Note: Darcy sent me some of her and Eddie's pictures and filled in some of my missing memories for the previous days so after I complete this post I will go back to the previous ones and update them with some minor details in case you've already read those and want to see what you missed.
Our first day at the beach (Pranburi) began with yet another fantastic breakfast spread after which Owen and Max and I appear to have gone to check out the pool, though I'm a bit confused by the sequence here because I thought we did that later but this is the order the pictures are showing up in my drive. Also it doesn't look like morning in these shots since the hotel faced east so we had sunrise over the bay not sunset. Anyway, let's just pretend this is correct so I can put all the scene-setting Pranburi hotel (Golden Pines Resort) in one place.
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| Max from our hotel balcony |
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| Owen at the pool. Note: the pool looked really nice and would have been a great place to hang out (especially if there was drink service there, which I don't think there was) but we were so busy I never really had an opportunity to do that. I dove into the deep end once during our last evening there and drifted across to the other end but that was the extent of my use of the pool. |
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| Some shots of the foliage near the pool. |
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| Brothers |
Next we prepared to go off exploring on bikes. I asked about renting bikes from the hotel and they showed me where they were stored and said "just take them." So that was kind of cool. They were real beater bikes though, the kind that go 'squeak squeak squeak' each time the pedals go around. I think one of them had gears. And as usual I couldn't find one big enough for me, so my knees kept coming up to the level of the handlebars and I had to stop pedaling every time I wanted to go around a corner. But that was okay because we were on our way!
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| Setting off to explore by bicycle. |
Our plan was to head south along the beach to the KBA (Kiteboard Asia) storefront to check in there with our contact, Manu (short from Emmanuel). I had been corresponding with Manu in the months prior to our arrival and he arranged our taxis to/from Bangkok and also arranged our motor-scooter rental from "Mr. Moo". So we checked in with him and he said there wasn't enough wind for kiteboarding that day (though he later emailed me to change his mind about that and say we could join for lessons that day if we wanted but by then we were off on the adventure below and I didn't get the email until the next day.)
Going south along the beachfront (one two-lane road with a nice wide sidewalk on the bay side where lots of people were jogging and walking) we passed lots of other resorts and lots of little open-air restaurants and some other businesses (like a beachwear shop and, strangely, a formalwear shop).
While checking in with Manu we asked about places to eat and he recommended a place called La Ley nearby which we would go to later and he also told us about some other places we could go and things we could do. These included the Khao Kalak headlands park just south of us where he said we could hike to the top of the hill for a view and/or hike around the base of the hill to a secluded beach, Dolphin Bay, a large bay south of us just past the headlands which was less populated than the strip we were on and included the Dolphin Bay Resort where supposedly we could rent stand up paddleboards and paddle out to Monkey Island, and a "cable park" where we could practice wakeboarding skills by being towed across a lake by an overhead cable. We decided to start with the headlands park, Khao Kalak and bicycled off in that direction after visiting a small nearby market for beer, sunscreen, sunglasses, Pringles, and other necessities (and utilizing the ATM).
Eventually we pulled into a little parking area between the road and the beach and parked our bikes against the side of a building and decided to sit in some beach chairs which just happened to be sitting there in the shade. As we did we were asked if we wanted some fresh coconuts to enjoy for the water and the flesh and we got two of those. In the picture below the upturned hands simulate holding the coconuts, whose tops had been cut off and which had straws sticking out of them, but were done with by this time.
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| Relaxing in the shade. It seemed to good to be true. And it was because not long after we'd been there someone came up and let us know that we had to pay about 200 baht (I'm just guessing because I really don't remember) for sitting in the shade. Actually we never could decide whether we were renting the shade or the chairs but I think it was the shade because there were little string lines staked out on the ground (you can see one in the foreground above) marking plots and I think that's what we were actually renting. Later I went down to the beach and I tried to drop my pack in a spot of shade under a tree (no chair involved) and another woman came up to me and let me know I owed her some money so I just moved my pack out into the sun and she let me be. |
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| Owen was the first to abandon the shade and head out to the beach where he played Frisbee with some local kids. (Last known picture of that particular Frisbee.) |
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| The northernmost edge of the headlands. I believe this shade was also for rent but we kept walking to the trailhead. |
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| From the trailhead two paths split off. One went south around the headlands to the secluded beach, which is the one we took. The other jogged back in the other direction before heading up to the 'peak' or viewpoint. We didn't notice this one the first day we were here but we came back to bag it the next day when we had the scooters. |
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| So for today we just traversed around the headlands which involved a bit of up... (you can see the beach we'd come from in the background, and way to the north, out of the picture and around a bend, is where our hotel was). |
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| ...and down. This is one of our "record album cover" shots. |
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| Looking in the direction we're going. I was only wearing flip-flops which wasn't ideal but it looks like Max, at least at one point, wasn't wearing any shoes at all. He must have had them with him though because I see he has them on in one of the pictures below. |
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| Looking back the way we'd come. |
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| Our final descent to the secluded beach. |
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| Our secluded beach. The tide was in so there wasn't much beach but there were some caves in the rocks which were out of the water so we waded over to those to find shelter from the intense sunshine. Later we waded out for a swim. We had to be careful about stubbing our toes on the rocks near shore but once we were out a little way we could cavort in the water with no problem. While we were here we consumed two delicious mangoes we'd bought at the all-night flower market in Bangkok on our first night (was that really less than 48 hours previously?) and we also, unfortunately, left our Frisbee behind but that was okay because we had 3 others back at the hotel. I had brought 2 and the boys each brought one. I don't think we ever played any more Frisbee on this trip though, unfortunately. |
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| Leaving "Two Mango" beach, also known as "Lost Frisbee" beach. Some other people arrived just as we were leaving so we had it to ourselves the whole time we were there. It was really nice. |
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| Retracing our steps. |
Back at our bikes, we decided we were ready for lunch so we biked back up north to the restaurant Manu had recommended, La Ley, which turned out to be very nice, but I didn't get any pictures there. After that we decided to head inland to the cable park because Max and Owen wanted to practice their wakeboarding skills, so we plotted a route with the aid of some of the local area tourist maps Manu had given us and set off. Somewhere along the way Eddie decided to head back to the hotel to rest up some more so it was only Darcy, Owen, Max, and myself at the cable park.
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| Max gearing up for his first turn. |
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| At the cable park. |
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| Max, somehow, with some extra energy. |
The video of Owen below gives you the basic idea of the cable park. The basic maneuver is just to go back and forth across the lake as if you were being towed by a boat. The only tricky part (other than actually riding a wakeboard, of course) was the turn-around at the end. Owen and Max both picked that up immediately. Later the local Thai guy who was operating it started telling them how to jump out of the water during the turn-around and then how to launch themselves off the ramp you can see in this video (the white structure on the right). Interestingly, if you find this location in Google maps you can actually see the ramp. I guess that makes sense but I still thought it was cool when I stumbled on it.
Below is Max showing what it looks like when you're trying to learn how to do the jump out of the water during the turn-around but haven't quite got it yet.
And here is Max showing how it's done once you've figured it out:
The guy who was operating the ride (Martin?) for us was very nice and he eventually took to the water to show us a few tricks which the boys can work on next time they go wakeboarding:
The sun was about to go down and we were a little concerned about being on the crazy roads on our bicycles in the dark (we had no helmets and no lights) but the boys wanted to finish up with some jumps off the ramp. Here's Owen demonstrating:
By the time we skedaddled back to the hotel we were pretty pooped and ready for dinner so we decided to "stay in" and utilize the hotel dining room since they were having a special "barbecue" event each night for the remainder of the year. Come to think of it, this was our Christmas eve!
The barbecue turned out great for me because we got our choice of seafood and I chose the snapper. It was barbecued and served whole and encrusted with salt and inside it was moist and yummy! In fact it was so good I had it the next night as well. I don't think everyone else was as satisfied with their choices. I remember Owen, in particular, was unhappy to find that no part of his barbecued squid was left out of his serving, including what he called "the propulsion unit" and some sketchy bits attached to that.
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| Choices for the seafood barbecue included (L. to R., duh!) crab, shrimp, squid, and snapper (yum!) |
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| But even if your dinner didn't suit you the daiquiris got rave reviews! |
After dinner we adjourned to the lobby to play Hearts, where we made the now infamous mistake of playing with a trump suit for each hand, chosen as we do in Oh Hell (by turning up the top card from those which are not dealt) which we only realized part-way into the game (when hearts came up trump and I thought "that's really weird, why don't I ever remember that happening before? Why did I plan to shoot the moon without the ace of hearts? D'oh! What was I thinking?"). I do not recommend this particular variation though it produced lots of laughs. After the first hand we moved to our room to finish the game because there were some mosquitoes flying around and we were trying to be very careful about that. Max got a whole bunch of bites (though I'm not sure they were from mosquitoes; maybe something in the sand like chiggers?) on his foot.
Like Frisbee, this was our only card game on the trip and I'm sorry we didn't play more but honestly, with all we were doing we really didn't have any extra time to spare.
And with that our third day in Thailand, which felt like the third week - already I could hardly remember Bangkok: it seemed like another trip altogether - came to a close.
