A spot on my map #4: If you put your finger on a map somewhere between Surat Thani and Khao Lak you end up at Ban Ta Khun👆🏼

Ban Ta Khun 2016

If you put your finger on a map somewhere between Surat Thani and Khao Lak you end up at Ban Ta Khun, and that's exactly what we did. We had about a week to spend before we should meet up with  a friend in Khao Lak and we wanted to see something new on the way.

The bus from Surat stayed on a wide 6 lane country road, outside

seven eleven and a small food market, as we had no idea where we were heading, we put our hope for the Seven eleven staffs English knowledge and local knowledge.

How it was with local knowledge we never got to know because their English was a snap worse than my thai.

We tried to negotiate with a tuktuk driver on the price to drive us to the nearest guesthouse, even this became a dead end.

But shame on the one who gives up we put up the backpacks where they would sit and start walking. We used as many other times of the mobile app "Map", located a river and walked in that direction, we thought that if there was some guesthouse there that would be nice to live there. And Yeah We where right! Right there beside a bridge there was really a place to stay, consisting of a small area with a dozen concrete bungalows and we checked in.

The restaurant offer in Ban ta Khun is not the best and the ones we visit have got some hard navigated menus, but with a little pointing and hand waving you can have a meal. I will willingly admit that the diet during these four days we stayed in the village became quite one-sided, papayasallad is a safe card so it was like the basic food for us, and sometimes we had chicken on a stick, and at god times even with chicken meat bit at worst with other pieces fem the bird, grilled pork we also managed to order a couple of times.

Opposite to where we stayed was a large area surrounded by a wall and inside there was a templearea and a large market. The wall was no obstacle to enter, but it was always open and there was always people walking around or puting things to the spirits of the spirit houses, or there were monks who walked around or sat and philosophized.

Others were heading to the market to shop or to eat, yes it was inside these walls it was the most happening.

Through society, on one side there was this 6 lane road, which is actually a little empty for being in Thailand, it is no problem at all, traffic is quite calm and quiet. On the other side there is a river that flows through, and it was by that river we settled down.

The nearest attraction (except the temple and the market) is a large dam area Rajjaprabha Dam, I personally have a little hard to see / appreciate the value of the experience you get when visiting. But it was undeniably popular, many schoolchildren and Thai tourists had gone there.

Part of the area consisted of little green areas where you could have a picnic, and a viewpoint that could be seen over the pond, there were also a simpler food and a mini-mart

Another part a bit away consisted of a more leafy part with a hanging bridge which was nice though and there was also some souvenir sales.

I also think that you could live at the dam quite expensive, but we did not see the bungalow, I think you have to take a boat there.

The experience in Ban ta Khun nevertheless feels fun, and for a few days get around in a city and feel like a minority, during our time there we saw about three moore westerners.

At first we put some energy into renting a motorbike but we let that project down, as there was no such business. And then our Thai skills did not take us so far into a discussion that we managed to reach any conclusion for such a business deal, so we gave up.

But after a few days in the village people are greeted as we walk, and "our" driver, who we spent time with a number of times, and as we "hungout" with a day at the pond, consider us worthy interpreters when one another alien bird from the west appears. He eagerly waving at us as we passed at the other side of the highway and ask us to come and help with the translations.

It is more luck than skill that any of the about twenty words I can speak in Thai fits into conversation.

We will probably not get back here, but probably to another similar city somewhere else but with a different name. That's what makes an adventure for us?

this was a little spot among many others from Thailand you are moore than welcome to follow Me around 

🌺❤️☮️