And you may find yourself in a beautiful bungalow in a National Park. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
We arrived at Chumphon at 6:30 yesterday. (A little late) and hopped the shuttle to a rather sketchy back of the truck ride promising to drop us off at the train station. We had very vague and undetailed directions from Lonenlyplanet.com to take the train to a place called Pran Buri. The train was schedule to leave at 10:20 (though it was an hour late) so Rick and I set out to look around the main strip off the station. After one pass we decided to stop into a back alley karaoke bar. Overpriced but an awesome idea. Rick and I belted out Queen, YMCA, Final Countdown, and a surprising hit – Candyman. I do mean belted. Every song was a metal remix to us.
After we paid our tab we wondered the streets grabbing interesting and exotic street snacks plus a corner shop drink refill on the way back to the station. Took a bit for the train to arrive. When it did we found we’d purchased third class tickets consisting of double-sided benches with little foot room, and no reclining. It was a rather uncomfortable trip but I’m still grateful for the experience.
We got into Pran Buri a hair after 3 AM. Lonely Planet said we should be looking for something called a Songthaew heading to Banpu. Sounded easy enough. But at 3 not even the ticket office was open. Someone who was trying to sleep in said office managed to communicate with us that the taxis start arriving around 5 so we relaxed on the benches pulling out our toothbrushes until then figuring that around 5 we’d be able to figure out better where we can get a ride from a Songthaew, whatever it was. Eventually that taxis arrived immediately offering to give us a ride direct to Banpu for 400. We insisted on a Songthaew and couldn’t figure out why they laughed so much when we did so. In the end we settled on a 60 Baht ride to the Songthaew. At probably 5:30 or so we arrived in an unremarkable looking street with markets and nothing resembling a public transportation booth. Our taxi driver found a shrewd looking lady and spoke a bit before driving off into the night. The woman came up and inquired, “You speak Thailand?” I shook my head no. She let out a massive sigh and disappeared for a few minutes. Rick and I waited in the middle of the dark street in small town not big enough to make most maps hoping she’d return soon with some good news. We looked around and all there was to see were the average hole int he wall shop and some vegetable trucks. After a while she returned. “You go Banpu?” Yes I replied. “Ok. 100 Baht. Lonely Planet said 50 I surmised it was a piece. It added up. That was hopeful at least. She motioned to get on to one of the vegetable trucks. Ahhh… Cheapest way to travel in Thailand was the morning food truck. We got in and waited for a while as four other women all wrapped in thin looking wraps with large baskets of produce to pack tightly in and around us. They stared quizzocally at us and cracked jokes I could only guess whether they were about us or not. Over all, it was a tight squeeze with some surprisingly cold morning wind and, my suit case balancing precariously untied down at the back of the truck. Rick managed to catch a few Zs. I was wired and stared off into the slowly brightening countryside.
Four stops and about 2 hours later we found ourselves pretty far away from what was already the middle of bumfuck nowhere in a dusty parking lot that did not look much like our Park. Looking around I saw that last bit of our brief Lonely Planet note saying to walk to Laem Sala. We saw a sign pointing up a mountain with Laem Sala in English. We began our trek suitcases and all thinking that the resort could not be far up at all. Near the top of the mountain we guess the resort had to be at the top, but only when we reached the top did we realize that the small resort was on the other side of the mountain at sea level. By the time we got down, we were very tired but proud of reaching our destination through such backwoods instructions and modes of transportation.
An American who spoke perfect Thai greet us at the bottom and informed us that we were supposed to book a reservation on the other side of the mountain… Lucky for us there would be a security guard in a few hours who we could book with at the guard tower by the water. We brought our bags to the sea side crashed onto some lawn chairs and let ourselves drift off hoping our bags were close enough to not warrant hypervigilance.
When the guard eventually arrived, turned out the bungalow on hand was 700 a night. We only planned on one night so we ate the expense, set our stuff down inside the place and laid down to catch a few more Zs.
Awaking around 11:30 or so we got up and headed to the restaurant for a tasty and relatively cheap peanut fried noodle dish and set off for the sites – the main one being Phraya Nakkon Cave at the top of another small mountain. Massive and gorgeous but much less a gave than a forested courtyard surrounded by high rock walls on sides with a small Buddhist temple paying homage to King Rama the 5th… 6th… Not quite sure, and several active shrines stashed into dark corners corridors escaping back into the mountain. After the cave we walked some of the trails and the beach finding a couple choice shells.
At a certain point we found ourselves relaxing on the porch of our bungalow when several small Thai children came up and began hosing down the porch and sweeping it with straw brushes (dirtying more than cleaning). The scene was extremely curious and humorous as one grabbed my water bottle and dumped it out into the mop water bin, followed by a series of skirmishes punctuated by brief interest in Rick and my cameras before all out water war broke out between each other. Rick and I watched on smiling and a little confused through it all but enjoying the front row seats to the show. After a good ten minutes a rather stern fatherly looking man came and shooed the children away but only after giving the eldest boy a good thrashing with a branch with some pretty painful looking snap-back. Rick and my expression afterwards was an odd mix of puzzlement, regret, and hilarity. My face wasn’t sure what state it should settle in.
We had dinner at the restaurant and headed back to our bungalow to talk and share Rick’s DS before heading to bed. I was pretty tired so I did not write, though I wanted to. I publish this entry timestamped for the 9th through the magic of retroactive online formatting.
