Thursday 23rd - Sunday 26th May 2019 - Some interesting places we have visited

On Thursday morning we went for our usual beach side trek, which was getting more and more pleasant due to the lack of those annoying summertime tourists 😉 and, as always, there was something we had missed, or ignored, for the past 6 or so weeks. 

This time we stopped to look at the Phetchaburi Tourist Map

There was quite a bit to see which was going to be easily accessible by renting a car.

It turns out that a medium size vehicle could be had for 

~4000 - 4500 baht (AUD 30ish/day) , all inclusive but no fuel, per week.

As with everything, and especially with hire car companies anywhere in the world, 

they rarely have the smallest vehicle, which we wanted, but always have the next size up, 

which is only a little more costly. 

So predictable, but it still only ended up being ~AUD 30 per day so we went with it.

We wanted a Nissan March but ended up with a Nissan Almera 

The guy was very polite and ended up giving us a 5000 baht car for 4500 baht.

I'm sure they were still making a good earn from it.

By the by, the hire company's registered name is "Born to Earn Company Limited"

😆

We went for a drive down to Hua Hin to get some lunch from the 

Market Village Food Hall and came across this enterprising fellow selling 

these good luck charms (I think) to hang off your rear vision mirror.

So many great choices and all for about AUD 2.50 per serve!

There was no way I was not having sweets after the main course.

Two large drinks (Matcha tea Latte and Mocha Latte) from Nobi Cha

and a selection of baked thingies with chocolate in them for ~AUD 5!

NOM NOM NOM

I wanted to see if Tesco Lotus had more of the BBQ Pork Jok but sadly they did not.

As we wandered the aisles I thought I had come across some dehydrated tongue, 

from some animal or other, but, again, 

I was disappointed to find out that these morsels were in fact dried banana slices.

Oh well 😞

And who could go through a Tesco Lotus without a "sticky beak" at the electrical section?

Here is my "hand model" pointing out an interesting feature ....  

It's a "door in a door"!

Of course! This new "must have" allows you to access the egg rack and ice container/bucket

WITHOUT opening the whole large lower door section.

About as useful as a one legged man in an arse kicking contest!

Loads of TVs at comparable prices to Australia but with their own Thai specific model numbers.

If you want to compare with what is available back home you really need to do a lot of research.

They are not going to make it easy for farangs to buy a TV on the cheap to then ship it back home!

 And now the BIG decisions need to be made -

Pocky ↑ for 20 baht ..... or 2 for 30

or

Ticky ↓ for 10 baht ..... with no discount for 2

And there's the inevitable Thai knock offs ......

.... of which there are many!

As one long term expat said in response to this t-shirts' message

"Yes, but your chocolate doesn't turn into an ATM when you bat your eyelids."

There was more to it than that but I'm sure you get the gist, 

and his view on this is probably more appropriate for this part of the world. 

I couldn't walk past this example of a Stallions Centaur.

Thais love to think that it's a Thai product 

but it is in fact a Chinese brand - Somoto

What makes me laugh is that they put a set of USD forks up front, 

generally suggesting that the bike is being set up for maximum handling, 

and then they shod it with skinny bias ply tires, 

which generally means it is being built for looks and little regard to how it will handle.

Please let me make it clear that I am an extremely mediocre rider and could never 

find the limit of any tire or serious piece of suspension on any motorcycle, 

and most of you motorcyclists who know me would attest to that.

But, I think it looked quite good and I bet it would be pretty cheap.

Thais are hard workers and entrepreneurial.

Many have two or more jobs.  

Some are Highway Police Rescue ...

... and become pool repairers / landscapers ...

... on their rostered days off.

Or maybe they wear a pager and are on call all the time and it happens like this -

"Oi, Chanchai, drop the trowel, we've got a highway rescue we've been to paged to get to!"

"Just a minute Prasert, I've got two more tiles to go and we're finished the job."

I've worked in Emergency Services and a lot of the people I knew worked a second job.

It's the same everywhere - if you want to get ahead, you have to "put in".

This is our last Saturday in Cha Am and it was quiet along the beach road

Even on quiet days you will find industrious 

people delivering T.U.E. (Thai Uber Eats)

And whilst we're on that TUE topic, I think I've discovered exactly how it all works 

..... or at least sort of how some of it works ..... 

by watching the young lady in the two pictures above.

It seems that what happens is that somewhere, in a kitchen away from the beach, snacks small enough to fit on 100mm x 100mm polystyrene trays are prepared and stacked onto a large stainless steel tray. They are then transported by scooter to the beach, 

where the vendor walks around and hungry beachgoers buy them.   

That's one piece of the puzzle, I think.

Thankfully, this blog is so widely read that I'm sure that one of the many 

Thai readers will probably fill in the blanks. 🤔

Even on quiet days there are kao kriab wow (thin sweet rice wafer) vendors

selling their goods along the beach.

It is a complete mystery to me how they manage to keep them intact 

whilst riding along on the scooters.

The kao kriab wow are so thin and delicate that they seem to break when I just look at them!

The holidays have passed and we see far fewer of these behemoths down here.

However, this one was worthy of a few pics. 

I have no idea how many speakers

 ... yes they all work, and very well ... 

and spot lights were hanging off this bus, but is was a lot.

Seeing these kids on the tailgate all giggling reminded me of when we were kids 

and we rode around in the back of utes and station wagons. 

This crew of beachgoers were very well outfitted with two "drum" BBQ's as well as little smoker.

There seemed to be a lot of them to feed but they were more than adequately set up to please.

I spotted this little scooter on the foreshore and it seemed like there was some semi-hidden trickery going on, i.e. the chrome pipe and brass looking fitting on the RH side of the riser, but I was baffled as to exactly what it might have been.

Without exception, the high top Hi Ace vans have BIG bass boxes stuffed under the rear row of seats, like this one has.

When they are cranked up to 11/10, which many of them are, they will shatter your kidney stones! 

Fishing folk sitting around mending their nets and having a good chinwag 

The first two things that came to mind when I saw this scene were -

1. Adaptive engineering, aka recycling, at its best.

2. Both the bike and the kids chair probably came out of a bin. 

They were both in the sort of state that we in Australia definitely throw out, 

but many Thais are not as lucky or as picky as us. 

On Saturday afternoon we jumped in our car and headed off for a drive.

 We drove for ~1 hour to get to the Kaeng Krachan National Park

This the Thai version of a "Tourist Information Centre" we came across on the way there.

I think they have a bit more to go before they get to the helpful stage. 

A chatty young guy from a Thai ecotourism college group offered to take a picture of and for us,

at the entrance 

Most of the land you see in these two pics should be 2 - 3 metres below water 

if the lake was in its natural state and not a state of drought.

Tiz showing how large the memorial piece of Makha Mong tree is

and below is the plaque

It says, as best as I can translate -

Makha Mong Wood,

This piece of Makha Mong tree has been cut from the Pong Mat area of Kaeng Krachan forest area, about a year ago, in1981, by Mr. Surin Saengvanich, of Petchaburi Tha Mai Company Limited, 

who was the concessionaire to cut wood in the Kaeng Krachan forest area since 1971. 

However, he saw that this mother tree deserved to be kept for later generations by being given to the province of Phetchaburi as a memorial in front of Phra Nakhon Khra Historical Park (Khao Wang), Kaeng Krachan National Park for storage on December 1, 2014

Log Data 

Length is 5.80 meters, 

Size is 7.80 meters, 

Wood volume is 28.07 cubic meters.

The water line in this part was comparatively high, 

and yet you can still tell how much higher it should be.

The two structures you see are boats made from local woods.

We dropped in to the local cafe for a cool drink

We took the long way home

This view show two things that I found interesting -

1. Even out in the middle of nowhere excellent reception for your mobile phone 

or internet connection is made available.

2. Mountains, or hills, in Thailand look like they were made by a giant truck dumping its load.

They all seem constant in their shape and look like giant piles of dirt. 

This shed was full of people sitting around eating, drinking and chatting.

It too appeared "in the middle of nowhere".

The red on white sign said "Prepare to meet on Saturday night at the village market".

I don't know what the ratio of food vendors to population is in Thailand 

but it must be one of the highest in the world.

A very large lizard casually crossing the road

We took the coast road home and we came across these "viewpoints" every few kilometers.

I thought they were an oddity as there didn't seem to be much to look at, 

insofar as they were very low, i.e. sea level

Panorama view of the one we stopped at, from north to south

In fact there was quite a bit to learn about what you saw 

by reading the beautifully engraved marker.

You can barely see Nang Panturat Mountain, right in the centre of the picture, 

way off in the distance.

Predictably, it looks like a perfectly shaped green mound of dirt 

We got home at around 5pm and the storm started.

These pictures don't quite show how much rain there was.

Storms here are sudden, intense and don't last long. 

Like most tropical zones.  

It's now Sunday and the road beckoned!

Tiz found a place down south that looked like it might be nice to drive to, and I, whilst thinking of my stomach, as I am prone to do 😀, found a place to eat. O.X. Seafood

 Just as we got there it started to rain.

It was only light and didn't last long.

We were under cover so it didn't matter.

Quietly enjoying the view

As we waited Tiz was getting so hungry she was fading away 

🤣

The rain went as quickly as it came leaving us with what you see above.

We felt very lucky.

Deep fried soft shell crab with a mild (yes punters, MILD) chilli sauce.

Exquisite!

Shrimp cakes. Large, dense and very tasty. 

The dipping sauce was sweet and went well with them.

Morning glory with garlic                              Seafood fried rice

 Chilli/cucumber/spring onion  

This is a small taste of the seafood fried rice which was laden with all sorts of seafood.

Prawns, pieces of fish, squid, octopus and lots more.

Tiz doesn't prefer octopus so I get it all. 

There was also a large Chang involved 😀 but it didn't make into the pic 

Damn, that's not the white girl I left home with!

Although we had eaten for 4 people 

(if the truth be told, Tiz ate for 0.75, because she is sensible and not a glutton, and I ate the rest)

there was still a want for something sweet.

Behind me was a bar that had a ~20 flavours of Bombe Alaska, and coffee.

So tempting .... but I resisted.

The whole meal, including drinks, cost us 990 baht (<AUD 45.00) which, 

although in Thai terms is a lot, was very cheap

especially when you consider the quality and quantity.

🎵🎶 The long and undulating road 🎶 🎵

On the way home we could not resist stopping at this place....

It's time to prepare yourself to

CRINGE

The best thing about Venezia Hua Hin is it's website.

Sadly reality clashes heavily with its marketing.

Once you get through this portal you will be expected, as a "Foreigner", yes that's what it says, 

to pay 180 baht (>AUD 8.00) to get any further. 

There are rides, including a horse and carriage (?!, just like in Venice ?!) inside, 

much like a Venetian themed amusement park, which also cost money to use.

Thankfully, there is a small undercover area outside of the site 

which is adorned with murals such as this one 

OK, this was an artists rendering of what they thought Venice may have looked like at some stage

There was also this installation. 

Credit where credit is due - This was clever.

We liked it.

But this!?  ..... and there were many dotted around the foyer

such as the two flanking this very interested looking shopper below 

WTF ( Why The Face )?!
.... and I'm talking about all three of them

Can anyone please explain the link between Venice and Easter Island?

LSD? Absinth? Many large potent joints? 

Or maybe all three consumed at the same time?

 These sorts of places are not a spur of the moment construction.

One would imagine that they are well planned over a long period of time 

with many clever people involved and built using a lot of money.

Despite all that, this place is destined for an episode of "Failed Malls", and deservedly so.

But, if I'm wrong and it does succeed then I would like to propose an Easter Island themed shopping mall and to kickstart the marketing for it I have made a couple of posters for it.

or, alternatively

What do you think?

👍 or 👎

It's Monday morning as I post this as we've got stuff to do!

See you all soon