24/2/25
When we woke up and poked our heads outside it felt different. The forecast has so far always predicted a little rain, which never arrives, but today there was even a Thai weather warning. After we’d had our first coffee the rain began. And it didn’t stop. It was coming down hard, and there wasn’t any sunshine.
We didn’t have any hard plans for the day, we were content strolling around and exploring as usual. So we stayed in for a few hours. We ate some fruit. Then played chess. This time online but against each other. By 10am we were a little bored.
It was still very wet outside but Jonathan decided he would go for a walk. He’d spotted a sign next to the road, a couple of kilometres back along the road the day before, that said jungle hike. There weren’t any trails on any of the maps though. Frankie would stay at the hotel and consider whether to go into town looking for a pair of shorts. We were going to be splitting up. A rare thing.
Jonathan’s ‘jungle’ hike
I walked along the road in the rain. The water was refreshing to have on you. A few tourists and locals were still scooting about, but not many. If they were, they wore plastic bag ponchos, like it mattered if you got wet. It was still boiling hot. There was a fruit stall and a weed shop along the road. The sign seemed to be miles away.
When I eventually found it, there was another sign below mentioning a charge of 200 baht. I didn’t have money. I went up the steep stairs anyway to find a small shack, a man sleeping on a mattress on the balcony. I almost just walked past quietly but then I saw a man sitting next to the mattress on his phone so I said hello. He quickly woke up the sleeping man. I simply asked if I could continue walking and he double checked I was alone before letting me carry on.
The orange, usually dusty, ground was wet. The path went up steeply through a rubber tree plantation. I had no idea where I was going so simply followed the most beaten path I could. I watched my step carefully wondering if there could be snakes. After some time the path went into the jungle. But there were still rubber trees. It was obviously a path for rubber harvesting that doubled as a guided jungle hike for tourists.
It was nice to be in the soaking wet undergrowth. The canopy shielding me from the heaviest rain. There were no signs so I periodically dropped a pin on my map just in case. Occasionally the path wasn’t as clear to see but it was still there. At the top there was a viewpoint that let you see the numerous little islands in the sea. Then I turned back.
When I got back down to the bungalow two men were sitting there and one of them, the oldest looking, invited me in. I obliged, took my shoes off, and sat down on the floor. He offered me the mattress but it looked filthy. The sleeping man wasn’t there. The man with the beard tried to talk to me but I couldn’t understand a word. He kept going though. He seemed to be asking about my walk so I showed him some pictures of where I’d been.
The other man was chopping tobacco and cannabis together on a board. They offered me a cigarette, which was rolled with a very stiff paper, almost wood like. I obviously declined. They put their mix of tobacco and cannabis into a homemade plastic water bottle bong. The smoke was thick and acrid and they didn’t cough at all. I dreaded to think how their lungs looked.
The younger, ‘sleeping man’, came out. His English was understandable and he showed me a picture of his house both before and after being destroyed by a large durian tree falling on it. He also showed me a picture of his grandmother, 87 years old. His father had died but he didn’t say how. He drove a taxi during the, usually, dry season and farmed when it was wet.
The other two men were drinking a weird orangey brown substance, that smelled of cola. The older bearded man, said it gave him power and thrusted his hips suggestively, laughing. Loh, the ‘sleeping man’, explained it was a drug of some kind that had been made legal 5 years ago. The same time as cannabis. I struggled to converse due to the language barrier, I didn’t have any internet on my phone, and decided it was time to leave. I bid farewell to the amusing trio and jogged back along the road in the rain.
Frankie’s shopping trip
I went shopping on the Main Street to try and find some shorts. Wanting to get the lay of the land before committing to anything I went into every clothes shop (at least 15!) to compare the clothes and pricing. As you can imagine most had very similar offerings albeit the price varied by 50 baht (about £1.20) on the shorts she ended up with.
A smaller number had some tie-dye tops, a little more expensive, perhaps better made but the decision on these was shelved until the next day. I’m not sure I’m cool enough to pull them off!
After some more wandering there was a stall selling deep fried banana which traditionally is made with coconut according to many recipes on google but on enquiry they had disappointingly used egg!
We met up back in front of the hotel after Jonathan had got WiFi to locate Frankie. We went to the fruit stall Jonathan had seen. It could be expensive as the first fruit as you get to town, or cheap as it was on the outskirts. It was the latter. We finally got two pomelos for a reasonable price. Most places ask for 120baht each and we bought them for 35baht each. Everything else was good value too. Pineapple, watermelon and more bananas.
When we got back we ate some fruit and watched some tv. It was still raining and it felt acceptable to spend more time indoors. It was cool day, something we hadn’t been expecting for a while longer. At around 5pm we walked back to the same restaurant next to the 7/11. It’s actually marked on openstreetmap as the ‘best food in town’. We believe it. It’s cheap and delicious and cooked to order. We had lemongrass salad (again), massaman curry and pad thai.
It was almost dark when we got back to the hotel. We ate some more banana in coconut milk, though we both agreed it didn’t hit the spot in the way it had when we’d eaten it at the restaurant. It needs simmering. We finished the first season of White Lotus, then started watching Paradise. It shouldn’t rain tomorrow. We have just one more day of our ‘holiday’ left.
Surly They Won't Make It 