Day 10: Khura Buri - Khao Lak - Frankie goes to.....the South of Thailand (2018)

November 7, 2018 to November 8, 2018

Day 10: Khura Buri - Khao Lak

I still can´t really make up my mind whether or not I do like Highway 4 south of Ranong. It is somehow attractive due the permanent vegetation right up to the road. Despite a lot of it being palmoil and rubber plantations nowadays - at least it is all green. More of a problem for me as a cyclist is the either narrow or non-existent shoulder and the very fast moving traffic. I feel generally very safe on Thailand´s roads but it can become quite scary down here when there is motorized movement in either direction and the automobiles do come very close to you at 100+ km/h.

But my mind was mostly somewhere else anyway. Even 14 years after the December 2004 Tsunami I still have to choke when thinking about it. My wife Karen and I were on our way to Perth for a year around Australia on the motorbike then and we decided to have a week at the Green Beach Resort in Khao Lak before jumping on a plane for that last long leg. Khao Lak was so much what you expected from the ideal on-the-beach accommodation. We hardly moved out of the compound then and got to know the whole staff very well. The girls and boys in the restaurant, the cleaning ladies and one young Nepalese lad in the tailor shop next to our bungalow in particular. All gone forever less than two weeks after we had checked out. No thoughts about how lucky we have been, just sadness about the terrible fate of all these young people.

As if that hadn´t been bad enough I learned later on that a colleague from the narcotics unit in Cologne where I had investigated for a couple of years lost his life in Khao Lak too. All I can think of is to say: "Rest In Peace" Karl Klaus-Signon and all you other victims of this catastrophe.

My friend Mirko, a keen diver from Potsdam in Brandenburg, had recommended to ask about accommodation at his favourite restaurant on that busy southern end of Khao Lak. I am sure I would have got something decent and less touristy through his advice but I simply didn´t feel like being amongst all those western and eastern tourists trying to have a great time in what to me still is just a giant cemetery. I checked on agoda instead and got one of these almost unbelievable off-season deals at the 4-star Khao Lak Mohin Tara Resort a few kilometers further north. I personally would rate it one star lower but my huge room with balcony over the nice pool is quite something if you consider I am paying less than 600 Baht a night. That and the damp forecast for tomorrow makes me stay two nights.

One young exemplar of the giant geckos in my bathroom last night. You do hear them all the time with their loud "Ahh-Ohh" but hardly ever spot one. I have seen some up to 20 cm before

Back in Ban Tong Tom Peed cooked a delicious coconut soup with banana flowers for me. That´s what they look like

Along #4. There are plantations behind that initial line of bush too but it looks so much nicer if the oil palms don´t grow right next to the street

Khao Lak Beach right in front of the Green Beach Resort. I guess they deliberately left some of the deracinated palmtree roots.

The outstanding Tarn Restaurant more or less opposite the resort along Hway 4

That's only one page but I photographed their whole menu as it may well serve me as a guide through the different names of Thai food and their pronunciation.

To me the nicest beach in the Khao Lak Bay: Khuk Khak, very close to my hotel

Stand-up paddling is very in. Doesn´t mean everybody who tries manages to stand up

Just before my departure from Germany I saw that travel documentary on Southern Thailand featuring specialized fishermen who collect those rare and very expensive crabs on the beaches between here and Phuket. Lucky I met one

Today's ride: 87 km (54 miles)
Total: 760 km (472 miles)

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