Your hotel awaits
CHUMPHON
Decisions, Decisions, do we go to Kho Samui and Kho Tao (Island paradises) or cross the country to the Andaman Coast. Either way Chumphon seems a good place to start. It has access to the ferries for the islands and is near a junction which will take us the scenic route through the mountains to Andaman.
The car pays dividends again as we get to loop from the main road to the coast to visit fishing villages and idyllic coves and bays, it's a lovely drive. We've agoderd.com'd the room, from the pictures and the on line description our hotel is "quaint", "quirky", in reality it's putrescent....
Chumphon itself illustrates one of those idiosyncracies of the Thai language in that it can be pronounced a number of ways. Shum-fon, Chum-fon, Chump-on, Shoom-fon. The correct pronounciation is Shit-Hole. It's actually the birthplace of the modern Thai Navy, a bit like Portsmouth only completely shit.
It consists of a mile long strip of corrugated iron huts each of which is termed a "restaraunt" outside of each a pile of fly blown "fresh" oysters lays in the heat of the afternoon sun. At one end there's actually a very beautiful shrine to the father of the Thai Navy, a dry docked torpedo boat and a building which resembles a boiler house. It has a 5 metre tall steel chimney with a cowl on top. There is a fire within....every 10 minutes or so someone buys a box of fireworks and a group of lads bungs them in the fire, falling over each other to get out before they explode up the chimney, the racket is incredible, smoke and sparks everywhere. They do this over and over and over and over again...In a town where the only other form of entertainment is getting food poisoning I suppose it's not that bad.
War!! HOOA, What is it good for??
It's 5:45 and we cruise the strip trying to decide which place we'll allow to give us botulism, they all start closing at 6! We end up with no choice at all and eat at the only place left. A very sweaty chap takes our order, tongue sticking out between teeth, again our order is taken long hand, we recognise absolutely nothing when it arrives....His wife (the cook) comes out, we point to what we ordered, she looks at what she's cooked, I'm pretty sure she called her husband a Prick! then went of to cook what we wanted.
Red or White madam
TV consists of one state sponsored channel. First a gent in a suit sits at a desk and reads a speech translated to english sub titles, he looks very serious. Turns out it's the 160th anniversary of the Thai defence force. Cue films of soldiers helping children to fresh water from stand pipes, then to a film of Thai Aircraft napalming a village. Soldiers help elderley gents from a ruined house, A rank of tanks mercilessly bombards a village.
A funny thing isn't it? how every country, our own included will have you believe that every other country in the world has armed forces and weaponry because they want our land, women, babies, jobs, council housing, access to free health care, benefits, to tell us how to dress, pray or what happens to us when we're dead etc whereas us..........
......We just need them for the little children.
Next up, I kid you not, is Football focus! 3 blokes in army fatigues sipping from huge Macdonalds mugs talk (in Thai) about football matches. I'm guessing it's the same old whazz that they drone on about at home, flat back 4's and sweepers etc, means as much to me in Thai as it does in English.
Fact is 90% of games seem to be decided when some over paid ponce convinces a dick head in black that another over paid ponce tripped him up. He then slots the ball in from 6 feet and runs about getting adulation as if he's cured cancer rather than been a cheating bastard..... bit like the Australian cricket team.
Laem Son
Off to Khura Buri
Cross country it is. Fact is it's been blowing an absolute gale here for a day and a half. Last night we watched a ferry from Koh Samui being thrown about like a stick. We've been to Samui and Tao before so we're going to cross the country to the opposite coast and see what it brings us. Hopefully better weather.
It's a stunning drive through mountains and forests of Co Co palms. The only concern are Thai drivers. Mopeds ridden by 4,5 or 6 kids none of whome look older than 10 appear from forest tracks onto the road with no sense whatso ever of what's around them. Wearing little more than shorts they barrel up the road on the wrong side or "undertake" on the inside screaming with laughter.
We pass a roadside dedication to a casualty at least every mile. At some particularly tight bends the shrines are ranked, like sports teams that could have been,row upon row from the roadside to the jungles edge.
The Andaman Coast and Khura Buri
On the Andaman coast we follow the Burmese border down to Hat Bang Ben, Laem son and the national park. It's stunningly beautiful and virtually deserted. Following your google map gets a little dangerous here however. We spend the day winding around back roads through palntations to little inlets looking out to stunning islands.
We're merrily following one such road, up an incline, I'm watching the map and the road appears straight, but looking up it seems we have a tight bend?
No...the road just stops....mid yellow line!~ a drop of around 10 feet to a mangrove clogged inlet with a few feet of water, no one around for miles!
Stoooooop
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