Operation Khao Lak

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Today was always going to be a difficult day. We were planning our longest journey yet - PKK to Chomphon to Ranong to Khao Lak. I had made this decision so that we would be in a nice beachy location for Sharon's birthday - it was a risky move as it relied on various methods of transportation working together! We were up early in PPK, the hard bed made that part easy :-) We grabbed a little snack from the trusty 7 - 11 and caught the 8am local bus to Chomphon, once again the only farangs in sight. This journey took 4.5 hours, enduring the driver's choice of very loud thai rock music videos (I didn't know it existed either). So, we get to Chumphon where I found out, with great difficulty, (my thai is still next to nothing) that the next bus to Ranong wasn't for 3 hours... doh ! This put a spanner in the works. Still, never say never. We managed to get a cheap local shared minvan going to Ranong leaving in 1 hour, sweeeeet. So, Sharon and I squeezed into the back seats - we soon realised why everyone else avoided the back seats. Lets just say we spent the next 3 hours reliving our days of the space hoppers!

We arrived in Ranong to be greeted by a massive storm, money grabbing taxi drivers and the news that we had just missed the bus to Khao Lak! At this point the taxi drivers were circling us like vultures, remembering never to trust a taxi driver, we found the bus station and waited for the next bus. Of course, the fun continues. The 5pm didn't show, the 6pm didn't show. The bus station staff reassure us that the 7pm will definately turn up - yes it did but at 7.45pm! The bus was full. Did we still want tickets? Hell, yes. Standing? No worries, just get going. To be honest, the people on the bus were really nice and Sharon was offered to share a seat with two girls (well, one I wasn't too sure of). I opted to stand as I didn't want to squash anyone.

Finally we were on our way to Khao Lak. The next issue was arranging accommodation! As I wasn't sure if we were going to get there, I figured we could play it by ear which is fine if you are arriving early enough but not when you are going to turn up at 11pm! The storn continued outside, the world became dark and I tried to remain calm standing on a bus for 3 hours saying to myself that worse case scenario we could sleep on the beach under the stars and watch the sun rise - it would be romantic :-)

The bus finally pulled into Khao Lak. It was raining, dark and deserted but at least we had made it for Sharon's birthday. Mission Khao Lak was successful.

Where did we sleep? Find out in the next journal.........

PS Thanks everyone for their comments and birthday wishes for Sharon x

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