Home  >  Holiday / Summer 2023

Thurs 14th Dec – Khao Sok -> Krabi

Published date

Last modified date

Author

Otherwise known as the worst day of the holiday. Events stay at a constant level of bad. The end of the day is a great relief. Disappointments and irritations:

I wake up more sick than yesterday, cursing the British woman in the cabin next to me audibly coughing as I wake up. She is a harbinger of my next 7 days. I don’t have a cough yet but I have a sore throat, blocked nose and aching upper body.

The resort breakfast eschews fried rice and instead serves hokkien noodles. I intensely dislike hokkien noodles.

Our two hour drive to Krabi is stalled halfway when a rock hits a window and causes an intricate mosaic of cracks. The soft, splitting sound of the glass continuing to crack is eerie as we drive, and we pull over for half an hour as the driver tapes up the window. We are stopped outside a local grocery shop and the crazy Australian proceeds to buy and drink two cans of beer. It is 11am.

When asked to join on one of the additional activities (by the Brits, of course, lest they have to complain to themselves), our tour guide says that Intrepid does not pay for the additional activities for him and he earns 1500 baht a day. This is about $65aud for a very long day’s work, with no break for two weeks. I would pay 10 times this amount per day not to have to deal with these people.

The crazy Australian sits behind me in the van and quietly mutters to himself the whole trip. I can’t make out what he is saying. It is very unnerving so I put on my headphones. The British lady that made me sick disrupts me and asks if I want to go partying tonight. “I am not feeling well, so no” gets a flustered response of “I hope I didn’t make you sick”. I practice responsible travel and smile and say it’s okay.

My daily ka fey Thai yen (iced condescend milk coffee) tastes awful because of the sick layer of bile in my throat.

Arriving in Krabi it is clear I despise this town. It’s a beach region and is how I imagine Bali would be. Hot, generic, consumerist. We have three nights here, which is a total waste to me.

I have what is a strong contender for the worst pad Thai of my life for lunch. It is revoltingly sweet. I leave most of it, and the waiter even asks what went wrong. I grimace and say I am finished. Did I mention I hate Krabi?

The hotel has a government conference being hosted and for an incomprehensible reason has a Thai acid rock band play between 7-10.30pm, complete with a set of amps that would rival Placebo.

My hotel bed smells of cigarette smoke, which I suppose would be more disgusting if I had more than 50% of my scent capacity. I go to bed at 8pm aching and smelling like Bernard Black, earplugs barely muffling the loudest, most anti-corporate function possible for hundreds of government officials.

At the back of a 7-Eleven I hear a methodical whistle. There are birds hanging up in cages (might have to zoom in on the photo) singing, and a line of people waiting to walk up and survey them. A whistle is blown by the man sitting on the plastic chair, indicating the next in the line step up and examine the birds. It’s a competition of sorts but I am clueless as to what. Our tour guide later tells me it is a gambling activity, and the winner is the one who picks the bird with the.most beautiful warble. I am unclear who judges this. The guide sheepishly describes it as “local south activity”, acknowledging the poor treatment of the birds.
The ‘necessary works’ did indeed ‘concern noise effect to the hotel area’.
The only nice part of today was visiting a thousand people Muslim village outside of the beach area. This is part of a CBT (community based tourism) initiative, where the government is trying to get tourists to go to local villages so that locals don’t have to move to the big cities for work. I am preparing a masterful artwork. The ladies running the program were drop dead adorable. The young ladies took care of painting and sweets. The older, more serious women prepared the main meal. For the first time they were taking more photos of us than we were of them because they were eager to promote their program online.
We help grate coconut for the dessert topping. The young ladies giggle at each other when the German lady has her turn, saying she has “sexy movements”. They speak zero English and our guide also chuckles as he translates.
We roll out our rice flour balls with a lump of palm sugar in the middle.
Which are then boiled in water and turned into this dessert, which is specific to the south.
The village farms sap from rubber trees. They have hundreds of trees with a diagonal cut in the base. The sap then drips during the day into this small bucket. A kilo currently fetches a meagre 50 baht ($2aud). The government sets this price and there is currently anger regarding how low the price is.

Categories:Holiday​Summer 2023

Cait

Related Posts

2 Responses

  1. So sorry to hear you are sick. The only small consolation I can think of it is in a crap place so that may lessen what you miss 😞.

    Your acid rock reference made me think of Taylor’s excellent vault lyric for now that we dont talk Shame I don’t even know what acid rock is. Was hoping to get a day off for her birthday but HR didn’t agree. They do it for the other queen?

    Are you listening to much music or podcasts over there? Do you hear much western music?

    Ask guide for help if you are sick. Take care of yourself. Sending hugs M xx

  2. bad health, bad food, bad company = shitty time and cranky Cait

    love the note from the hotel. they asked you to contact them about any concerns. wonder what their solution would have been to the metal festival.

    the village locals did look very happy in the photo