khao lak

After our dive trip, we spent a couple of days in Khao Lak. We stayed at the Phukhaolak resort here. They had the nicest grounds and pool. The rooms we stayed in were pretty basic, but they have some really nice bungalows, if you want to spend a little more. Our's were $25/night.I found it interesting that a lot of the places we stayed had an open bathroom concept. No separate shower area, so the whole bathroom would get wet when you showered. It's all tile, so it really wasn't a big deal, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to install a little shower curtain.You'll see these little shrines all over the place, in front of homes, businesses and this is one that was at the hotel. This is where they leave things for buddha. I don't really know any details, though. Can you see the lady in the yellow bikini? This is the beach in Khao Lak, the guy walking next to her is wearing an orange speedo with a matching orange hat, nice.

This little bug (about 2" long) was making a bunch of noise out on our porch. It's very interesting-looking, kind of looks like a grasshopper, but much wider.

I wondered if there were scorpions here since it's such a tropical climate and reminded me a lot of central america. I only saw one and luckily it was dead. But, it still made me scared to walk on the grass at night when I was only wearing flip-flops. So, I would run across the lawn back to our room, to minimize my foot-to-lawn contact time.

After we returned from our dive, we were invited to the Happy Snapper bar. It was fun, all the dive shop people come here when they're not out on the boats. This was a band that was performing (I know, crappy picture). They only played covers and all of them were American songs, but they sounded really good. Natalie and Mark from the dive joined us there, they were fun to hang out with. I had a couple of sprites, I know I'm such a drunk. I love sprites in foreign countries, they taste so much better. And I let Marcel buy me some sort of virgin lemon drink. yum