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Published: January 17th 2015
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We are staying about a week with Tony Dida and their 2 year old son, Galvin, in Ranong. Ranong is a small town on the west coast of Thailand bordering Burma/Myanmar (where Dida comes from). Tonys house is 4 stories high. He teaches children english after school in the ground floor. It is possible to see Burma from the roof top. The house is opposite a school. Each morning at 8am the children all sing the national anthem. Thais are very fond of their royal family....people even wear yellow T shirts saying 'I love the king'. It is very hot and humid in Ranong.....hotter than it was in Bangkok, Chiang Mai or Kao Sok. There are fewer monks here than in Chiang Mai or central Bangkok. It is not now the rainy season....but when it is it is very wet, being the highest rainfall in Thailand. (I think the dampness must be the reason why a lot of the buildings are coated with a fine black mildew on the outside. ) Galvin has posters with 3 different alphabets on the wall - Thai, English and Burmese. He will grow up to be trilingual!
Half way through the stay we will
all be taking the boat to stay a few days at the beach on Ko Phayam island, which I will write about in a seperate blog.
In Ranong I visited the local Buddhist shrine with Dida Whitey the dog and Galvin (Dida prayed and Galvin played there), and then went to the park. Galvin enjoyed running about , climbing things, turning taps on and off, and playing with the neighbours little boy. We also met Dida's sister, who is also in Ranong, (her mum and brothers are still in Burma) and some other friends.
We all had a great day out when Tony borrowed a car to take us around the sites of Ranong. We went to a nursery school which Galvin will attend , and where Tony will soon be teaching for a few hours every day. All the children were napping on the floor in their uniforms and looked very sweet. Then we drove to see the grassy hill (the other hills round about are tree covered) and the waterfall on the outskirts of town, and saw where Tony used to teach and live near there. We also saw a big brand new temple which has
just been built there. We drove down to the river estuary to see the mangroves. We had to take sticks out of a box at the mangroves reserve to protect ourselves from monkeys!! As it turned out we again saw no monkeys. Apparantly the mangroves helped to slow down the tsunami and protected Ranong from dammage. Further down the coast where mangroves have been cut down they got the full impact of tsunami. Mangroves are now protected by the royals. After this we drove up into the mountain to Ranong Canyon, which is a lovely lake where they used to mine kaolin. On the way we passed rubber trees and the yellowish rubber hanging out to dry like washing. We
had a delicious meal there (best thing about Thailand....all the meals are delicious!) and then bought food to feed the fish. There are loads of koi carp in the lake and some are quite big. We then had a refreshing swim in the lake.... and I was releived that the fish didnt seem to bother nibbling us. After the lake we drove back down the mountain to the Ranong hot springs. The hot springs are a public park so
it is free to get in. It is a nice place in a tree filled valley. There are lots of pools to sit and soak in really quite hot water, as well as warm slabs where people lie and relax. We put our feet in the water, but really we were quite warm enough. (The last thing I would want is to lie on a hot slab or lie down in hot water in this climate.) Dida also doesnt like warm water for bathing,only cold.
Another good thing in Ranong is the market. On every Sunday they have the 'walking street'. In the evening the main street is closed and becomes a night market. They have a stage with performers, and it gets really busy. Lots of food as well as other stalls. A bit strange to see police with big guns at an event like this.
On our final day in Ranong we visited a small island called Ko Mur in the estuary, a 5 minute taxi boat ride from the pier. We walked around the island and could see Burma from the far side. The island has Buddhist shrines and a crematoriam. There are some really
grotesque statues there. Dida, who is a Buddhist from Burma, could not explain their significance and said they must be specific to Thailand. We saw mud skippers in the mangroves and a green snake....the only snake we have seen in Thailand.
That afternoon, (after a photogarhic session involving foortball team shirts )we said a sad goodbye to Dida Tony and Galvin before taking the 2 hour busride to the nearest train station at Chumpon. We will take the overnight train from Chumpon to Butterworth. Then a quick ferry ride to the island of Penang in Malaysia.
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