the evening. Perfect! I would like to go down to the Phuket Aquarium by the pier southeast of town, but he tells us the aquarium is currently closed for repairs and offers to take us to the Phuket viewpoint instead. This being a tourist area in Southeast Asia I get a scam alert in my head and ask him to take use there anyway to give his credibility a check up. As we arrive at the docks it turns out he was right after all, so we agree to his suggestion to take us to where I assume he takes most of his tourists.

The first stop is (of course) the obligatory jewelry/trinket shop for our driver to earn his commission. Then we continue to the local butterfly garden which I can recommend if you want to escape the heat for a while. It is a small compound littered with plants and flowers and of course butterflies zig zaging among the visitors. We have a chance encounter with a woman who works at the garden, who has just arrived with a box full of little plastic envelopes, each envelope containing a carefully folded butterfly caught in the wild, which she releases into the compound. We then go up the hill just above town to have a good view of the city, although you cannot see any of the big resorts from here. On the way back to the hotel we stop by some food stalls to collect some food for our arrival in Khao Lak. It is quite a long drive for our driver and as darkness falls it becomes pitch black and finding the resort becomes a challenge. Fortunately we have a decent map to help us keep our orientation and after a bit of scouting we find the small road leading down to the resort.

Our reservation is still intact and we're shown to a bungalow that is split into two small rooms with attached bathrooms. Amusingly there is a very large pond outside, time to check that mosquito net. We've barely put down the bags in the room when there is a power failure and everything turns very black again. It doesn't last that long though, although it doesn't really matter as I am too tired from the day's trip to go outside anyway.

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Photos

It's all yours!
Not a soul here at the Chalong Bay beach

Checking out the ships in Chalong Bay
Oh, how unusual...

Swimming with Otters...
They had a handful of other animals at the garden, including this lizard by the otter pond.

The clever Magpie
This fellow was smart enough to come up to the cage front when Kay offered him a good fanning with the map

At the Phuket viewpoint
Use that flash, Bobby!