Yes We Prachuap Khiri Khan!

It took a toll on our sanity, but we got to Prachuap Khiri Khan (PKK)... eventually. We stayed near the night market, which was close to the beach and everything else that mattered. We were finally out of the big tourist grid (not counting Damnoen Saduak, because the main attraction there is one of the main attractions in Thailand even though the road there is the least taken), and it was great! 

We had fresh seafood, the pride of PKK, wok-fried with egg. I don't know what they meant by "with shell" but I promise there wasn't any.

The people were quite nice, and a smile went a long way. Except for one woman (not pictured) who ran a street food stall, whose sour disposition trickled down to the grouchy cooks around her, and perhaps even tainted the food. It was the worst we tried in town, even though it smelled great.

My first taro ice cream IN 3 YEARS.

The next day, we braved the white-hot city to visit the temple on top of that hill you see behind me below:

We talked to some people at the tourist information office to get directions for Koh Tao, our next destination. Then they gave us some brochures about the town even though we said we won't be staying long. They showed us on the map the important places to see, and we started with Khao Chong Krachok, the hill temple.

Now, we were a bit cocky because of our experience climbing and trekking in Nepal, but in the burning heat, we were partly dead after the first 100 steps, and the monkeys freaked me out because they were quite agressive...

Dripping with sweat

Out of breath

And that wasn't the end of it. There were, in fact, 396 steps. The Thai family we met going down gave us inspiring words... I think; they spoke to me in Thai and not again after they realized I wasn't.

But "conquering" those steps definitely earned us "a happiness" too.

But like we always say, it was all worth it. We saw the pride of PKK, its three bays.

Monkey wrestling

Dark clouds gathered when we reached the bottom of the hill again, and we didn't know whether to go ahead to Ao Manao beach. Well, we only had one day there so we thought we might as well go - but the path through the shore was closed because it's an army base. We had to walk there or get a tuktuk. 

We tried to walk at the start. Our conversation with the young cadet who wouldn't let us pass through the beach yielded zero information, heck, he didn't even understand what we were asking. After 15 minutes of walking from the Royal Arforce's gates, we realized it was indeed too far, we had to pass through a forest and the airstrip. So we took a tuktuk instead. When we got off, he asked us for 60 baht even though he had another passenger. He was trying to coax us into taking a return trip to town with him. We balked at the amount; in a fair world, it might have cost 20 - so Henri gave the man a 30 and we left him seething.

The air base is called Wing 5, and they sell their own brand of water.

Henri took a pre-sunset dip while I read my book on the beach.

On the way back, we thought of hitching a ride. We didn't know it would be so easy!

This nice man took us til the gate of the air base because we had to log out at the reception office anyway. Sometimes, when we go through really hard travel experiences, we're reminded of how nice people can be. And then you wonder, why can't more people be nice?

We walked slowly back into town and visited a temple on the way. Thailand has such elaborate temples, each one is a delight to look at.

After that, we bought drinks from a vendor we like near the market and headed to the beach near our guest house.