Laurie's World

The world is being overtaken by monkeys (or so it would seem).

 

I had my usual 3:45 awakening, but today I persisted and was able to fall back asleep until almost 7am! I (nor my travel companion) didn’t  feel like moving too too fast this morning but I was able to get myself to coffee by 9am. Can’t quite imagine starting the day without that black instant coffee. 🤣🤣 there is a lovely sitting area out front that has some tables and chairs with a remarkable view of the ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after enjoying that for a while around 12:30, Troy and I decided to go get a massage! Wait! That’s not entirely true.  I asked Lek where to get laundry done and I dropped laundry off for washing. (20Baht ~70 cents for a load) . THEN we went for a massage. I had a head, shoulders and back massage and Troy got a thai massage for 200 baht each. It was really quite good and no ladyboys were involved. Haven’t seen any here to be honest. I think we are too far away from a larger center for that now.

After the massage we decided to have some lunch! We hit up a restaurant that looked promising down the street from our hotel called The Top View. I ordered a screw driver and got boozy Tang, Troy had a margarita, I think it was ok. Some spring rolls and wings later, we were satisfied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to go see a local site. There is a hill/mountain on the south end of town that has a stunning 360 degree view of town, ocean etc apparently. There’s nothing we love more than a stunning view! So to the top of Wat Thamikaran Worawihan (The Monkey Temple) we go. All 418 steps…..We had been warned that there were a lot of monkeys and that said monkeys are very bold. We shouldn’t have loose sunglasses, phones or anything enticing in our hands or on our person. And in fact one person told us to take bananas to use as bartering chips to get our stuff back in case they got a hold of anything. We decided to batten down the hatches and just go ahead without bananas. Indeed there were a lot of monkeys, adults right down to tiny babies and it was very fun to see their little nuclear families. They were taking care of each other, cleaning each other and meeting each other’s needs (let’s just leave the details at that! 😉). Nature is what it is!! Lots of monkey poop all over the place too! Full time work for the Monk at the top sweeping up the poop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the most part the monkeys just jumped around us and kept an eye on us. We didn’t have much that interested them. One little one tried to pull a jewel off my flip flop. But it was a half hearted attempt at best.

The view was indeed spectacular and the best part was the breeze that we enjoyed when up at the top!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After coming back down and hitting the 7-11 across the street for water and ice cream, we were now of MUCH interest to the monkeys. Apparently monkeys like ice cream??  We outsmarted them and dodged our way down another street making our way back to the hotel (and more importantly, the hotel pool). I had to be hard core talked into getting dressed to go back out for supper but was glad I did bcz we found a small street market on the street behind us with a burger vendor. For 130 baht ($4.25 usd) we got a homemade burger grilled right in front of us with bacon, cheese, tomato, lettuce and sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I may also have gotten a couple pork skewers, a pineapple shake and some coconut pancakes! Love the street food here!

Well the train was uneventful as possible! Other than having the opportunity to nourish myself with this delightful bit of ‘food’ (a HARD ‘NO’), we enjoyed a peaceful hourish ride through the countryside, arriving in Prachuap Khiri Khan in about an hour.

 

After getting off the train (quickly as it only stops for about two minutes max) we tried to show a couple tuk tuk drivers where we needed to go. The Sun Beach Hotel. It wasn’t on their, obviously non comprehensive, list, so I told Troy ‘it’s fine, we can walk’! The Mapquest said .9 of a mile. How hard could it be? As it turns out not too hard, but the bags get exponentially heavier with every step. My mind says every baht I didn’t spend on tuk tuk goes straight into EXTRA massage 😅. Of which I’d like to point out, I’ve only had one so far!

After getting settled and letting our backs take a break, we decided to head down to the night market for food! Man alive, we feasted….2 kinds of chicken, fries, dry pork ribs, mango & lemon shake, corn in a cup, mango with sticky rice (there’s more but that’s all I’m prepared to admit🤣).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The goal is to stay awake until 9pm (it’s currently 6:38pm). I found two English books on the ‘take a book, leave a book’ shelf. I’ll be diving into one of those to help with my mission. The room has a nice balcony, we are on the ground floor looking at pool. So great place to sit and read! We are here three nights and have a little list of things we want to see. We can rent pedal bikes from hotel for 50B/ day or motorbike for 200B/day. So that’s something we will do for sure is to go for a ride. Not sure if that’s tomorrow or the next day…..stay tuned!

 

 

Now…..that 8pm bedtime didn’t do me any favours this morning 🙄. 3:45am. Guess who was wide awake?? But the moment the sun rose, I moved to the balcony and did this…..

Plus it gave me a chance to FaceTime with Jackie about all her exciting dental hygiene news, books and tools as she had her orientation today and starts classes July 1st 🎉🎉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The breakfast was good again. Given the early hour of our rising, we were down in the breakfast room by 7:15. Lingered a couple hours to be honest…I’m sure they were politely wondering if we were ever going to move on.

They had a little panini sandwich maker, so this is as close to cooking as I’ll get during these 5 weeks. Built myself a little grilled ham and cheese. You rarely see cheese here, and while this ended up being just processed cheese cut with a fancy knife, we all know that processed cheese makes the best grilled cheese anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to take the train to our next destination, Prachuap Khiri Khan. A quick check with the hotel desk said 2,000Baht for a taxi  (it’s 90 km) so off to the train depot we go.  It ended up being a 15 minute walk, so we just went ahead and Schlepped ourselves over there. Train was scheduled for 11:30  we bought tickets for 700Baht total (1st class) on the express train. Already noted that train would be late (12:18pm).  These are NOT run with precision like German trains let’s just say! 🤣🤣.

The train ended up being another 10 minutes delayed but we got on and were rolling out of the station by 12:30pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As one would expect (NOT) a lovely meal was presented within minutes of departure. 🤢🤮

 

So that is our current status…..will update with details when we arrive. TTFN

 

 

 

Hmmmmmm……when you crash at 6:30pm, you sure wake up early!! Like 3am early…..so I indulge in that black instant coffee. (Thank you Nescafe) and catch up on words with friends and wait for the breakfast room to open. The breakfast here is actually ok. For an Asian breakfast buffet. There were eggs and ham and country fried potatoes. And Phad thai and ratatouille 🤔. I’ve never had ratatouille. It was ‘cold’ but quite tasty and my final determination was that all around it was a better meal than the food we ordered in a restaurant the night before.

Leisurely morning then we decide to go on a hike to a viewpoint that Troy read about. It was overcast and on and off spitting rain but nothing that would deter us for sure! Still a 90 degree day so warm enough to suit us, but without the direct sun, it made for a really pleasant day to be out and about. Gorgeous shrubs in bloom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed a temple on the way and of course took that detour to see it. It was confusing because there wasn’t a soul around, yet they had the hugest row of new washrooms with running water, and a bar of soap at the sink. 🤔

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a reclining Buddha and a lot of projects underway and a ‘Nation’ box 🤣🤣. I don’t tempt fate. I made a ‘nation’!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a LOT of dogs in Hua Hin. It’s kind of like Railay and the cats. Hundreds of cats there……Dogs everywhere here. And a LOT of monkeys???? The monkeys roam free all over the place getting into the garbage and we even saw local people feeding them. So I guess it’s a thing here. I’m not inclined to ever get too close to a monkey as I’ve heard they can be quite aggressive. But these really seemed non threatening for the most part.

Later in the day when we were up at the viewpoint there were a few that gave us what we normally would consider ‘puppy eyes’ from Nichol. But no worries, we did not fall for it. The cutest baby monkey being protected in its mother’s arms made my day ❤

 

After our side trip, It took us about an hour to climb the rest of the way to the top of the viewpoint. Hin Lek Fai hill is a state park as it turns out. So fairly well maintained with real washrooms (didn’t test them out). Like I said, plenty hot today so the breeze at the top was welcomed!!

Gorgeous view of Hua Hin, the ocean and the local golf course. (Made me think of my Dad!  He would love this golf course!)

 

After resting at each spot a little (supposedly 7 views up there, but we found really only 5 maybe?) we came down from the mountain around the other side, effectively completing a loop to get us back to town. It was my intention to hit the pool, get a massage, then hit the night market. But in reality, I came back to room, took a shower and was asleep in my bed by 8pm.

Wow that last post was full of typos! I must have been tired. I did fix that up….

 

So, not too much to report today. Woke up pretty early around 4:30am, but tried hard to go back to sleep as I had set alarm for 6:30am. We had planned to be down  at the desk to call a cab at 7:20 AM to take us to the train station for an 8 a.m. train to Hua Hin. The guy at the desk said it would be between 70-100 baht for that taxi and when we got in and told driver where we wanted to go he said the train to Hua Hin doesn’t go from that train station. We had to go to another train station further away! Hmmmmm…..I’m very skeptical….but guess what, he offered to just drive us to Hua Hin. For 2,000 baht ($60 usd). So I think the train tickets would have cost us ~$24 usd plus the taxi on each end for train to hotel. So we seriously considered this option. We talked him down to 1,500 baht and off we went! He said 2 hours (vs 4 on train?) as it turns out, it was 3 1/2 hours drive but he was happy enough with the 1,500 baht so I guess it saved us some extra steps and shlepping of the bags! Very civilized way to travel in fact. We arrived at the Royal Pavillion hotel in Hua Hin about 10:45 AM, where I had booked two nights. It’s costing ~$50/ night so better be good! That’s way on the upper end of my budget 🤣🤣

We couldn’t officially check in until 1pm, so what better way to fill the time but enjoy the first foot massage of the trip. Poor Troy had a lady boy sit down in front of him and start rubbing his feet and that is never his first choice. But I was quite happy with my massage and the new/old foot did well enough with the whole thing right up until the end when she starting some ‘bending’ stuff that it wasn’t quite ready for!

We walked around the town, checked out the beach and enjoyed some amazing Thai iced coffee and mango shake with some spring rolls & chicken satay mid afternoon before some very mediocre Thai food for supper. Chicken with cashew nut made with ketchup……ya???…..NOPE! Troy ordered PhadThai and it was also off. So not going back there 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Completely crashed by 7pm……day one done! Just need sleep 😴 now…..

Excited to report we made it to Thailand! Certainly one of the most uneventful trips over to date! Flights on time, nothing forgotten, no side trips, no medical emergencies (Rachael!!).

 

 

 

 

 

Took Air Canada out of Vancouver with a plane change in Tokyo to Thai Airways.

 

 

 

As great as it all was, you just can’t compare the level of service on North American airlines, to Asian airlines.