Another adventure. Nakhon Si doesn’t have any public transportation to the airport. My friendly helpers at the hotel organised a ‘shuttle bus’ for me but I wasn’t happy with it. It was to leave town at 3 and the check-in for my flight would close at 3:30. No problem they told me, we are small city, everything relaxed here. Well you can say about SEA what you want, but it works.

It must the the 7th time I’m heading to Bangkok from either abroad or a domestic location. My options of getting there this time were diverse and mostly unattractive. Due to the upcoming Songkran festival all beds on the overnight train are sold out and all I could have gotten was a seat in 3rd class. Would have been fun for a short trip but not for 14 hours. Second worst option was getting on the bus which takes 12 hours plus any delay the congested roads of BKK cause.

In the middle of the night I woke up to the sound of thunder and rain hammering on tin roofs. From my room on the 7th floor I got a good view over the city and the lightning-lit sky. It was still raining when I woke up in the morning and it didn’t look like it was going to clear up any time soon. What better to do on a rainy day than getting a massage.

Nakhon Si has been a very offbeat experience so far. Hardly anybody speaks English, only some of the hotel’s reception staff do. Yet to get around town and buy food and drinks my Thai is sufficient and it’s actually fun to have need for it once. The hotel I am staying at is located off a small street that turns into a buzzing little market during day time. They also have a market IN the hotel.

On the east coast of southern Thailand lies the town of Nakhon Si Thammarat. It is one of the oldest cities around and offers the usual mix of temples, beaches and a national park. Yet for some reason it sees few tourists and that made it even more interesting for me. This morning I took the trusty old Songthaew for a more than uncomfortable ride out to the bus station. Tickets to Nakhon were not for sale at the station and were only sold on the bus itself.