One green bus ride later, and we were there. Unfortunately, we hadn't dressed properly to visit the temple so we contented ourselves with walking around and staring at the monkeys that were staring at us. There are lots of monkeys on Monkey Mountain. We bought some souveniers, as one does.
Monkey Mountain, view from the beach:
Wat Khao Takiab up close:
We walked down the mountain and back to the Green Bus parking area to buzz off to find something to eat. The sun was just about down and we hadn't had any lunch so supper was the next order of business. We took the Green Bus to a pub, which neither of us caught the name of but it was really good food and had tons of Belgian Beer. After eating I suggested we walk back to the hotel; it wasn't far, and we could stop on the way and get a couple of beers.
After picking up a couple of bottles of Chang we headed out. Along the way was a Thai eatery (no walls, a few rickety tables and plastic chairs) that had a tray of ice out front containing crabs. There were three large, black horseshoe crabs and I slowed down to take a look, just for a second. I then carried on walking and had taken a couple of strides when I felt a huge pain around my right leg. I looked down and saw that a dog had decided for whatever reason to have a go. There was then a massive hoo-hah, complete with me taking a swing at this bloody dog with my bag (remember, there's two bottles of beer in that bag and it would have hurt the little bastard if I hit him) while the dog is dancing around, barking his head off. Lisa stopped me and said let's go to the hospital, which was conveniently located across the street. I was bleeding pretty good, madder than a wet hen, and just about ready to break one of the bottles and stick the sharp end in that damn dog.
The visit to the hospital didn't help my temper much. Everyone in the hospital was kind and gentle, while I was still fuming. I don't have time for dogs that bite. Buddha bless the doctor and nurses at Bangkok Hospital in Hua Hin for putting up with me!!!
They cleaned my wound and gave me a rabies vaccination - one of five, meh. They wanted to treat me further, and wouldn't let me leave until they had some sort of confirmation of insurance or payment in cash. This is when I discovered, four hours later, that the coverage I thought I had through Nationwide Building Society's traveller's insurance program didn't exist, and there was no record of me ever even calling to enquire about it - even though I had made several phone calls to them to confirm I had cover before I left the UK. A good piece of advice: ALWAYS get the certificate of cover and keep it with your passport. Do not believe some goober on the phone assuring you that everything is hunky dory, which is what I did. Nationwide, that was your second strike. You have one balls-up left with me, before you get dumped forever. Just sayin.
Finally, I paid for the treatment, gathered up Lisa and left. I'd had enough, it was 1:00 am and we had planned on an early night and a really early wake-up time to catch the 4:28 northbound train. As it was, Lisa got a few minutes sleep while I stayed up. I couldn't trust myself to sleep for such a short amount of time and we had to be back to Chetawan for 9 am. She had her prayer exam to do, and it wouldn't have been a good thing to miss it.
We were up by 3:30 am, and checked out by 4 am. When we got to the train station, we found plenty of people hanging around but no one at the ticket booth. We waited until 4:28, then waited some more when the train didn't appear. The next one was at 4:56. At 4:55 the ticket guy turned up at the booth and sold me two tickets for the express train (three hour journey instead of the usual 4-5 hour one). We piled on and Lisa promptly fell back to sleep. I stayed awake, to keep an eye on things and get us off the train at the right stop. Falling asleep and eventually waking up in Bangkok would have been horrific; the absolute End.
We were in Nakhon Pathon by 7:40 am. We got off the train and found ourselves in the early morning market. No taxis. We wandered out to the main street. No taxis. No one spoke any English. Uh oh. We found a kind lady that eventually understood that we wanted to go towards Salaya and she flagged down a bus that was headed that way. We got on, and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to explain that I wanted to get off at Chetawan School, which is on the Salaya-Nakhonchaisi Road. The bus we were on was on the PinKlao-Nakhonchaisi Road, which will take you to Bangkok if you aren't careful. The PinKlao-Nakhonchaisi Road runs parallel to Salaya-Nakhonchaisi Road, and is the Thai equivalent of a motorway or freeway.
Fortunately, there was a man on this bus, a physics teacher from Mahidol University in Salaya, that understood a little English. He knew Chetawan School, and knew how to get there. Our bus turned off at Nakhon Chaisi and he asked us to come with him to catch the correct bus. We did this, and arrived at last to Chetawan School at 8:20 am. Lisa wasn't too bothered about it all, but I had refused to quit, refused to give up and cause her to miss her exam.
Don't ask me how I did it, but I stayed in class all that day. At 4 pm I stumbled back to my room and fell asleep like a dead thing. I had been running on my reserve superhuman ornery powers for most of the day and ran the batteries flat.
Note to self: before coming back to Thailand learn something of the language.
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