Our Stay at Khao Lak

After a long drive from Kuala Perlis, Malaysia, we arrived at Khao Lak. During our search for hotel, we drove past Khao Lak town center, one maiin street. We saw many restaurants and shops and agreed to come back here for dinner after we settled down.. We got a good deal (THB2,200, low season rate) from Hotel Briza, located about 5 km south from Khao Lak town center.









We checkd in, showered and headed for the town center. To our surprise, the main street was so quiet. Not many tourists were shopping on the main street. Most of the restaurants were three quarter empty. This was the low season coupled with recent financial crisis, tourist arrivals had dropped even further. When you look for good food in a foreign country, one rule of thumb is go with the crowd. After looking around, we decided to try Ga Restaurant serving Thai cuisine to the foreigner. We ordered Thai curry chicken, Spicy prawn, Fried squid and Fried vegetable. Nothing fanny, Their food tasted really good. Neo Chian and I enjoyed our dinner very much and rated it B for our dinner pleasure. It costed us THB450. Then, we completed the night out by going next door for one-hour Thai massage.

Next morning, I took a walk around the hotel and the beach. At the beach, there was a blue pole marked “5 M 26 Dec04 Tsunami Hazard Zone. The Tsunami wave was 5 meters high on 26 Dec 2004. There was another sign showing the Evacuation Route with a arrow pointing inland.

Neo Chian and I sat down at the restaurant for breakfast. We had a good view at the garden. Beyond the garden was the sea. I would guess we were at least good 100 meter from the sea. We chatted with Jeab, a waitress. She was here on that day but working upstairs. She said the wave came over the roof where we are sitting. It was a frightening experience for her. This hotel was destroyed and was rebuilt at the same location.

After breakfast, we checked out and brought our gears to the car. Mr. Murphy shown up for the first time. We couldn’t open the back door of the Pajero. The hotel staff took notice of our problem and came to help. Neo Chian contacted with Ben of C&C in Singapore for help. We decided to move as planned as this is not serious problem. But we would be inconvenience for moving our stuff in and out of the car . We could pick up information along the way for the nearest Mitsubishi Service Centers along our way.

Before we headed for Hua Hin, we visited Tsunami Museum and the Memorial Scripture.