I arrived this tuesday at Pak nam pran, the location where the ITC course (kite surfing instructor) will be held. I got a room at a quite good place, a little villa that I am sharing with some other kite surfers. Other than surfers, there’s quite a lot of thais down here temporarily because of the floodings in the north.
Previous Sunday, I had a very small, to me pretty ridiculous accident on the reef in Bali, I got a small scratch on my right leg. I disinfected it, but nevertheless I got some kind of infection in the end, which made me go visit the doctor here in Pak nam pran (Thailand). I felt like back in the day when I lived in Spain for a while, I didn’t understand anything they were saying, but the doctor spoke some english and I was able to explain to him what happened. Some paperwork later, and I got medicine (3 kinds of them) + a reciept to come back. All in all, 112 bath, which means approx 3 euros! Incredible. And they were quite fast too, I can’t say the hospitals are faster in Sweden.
Going to the hospital, with a bike I borrowed from a guy at the place I stay, was quite fun. I pre-cached google maps, and just took the shortest route. It took me on small dirt roads, one leading to another, and finally up in to town and the hospital. It was really interesting to see the Thai countryside. Not bad at all. I’ll go back tomorrow, this time with a english-thai dictionary, so maybe I will be making some more sense to the doctor. Sign language can only get you that far..
Thumbs up! Medicine prescribed and ready to go. Now let’s hope it actually works..
I got myself a scooter of my own that evening. I haggled the price down to 1600 bath for 2 weeks, a really good price. Things are incredibly cheap here compared to Bali where there were tourists practically everywhere I went and all locals tried to hustle you.
The pro of having your scooter is that it is easy to get around and see things you wouldn’t see and do things you wouldn’t do otherwise. Like visiting the local town market for a late night snack. I bought some dumplings and some chicken sticks in various seasoning. Really excellent food!
The market with all its food stalls
Today, Thursday, I set out to kite surf for the first time. Quite good wind, a little too weak during the last 30 minutes to be able to do any tricks or so, but the beach is just excellent! Right on it there’s a restaurant with thai food and snacks, so you just take a seat with the other surfers under one of the roofs, and order in what seems good. It is cheap, and really nice to sit there resting in between the sessions, taking a coffee, beer or whatever and have a chat with the others while watching the ones who surf and do tricks.
As the ATM’s down here just won’t accept my credit card, I took a trip in to town to get some more money. While I was there I picked up some iodine (disinfectant) at a farmacy, where they had absolutely no idea about what I wanted. Zero english comprehension led me to draw the periodic chart on a piece of paper, then circling the “I”, then they got it :-)
I passed the little harbour on the way back, where they were all busy drying squid on these kind of racks, quite cool!
Squid drying in the sun
On the way home I stopped to snap a picture of the sunset. Magical.. With all the sounds from the tropical insects and animals, it was just.. Priceless.
However, I had to make a move quite quick, as the mosquitoes got baring of me. I think I managed to get about 10 bites just on that quick stop for 10 seconds. Incredible…
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