Day two in Khao Lak has definitely been one of the funniest days Amber and I have had this trip.
We had decided to devote the day to chilling out by the hotel's fabulous second pool, complete with elephant fountains, jacuzzi seats and bar. And we actually managed to do just that for a few hours after breakfast, but eventually the sun was so unbearably hot that even Amber had to give up (and that's saying something!).
Instead of melting in the sun, we headed out to try and find a Similan islands snorkelling trip for tomorrow. As we walked down the road outside the hotel we passed a scooter rental place that was offering 24 hours for just 200 baht...
Minutes later we were zooming our way into Hat Khao Lak on our newly rented bright orange Honda! I've never driven a scooter before, but I've been wanting to have a go ever since Nichar gave us those lifts in Chiang Mai. Luckily this was an automatic and dead easy to drive. So much fun!
The hotel's Similan islands day trip was 4,000 baht. We managed to find a day trip in town for just 1,800 baht, which included visiting all the main islands, food and drink, snorkelling gear and hotel collection and drop off. Looked like good value for money.
We tried another place to see if they could beat 1,800 (they couldn't) and then had lunch in Bella Italia (the thinnest pizza bases ever and excellent gelato).
After lunch we went back to the first tour operator to pay for our Seastar snorkelling trip and zoomed off again, back towards the hotel in search of Police Boat 813. One of the must-see sights in Khao Lak, this boat was stationed 1km off shore from La Flora hotel when the 2004 tsunami struck. Following the tsunami the boat was discovered in a field 1km inshore, where it rests to this day...or so the Lonely Planet would have us believe.
We couldn't find it for love nor money, so we decided to drive up the coast a bit and see if we could find an empty stretch of beach to admire. Taking a random road off the main road gave me a chance to improve my scooter skills along some roads leading to the beach. I had seen one or two dead Sunbeam snakes on the road, but as we got nearer the beach I actually saw a large black snake shoot across the road in front of us. Always exciting to see wild snakes. I think I've become a bit obsessed this trip!
Eventually we arrived at a long stretch of deserted beach. Sadly we couldn't stay long because we had booked our free 15 minute head and shoulder massaged at the hotel spa for 3:30pm.
On the way back we saw a sign for the tsunami memorial statue. We drove down a road to get to it on the hope it might be next to boat 813. Sadly not. Just a stone plaque and a metal sculpture commemorating those who died in the tsunami.
We got back to La Flora in time for our excellent massage taster session. We both felt so good afterwards I suggested to Amber that maybe we should book two one hour treatments and I would treat her as an early birthday present. In the end we put that idea on the backburner while we concentrated on a more serious issue...finding the flippin' police boat!
The head receptionist gave me a very funny look when I marched up and informed her we were looking for a boat in a field! It was only when we said it had something to do with the tsunami that she worked out what we wanted.
Even with her instructions we managed to drive past it for the second time today before spotting it on the return journey. Pretty bizarre. A big grey metal boat in a field.
We took a couple of snaps and then I suggested we check out a nearby waterfall, which was 7km away according to the road sign. Amber agreed and we zoomed off again.
The road to the waterfall was really nice to start with, gentle winding bends through plantations of rubber trees in neat rows and one or two villages. As we got nearer, the tarmac was replaced by a sandy dirt road covered in stones, which made the bike skip about a bit. The dirt road took us to the entrance gate.
I think usually you have to pay to get access to the waterfall, but the guard was too busy snoozing and just waved us through.
We found ourselves driving a short way up a very bumpy path, all the while very conscious that it would not be a good time to puncture a tyre. A little way up this path we saw another scooter. Someone else had obviously figured there was no way you could get a scooter all the way to the waterfall. We parked up and started walking.
Amber, in her skimpy surf shorts and pink flip-flops, was the first to remember about leeches. Somehow, despite this being our relaxation day, here we were again trekking uphill along a hot, damp forest trail in prime leech territory. Brilliant!
Given the flip-flops situation, I could empathise with Amber's reluctance to walk the trail, her reluctance wasn't improved when the first leech crawled onto her foot in the first few minutes of walking! Luckily I pulled it off in time, but Amber's enthusiasm for the waterfall was taking a beating.
As for me, I was determined to see the waterfall now that we had made the effort to get there, so I ended up giving Amber a piggy-back over all the excessively leafy sections of path to minimise the chances of her getting 'leeched'. We were both in hysterics over how ridiculous we would look if anyone saw us.
We met the owners of the other scooter coming the other way (Amber was walking at this point) and they told us we were about 10 minutes away, so we carried on, filled with expectation and not a small amount of hope that the waterfall would be worth seeing.
Thankfully, it really was. I would have loved to have swum in the pool below the waterfall, the water looked so inviting in the heat, and it was a cool looking place. In the end we just spent a while taking it all in before the mosquitos got too ferocious and we set off back down the trail.
Several piggy-backs later we had reached the end of the trail. That's when it finally happened. I looked down to find a leech merrily feasting on my right ankle.
It didn't put up too much of a struggle when I yanked it off my skin, but as expected, the bite looked pretty unpleasant thanks to the leech anticoagulent. Luckily my blood clots very rapidly (I learned this from leech bites in Sumatra), so although it didn't look too hot at least I wasn't about to bleed to death anytime soon.
We hopped back on the trusty Honda and wound our way back to the tarmac road. On the way we passed some local kids having a whale of a time pushing each other along the road on a wheelie bin. Just goes to show, kids don't need much to have fun.
Back at the hotel we got ready to go out for dinner and took the scooter off to find some petrol. Our day of fun excursions had used up three quarters of the tank.
So nice to be zipping along the road at night with the cooling breeze on your face.
The petrol did a sterling job of filling the tank up and even had a chance to practice his English on us.
Earlier in the day Amber had read in the guide book about a supposedly outstanding seafood restaurant called Mama, which was located opposite boat 813 on the other side of the road. We hadn't been able to find it earlier on, but as luck would have it I spotted it as we were heading into town. It was empty, but Amber was keen for me to get some fresh seafood, so we threw caution to the wind and grabbed a table.
That was our first mistake.
Our meal at Mama's was the perfect comedy ending to what had been a thoroughly entertaining day. First of all, the lady waiting on us clearly couldn't speak a word of English. Secondly, she didn't seem able to read Thai. What this meant was that we ordered Thai ice tea (made with condensed milk) and got warm sugar tea with ice (no milk of any kind). We then ordered a Thai green curry and barbecued prawns and got a totally different stir-fried curry and a plate of tempura prawns!!!
Basically, the only thing we ordered that they got right was the boiled rice! Amazing.
We found the whole experience highly entertaining, especially when another coupled turned up and had to bring in one of the taxi drivers to try and translate their order. We left before they got their food, but I have a suspicion they probably got a surprise like us.
It was very sad to return the scooter to the rental place. It had done us proud. We didn't mention where we'd driven it!
Early night tonight. Have to be up at 6:30am to be ready for a 7:30am pick up.
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