Life in Khao Lak

Well, so I have now spent a couple of days in Khao Lak and at Poseidon Bungalows.

After arriving at Bangkok airport I found out my flight was delayed by an hour, however the departure was almost three hours late, causing me to spend over four hours at the terminal, and it was freezing inside. I ended up sitting on the floor in front of some windows where the sun was shining through, to try and warm up. Once I landed in Phuket, I realised I had missed the last bus of the day to Khao Lak and in the end, be that much extra between Phuket and Khao Lak, I ended up catching one and it cost me 1100 baht.

In Khao Lak, my boss Olof (or Olle) picked me up and we had some dinner in town first before reaching Poseidon Bungalows. I was shown to a room (my room was still being renovated) where I unpacked and spent the rest of the night relaxing on the balcony and just enjoying the contrast between this place and the hustle and bustle Bangkok.

That night, as I was getting ready to go to go to bed, I closed my door and observed a large Tokay gecko lizard on the wall. I initially wondered if I should to move him however just left him along in the end. When I woke the next morning, he was gone. I later located him again though, this time hiding behind the bathroom mirror where he comes and goes from, at least it seems I have a room mate.

The end of the monsoon season is still upon us, so we normally get a large shower everyday, however normally it’s a quick one and then the sun comes out again. I’ve had a few days to settle in before we opened for business and the first few guests started arriving. My role here is guest assistance and guiding snorkelling tours to the Similan Islands. If I’m not at the islands, I normally shift between sitting in the office or the restaurant where I take phone calls and respond to emails about bookings, reservations and much more. 

I’ve also had the opportunity to travel into Khao Lak for personal purchases such a t-shirts, shorts etc. Whilst in town, I also took the opportunity to try out a Thai Massage and really enjoyed it, it also doesn’t hurt that it only cost me 250 baht.

I’ve had a lot of different guests with most of them have been easy going however, we did have a large group attend, all from Stockholm, Sweden. As soon as they arrived, there were complaints after complaints, ‘The shops are too far away’, there’s no aircon, no Pool and no fridges in the rooms’. All valid points however the website specifically state this. These are tourists that just haven’t bothered to read and just travel and blame everyone else for their mistakes. In the end they left to find alternative accomodation and we thought that was it, but no, they were booked into the Similan Islands tour as well. Despite additional complaints about the boat, our Similan tour eventually proved fun for all!

Another Swedish guy, Marcus has arrived now, so we have divided the tours between us. He will do the Tuesday tours and I will do Friday tours, which means that I will be out on the Similan Islands for Christmas and also for New Year’s.

Marcus and I have started a small side business, I always take lots of photos of the guests along the tour, I then create a disc with these photos and photos provided to me from Marcus that he took the previous year, all underwater photos. I then sell these discs to the guests for about 500 baht per disc. Normally I sell about 4-5 discs per tour which gives me some spare money to use during my time here.

Between my time working at the resort and the island tour, I have one day off a week, which I usually spend sleeping in and taking a trip to Khao Lak for a massage etc. One day, Alex and I decided to take some motorbikes and ride to Phuket Town which took about two hours. We bought a few things in the large supermarkets, caught a movie at the cinema (The Ring 2), walked along the beaches of Kata and Karon before we returned to Khao Lak.

So that’s basically a short glimpse of what my life is like here at Poseidon Bungalows and Khao Lak. What’s it like on the Similan Islands you ask? Well, I’ll explain that in my next post.