Prachuap

Getting on the bus originally had been a bit of a problem. Nothing in the bus station was in English, but I found a nice Chinese guy from Beijing who spoke a little bit and he helped me find the right place. We got involved in a long discussion about the fact that the Thai people have a very fluid concept of timetables, and if China was running the show things would be a lot better. I’ve got no time constraints so an extra hour waiting isn’t really a big deal. The trip itself was great though, about 6 hours in a nice air-conditioned bus with seats that went all the way back. I set up alarm and pretty much went straight to sleep.

Bus from Ranong

After I got out, I found I was on the main road, about 3km from the township and the guesthouse I was hoping had rooms available. I’d met a Dutch tourist yesterday who was raving about a place called Maggie’s Guesthouse. It’s right on the beach and supposedly had enormous double rooms for a cheap price and a really friendly owner. Sounded good to me, and I’m sure there’s no problem arriving at 2am, right? Probably should have called ahead…

On the way in to town I notice a lot of dogs wandering around. There are no people out at this time, the town is fast asleep except for these feral dogs called “soi dogs” that own the streets. And it turns out they are extremely territorial. I’ve just walked past the railway that cuts through town and I notice a group of them about 100m up the road. They see me and start baring their teeth and barking. This is not good. I cross to the other side like a good resident of New Zealand – the least threatening country in the world – and try and look inconspicuous. This does not work. A group of three dogs comes across from the right side of the road, and starts heading me off. I hear a lot of barking behind me and another group of three dogs comes from under a fence behind me on my side of the road. This is extremely not good. There is literally no one and nothing around me, just rusted food shacks and bike repair stores all chained up for the night.

A soi dog in Ranong

If these were chihuahua sized dogs I might have felt alright, but they are all staffie-sized or bigger. I’m feeling pretty sketched out at the moment, these guys do not look friendly and they’ve intentionally cut me off and surrounded me. There is a lot of snarling and snapping going on and they’re all advancing towards me as a group. I’m looking around supremely calmly and not frantically at all, and I notice this good solid looking bamboo stick wedged in the fence next to me. I pull it out and with that in my hands I feel like the man. I advance towards the group in front of me and shout at them to move, while waving my stick in a white inner-city-boy’s approximation of a threatening gesture. They start backing off and I keep advancing until they break and retreat to the other side of the road. I keep the stick with me for the rest of the walk (handy as a walking stick too!) and didn’t run into any further problems.

When I got to the guesthouse, it was all closed up and I thought I might be spending the night outside. But there was a sign on the door:

Got up this morning to find out this place is really beautiful! This is the beach when I wandered down for breakfast this morning.

There’s a few interesting things to see around here so tomorrow I’m going to hire a bike and check out the surrounding area. There’s some mountain temple with amazing views and monkeys that will steal all your stuff while you’re climbing up, so that sounds pretty sweet.

When I met up with Maggie the owner this morning, I asked her about the dogs and if they ever attack people. She says most of the ones in town are pretty well behaved, but tells me you’d have to be crazy to walk near the railway at night. Apparently the dogs living there are quite vicious.

I’ll keep that in mind next time.