As I mentioned before; my trip to Thailand was a total unplanned one, which obviously adds a lot of mystery as well as spice to the whole travel idea. Being left in a new place with no idea what so ever is challenging but has a lot of upsides, if you are open to new things and do not like to follow a set pattern.
With this very idea of “exploring” I rented a car at the airport, which is cheap and a good idea if you don’t plan to fizz out all your energy on one place only, or maybe rely on the local transport that might or might not take you everywhere. So imagine getting a car from the airport, driving in the direction of town which is roughly 2 hours’ drive and then trying to find your resort on your own. Drained and tired, I crossed the main beach town (Patong) and looked for Keemala Resort located on Kamala Beach. To start with, the name of the beach and resort were so same that I would get confused every other minute.
To add more flavour, I reached the beach but could not locate the resort. Now the property was not a skimpy little place, it seemed massive and it wouldn’t have been easy to miss it as the pictures depicted. So driving in one direction I crossed the beach and crossed the whole town but nope, it was nowhere to be seen. The town is not that big, a 10 minutes’ drive would bypass the place. So I finally made a pit-stop little ahead town near a hotel and started enquiring, that’s when I discovered the resort was almost at the start of beach ie opposite end.
Turned around, almost reaching the other end of the beach I took a turn on the left of the road just after the main crossroad which looked beautiful and did seem like the right turn for Keemala as per the explanation of countless people by now. And as the luck went by, it wasn’t the one but it had another surprise. 2 carts part next to each other one for tea/coffee and another one with thin noodles. The smell of it was irresistible and I pulled over for it.
This was my first brush with a peculiar sprout that is widely used/available in Thailand, it’s the peanut sprout. I’m not a peanut lover but this sprout was something different with another level of freshness, a hot soupy meal after hours of drive that was a relief. Followed on with some wonderful Thai tea, in a way its similar to Indian tea because it’s overcooked (almost to death!!) and that’s not all, the vendors were some kind people who knew English well (unlike most of Thailand) and guided by saying “Keemala? That’s just the next lane”. The day ended with a big grin over thoughts of pleasure and relaxation.
