Kitesurfing

After a few days in the Capital, the “temple tedium” (as Myra and Graham call it) set in and we decided to head south to a coastal town called Chuphon, hoping for a bit of kitesurfing.

(Along the way, our bus made a pit-stop at some roadside rest area and everyone got off. We weren’t quite sure what to do but we obviously stood out as clueless foreigners because one lady got our attention and led us into a back room where all the passengers were being served some food. The lady then brought us to her table and gestured for us to eat the food (helpfully demonstrating the motions of putting food into her mouth), and then proceeded to stare at Kadi continuously as she ate….presumably checking that she was doing it right!)

Chumphon itself is not a particularly noteworthy town (like a Thai version of Naas) but nice to see some non-touristy Thailand with real Thai people. As they don’t get many tourists, there was a distinctive lack of taxis, but nevertheless, we eventually found a Sawngthaew (basically a pickup truck with benches in the back) to take us to our final destination of Tung Wa Laen, a tiny beach town nearby.

We first went kitesurfing last summer but because we were tied up with the Irish skydiving record, we never really got into it and then the Irish winter came. So we wanted to do about a week here to shake off the cobwebs so we can start up again in Australia. As it turns out, this is not the best time of the year for it, as the wind is less predictable around now, but nevertheless, we’ve been out for a few hours each day and it’s great to be back doing it. The best thing about doing it here is the water is UNBELIEVABLY warm. It’s like being in a bath. You don’t need wetsuits and even after being out for a few hours, you just don’t get cold.

During the down time, our instructor brought us on a bit of a sightseeing tour of the area which included a temple with….guess what....more monkey feeding!