Prachuap Khiri Khan

see all photos »

First surprise when I got here was finding myself off the bus ,on the highway , seemingly in the middle of nowhere.I eventually I found a m'bike taxi to take me the couple of miles into town.

The next surprise was the ' hotel ' . It's actually a few rooms above what looks like a garage .The unfriendly owner showed me the room which is a bit shabby but cheap. I then did what I normally do , ditched the bags for a scout round .

I walked along the beachfront watching the little fishing boats bring the catch in. Scattered at intervals along the front  were fish and squid laid out to dry in the sun.

squid.
see all photos »

It's a small attractive seaside place where fishing seems to be the major income and not tourism . You hear stories when travelling of when such and such place used to be a lovely little sleepy village. Well , this is it! i'm sure a few other tourists must pass this way , but thankfully there's no sign of them.The shophouses are mainly wooden  instead of the more usual and less appealing concrete.

At the Southern end of town is the Khao Chong Krajok temple. The 400+ step climb gives a good view of the beach and town below. More interestingly , the whole place is over run with monkeys.At street level you can buy sweetcorn or bananas to feed the rabble.Some of the bolder ones will try and grab food off you, which is a bit scary for the youngsters. One even went for my water bottle!

A snack at the fayre. I'll try some things , but I know my limits
see all photos »

Judging by the number of monkeys with babies they seem to be doing very well. What really surprised me was when they started dive bombing into the pool. Once one started lots of others joined in.And I thought they were scared of water!

No shortage of street vendours selling all manor of tasty snacks.I found a new one here. A quickly cooked pancake with an egg broken into the middle just before it's folded up , drizzled with condensed milk and wrapped. Mmm mm.

On the Saturday there was a  carnival at one end of the seafront  complete with ferris wheel and mini rollercoaster.I didn't see any candyfloss on sale , but did see dried fish on a stick .I'm sure it's a lot healthier but don't think it would go down well at home.I had a nose at another foodstall and wasn't in the least tempted by what was on offer. Trays of  beetles , large and small and what looked like grubs and mealworms.

fish on a stick
see all photos »

I didn't see any other foreigners , in fact I think I was the only ferang at the fair.

It's too hot to do much during the day so have spent a lot of time on the internet.The big draw is that it's far cheaper here than anywhere else I've seen. 20 baht an hour ( 70 to the pound). It shows how prices vary from place to place. on Ko Chang it was 3b a min - 180 an hour.

Have been here 3 nights so time to be moving on ...