I DON'T like when the alarm is set on 4AM, Saturday morning, but if I have gone to bed in time it is not impossible. The minibus should come and pick us up outside the house of Yui's brother at 6AM - after all it is something like 5 hours' drive and they are going back tomorrow the same way.
Everything went fine, maybe ten other persons from the village coming, on my account but I do everything to make good impression :) And the villagers have never holidays otherwise, beyond visiting a relative in the neighbor village or so, so over one night at the sea is a revolution. Yui's parents came, in my age, most of the others younger or kids. Close to this hotel there is a house for visiting Thai families, so they got a whole house for themselves, I was there once yesterday sharing some food they had brought along. Looked quite ok, for 2000 Baht for a night. Here I pay 12000B for a month, which is 400B a night I think.
The minibus 4000 Baht plus petrol. So a good deed, and easier for me than if we had to go via buses and Bangkok, as we have to do when we return. Or possibly, when we return a bus to BKK, taxi to where Yui's brother knows to pick us up.
The only disaster was - that Yui did all the packing and I forgot to take the insulin in her brother's refrigerator, sigh. I only have a small amount in the toilet bag with me, but tomorrow they can send some vials down here express so with luck it is here Tuesday.
I have not calculated the price of the whole trip for us two. The tickets were appr. 12000 SKR together, I roughly calculate 5 Bath on a Swedish Crown. We have limited funds, after all living two on one pension until in a year when Yui finishes her studies and gets a VERY well-paid computer job, sigh, but we have to live cheaply from now on once the hotel is paid - Yui had some saved money of her own, especially for gifts to family and friends. And food is supposed to be cheap here in Cha-Am, yesterday evening I sat outdoors at a restaurant and had my favourite deep-fried squid and a Chang beer.
I thought of the price when I saw a Swedish tourist agency selling ordinary 2-3 week trips to some luxury hotel in Cha-Am, a single trip costing maybe twice as all money we are using for 2 months. And those hotels are mostly far from the beach and the little village, we are half a block away.
The others sat at the beach in front of me on such low chairs that I cannot get up from.
You know how a Thai beach looks like, right. Lots of places to sit and eat, a roof over to avoid the hot sun, and sellers wandering around selling food and drink and whatever.
They apparently expect lots of tourists, but where are they?
I think no rain since we came here, some rain on the way, but not too heavy so you have to stop driving. It freshens up. After all, it is summer, the warmest in the village was 42° according to my thermometer.
In the middle we stopped at a place called Khao wang. It is a holy mountain with a castle on top and a cable car up, where the others went up while I had an ice coffee at the foot. Hardly saw the castle in the jungle from where I looked but the coffee was ok. AND as soon as we came into the little town it was full of MONKEYS (Google for Khaowang monkey)! They should be better than dogs avoiding the traffic but everywhere along the sides you saw these monkeys. When I sat down for the coffee I was told better to have a hand over my snacks, otherwise a monkey would soon come and stare me into the eyes. Old people around the temples.
The guards had slingshots in the pocket, probably to irritate the monkeys if they came too close to others.
An hour there or so, then on the road again, do not know if I slept but suddenly we were in Cha-Am, driving along the small streets, as always full of souvenirs and - tandem bicycles for hire! 2-3-4-5-seaters, and sometimes a kid at the end. All in clear colors, yellow, pink, violet........
We drove straight down to the beach road and to the left, then started to count. Often a rather homogeneous system of small streets crossing, Soi 1, Soi 2, Soi 3..... Our hotels were at Soi 7 and not too hard to find. Then our skilled driver took the minibus there - the soi approximately 5 millimeters wider than the bus. Limits the speed huh. Drove in, passed our hotel, talked to the hotel lady standing outside, who showed us the Thai guesthouse two houses up, where also a parking place was enough for the bus, to temporarily unload kids, full rice cooker and the other paraphernalia a Thai family always comes with.
Yui said they were very satisfied after having investigated the place, they had three floors for themselves, not very wide house but......
We went to our room, not very fully booked hotel, not in season now, have not seen a single other guest, they had one room at the first floor with small balcony, but - really too small to sit on, and there had been a view of the sea, as I had hoped, without all trees and signs. And also they were building another hotel opposite where all the guys were looking in, so we checked the handicap room at the bottom floor, and stay there. A tiny bit darker, but ok, I am anyway supposed to go out to see the sea, and the window is in the other direction, so noone looking in.
Suddenly Tuesday.
Calm days, only disaster was that we suddenly discovered we had forgotten most of my insulin in the refrigerator of Yui's brother. Ah well, had som in the toilet bag, thou they do not stand a lot of heat. And the family sent some from there yesterday and I got it today, might survive.
Then in a week or so - when I am settled here Yui will take the bus to Bangkok to fix things, some shopping, fix new passport, then up to her village for some more days, and then bring the rest of the insulin here in its thermos bottle.
Not many tourists here, and it is a place also for Thai tourists, guess they come over the weekends, then go back home, so very calm. But many enough small restaurants open, even thou life pretty much ends at 22 or so. First evening Yui went to the beach with the family, for some food they had brought along, maybe they bought some from all the sellers walking the beach. I cannot get up from those low beach chairs, so I sat in a cheap restaurant at the corner of my little soi and the beach road, with nice view of the sea. Got a deep-fried squid, one of my favourites, with a beer for 175B.
Yui is getting friendly with the hotel girl out in the foyer - so that girl wondered if I was easy to manage.... Not as spoilt as many other farangs, Westerners..... I eat normal Thai food as long as it is not too spicy, and I let Yui run as she wants, unusual apparently.... But that is why it took so many visits here to meet the right one, most Thai guys would not let her run wild. After all she worked as journalist and photographer when we met, a pretty free life. So she looked for something unusual too. Ah well, has worked for 5 years now.
Yui looking out over the sea.
So days go and I do not expect any big surprises the next few weeks, so probably not so much written here.
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