All went fine as I didn't need any help and we had a drink in a very cool (I mean having a fresh cool air inside, although it was looking very nice too) local restaurant by a creek and chatted a bit. Then I noticed that it was almost 6PM which left me only 1.5 hours of daylight to get to the second park, where I was hoping would not be the same entrance fee as at this one, which is 200 Baht. So I said bye, thanked to the guide for writing some directions for me for Northern Thailand where I want to go through the mountains along the western border to Chiang May and was again on my way.

I went back to the spot where I met these people to pick up a padlock that I dropped when taking of my jacket and forgot to pick it up at the time. It wasn’t there anymore. It is amazing that at a place where there are not many people around at all a useless (since it was without keys) padlock disappears from the surface of the ground. Just an observation… :)

So I was heading towards Laem Son National Park… At least I thought I was. I was hoping there would be some minor roads back through the Khao Sok N.P., which (at least as far as I understood) the guide confirmed. I must have missed them if there were any and so I ended up in Surat Thani on the east coast of Thailand, which seems to be a pretty reasonable size city.

Already in the dark I now had to find a cheap accommodation again. I drove to some side streets to try my luck. Since I couldn’t see any small hotel or guesthouse I tried my luck again and asked a couple of women sitting in front of their shop. After the usual hand-gesture-communication and few people joining this little gathering of ours in the process there was a young guy who could actually speak a bit of English and, not for the first time this happened to me, he took me to the cheapest place he knew about. He took his bike and I followed him to a place named S.A. Guesthouse (N9.13604 E99.31898), where the cheapest room is for only 100 Bath. Just 30 minutes before that I was wandering where in Thailand am I going to find the cheapest accommodation and this is far the cheapest yet. I wonder if it is going to be beaten. I doubt it. The room has just a bed, couple of fans and a stool. That’s it. It is enough for me as I really only need a roof above my head and although looking far from polished, it seems quite clean as well.

When I went to find a place to eat I discovered a couple of places worth taking a few photos of. One of them seemed to be some kind of national monument, as it was all fenced and 3 guys were sitting in front of it (no gate, just fence from the side I was) doing I don’t know what – probably guarding it. However, they were very nice (as all Thais seem to be) and even offered me their chair to stand on to be able to take better pictures over the fence. They even held it for me and joked a bit too.. :) They were really pleasant people to meet. Second place I discovered was quite large Buddhist temple where some ceremonies were going on. There were lots of people inside and around in food stalls that seemed to be put up there just for the occasion. I took a few pictures there, having “fun” with people always walking into my long exposure shots and staying there until the shot was finished. I was shooting from a portable tripod standing it on the pavement, so thanks to those figures walking into my shots I had spent good 10 minutes kneeling and sometimes almost lying on the ground. People were looking at me like I was crazy or something.

(365km)