A bit of rain, A Kangaroo, and Chumphon!

So I had planned to only stay two nights in Khanom. But on the second day I woke up to this:

RAIN!

I paid for another night since it was a comfortable place and I'd been on the bike every day since I was on Ko Libong. I was going to go stay in a bungalow on the lake at Khao Sak national park but I gave that a miss to head further north instead.

There was a mine and port at the end of the beach at Khanom that I forgot about until now, it's a Silca mine. This is what some of it looked like:

On my way out I headed to the next beach north of Kanhom which I think was called Thong Ching Bay, and this is what I saw:

A hut being built, or abandoned.

The beach.

On the southern part there is a jetty with some markets and it looks like there are a few places to stay along here. A bit busier than the beach at Khanom, but probably a complete lack of farangs (foreigners!) not that there were many in Khanom anyway.

Then it was time to head north, I decided to stay at Chumpon which was either 260, or 300km north, depending on the source. The road signs here seemed to vary by about 40km, or my GPS was out, or google maps. I don't know the actual distance I traveled.

This was at a petrol station on the way.

Not really sure why it's there, it was only at this petrol station, but another petrol station further up had a statue of a bugs bunny like character. I actually didn't see this statue until I was having a drink outside one of the 7-11s there, I must have kangaroo blindness now. And that's right, there are two 7-11's in the space of one hundred meters.

Once I got in to Chumphon I could see some rain in the distance, and I needed a map check so I ducked in to the carpark of "The Big C" and it was quite lucky I did.

Very windy, and very heavy rain.

It died off after about 20 minutes and I headed to Fame which looked like the best option from wikitravel. Just as I was checking in the rain started again but heavier and this time with lightning hitting very close by (lucky again!). But my bike was just out of the covered area, and I was inside, and I wasn't going back out there to get wet so I waited about and hour for it to die off again before I unpacked the bike.

There seems to be a lot of other tourists at Fame too, I've found that the wikitravel places are more popular than the lonely planet entries sometimes. This internet thing really helps when finding accommodation for everyone I guess.

This place is budget though, 200b/night with a shared bathroom. The bed is quite hard, but it doesn't bother me because it's just like camping really. I can break out my airbed if it's too uncomfortable. I had my first taste [this might be the wrong word here] of the real south east asia once I went to the toilet however. It's still a western bowl but no flush, that's what the bucket in the corner is for. And toilet paper goes in the bin next to the toilet. The sink just drains onto the floor but there is a pipe that goes into the wall under the sink, and then comes back out at the floor level... Couldn't quite figure out why that was cheaper than connecting it to the drain with another 50cm of pipe. But it's only 200b/night, so I'm staying for a second night!

Tonight my task is to get photos of the night markets and eat more things on a stick. I was tempted to try the chicken hearts last night, but I wussed out and had: Pad Thai, Chicken breast on a stick, Chicken drumstick on a stick, ham and cheese toasted sandwich coated with egg and then fried.