We spent a three hour bus journey travelling to Nakhon Si Thammarat from Krabi, without incident. Upon our arrival we were soon accosted by the usual taxi drivers etc, all desperate to take us somewhere and earn their bahts. We declined all offers (especially as most were from motorcycle riders - how they expected to carry us and all our luggage was beyond me), and made our way to the T.A.T.
Once there, we got some information on local hotels and the nearby National Park, which was the reason for our visit to this town. We made our way through the main streets and felt very disconcerted by the stares and glares and sometimes laughter from the inhabitants of the town. It was all very strange, but due probably to the fact that NST is not really a tourist destination and we were likely to be two of the few westerners visiting. Happily, we quickly found a suitable hotel and unpacked.
As we'd had no food since breakfast we decided to pop across the road to a coffee shop and grab a snack. We each had a cake and some fantastic traditional Thai "Hokkien" coffee, served with a tea chaser. After this, we thought we would really get into the spirit of things and buy some Rambhutan fruit from a street vendor. These weird looking fruits resemble red sea urchins, with long green hairs on the outside. Once you cut them open, you get to the actual succulent fruit which tastes a bit like a grape, but has a large stone in the centre. The next stage of our transition into the Thai way of life was to drink copious amounts of Maekhong - a kind of mixture of whisky and navy rum that we had with Coke. We both found ourselves enjoying this traditional beverage!
Now feeling more confident in our surroundings, we set off for dinner, and were greeted by some of the locals calling out 'Hello' to us and waving as we passed. Again, this felt quite strange, but in a much more friendly way.
The next day was meant to be our adventure in the National Park. We were helped into the appropriate songthaew by more friendly locals and were taken to the village of Khiriwong at the foot of the mountain that gave the park it's name. Unfortunately we were then told that the park was closed due to the weather (it had been raining as we arrived). Disheartened, but not too dejected, we decided to try and get to Krung Ching waterfall, little knowing how far away it was. We got on another songthaew and were taken back towards Nakhon, before one of the other passengers told us we needed to get off, turn the corner and catch another bus, heading in a different direction. This we did, and journeyed for probably another half an hour, without seeing any signs of our waterfall.
Eventually, we decided to give it up as a loss and jumped off the bus in order to head back to NST and our hotel. As we walked away, we couldn't believe it as we saw a large wooden sign pointing to Krung Ching. Unfortunately it was still 31km away. By then, we didn't think we had time to get there, do the 8km round trip walk and be able to catch a songthaew back to the town.
We began walking back the way we had come, completely in the middle of nowhere, hoping to jump on a songthaew returning to Nakhon. It rook about twenty minutes before this happened, and as we walked, Andrea was greeted with a number of "Allo Madarme" calls by passing motorcyclists!
We did get back ok (eventually) and rested up for the remainder of the afternoon before going out for dinner. Once again we were waved at and greeted (lots more "Allo Madarme's"!) as we walked to the ''restuarant". The place we chose was an English speaking 'Rock Bar and Grill', which had a good write-up in the guidebook. We sat down, ordered and then took in our surroundings: grubby walls, broken fans, weird fish in tiny tanks, the ubiquitous lizards on the ceiling, and generally shabby appearance -hmmm. My meal arrived about 15 minutes before Andrea's and about halfway through Andrea warned me of a large cockroach skittering towards the back of my seat. Quickly, but casually, I lifted my feet up and we spent the rest of the meal nervously searching for bugs.
Needless to say, we hurriedly ate what we could, with appetites somewhat stifled, paid and left, heading for the clean, air-conditioned santuary of our hotel.
The following morning as we packed up and got ourselves ready to leave, Andrea was spotted by one of the builders working on a building opposite. He waved, and now, entering into the friendly spirit (and almost celebrity status) that we had become accustomed to, Andrea waved innocently back. All of a sudden, the remainder of the constuction team (some 8 more men) downed tools and all began waving vigourously in Andrea's direction. It was an amusing end to our stay here.
Dan and Andrea
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