Our Journey To Mai Khao

Dan and I arrived in Mai Khao by taxi from the airport as this was the easiest way to get there. Unfortunately it was not easy, our taxi man knew the road we had to be on but did not know whereabouts our accommodation was on the road. Soon to find out this road was a big motorway (for Thailand it was big), we decided to just get out half way on this motorway and go by foot to find it.

Unworried knowing the house number was 139, we thought it would straight forward. Look at the first house we see, find the house number and go from there, just like you would in England. Oh how wrong we were, it was midday and carrying 31kg between us with little water, I was beginning to get agertated by seeming less walking on this motorway. We stopped at serveral shops asking if they had heard of our hostels name.

We were saved we thought when one local shop owner said we were only a few hundred metres away. Relieved we started crossing the motorway and going up a dust track to what seemed to me as an abandoned mansion, but unsure we still proceeded. From the distance we noticed a family sitting outside and we thought ohh good the family owners we're here. Again, how wrong we were. As we started to approach the house 3 guard dogs started barking at us fairly aggressively. Dan petrified stayed behind me as I authoritivly approached the family asking if they spoke any English. The daughter managed to respond saying: 'No speak English'. Great I thought back to square one. May I point out it was not my idea to get out the taxi and walk, it was Dans. I was growing with frustration while Dan remained his calm self.

Dan was evidently sure he knew we weren't far off so we quickly exited this little abandoned house dust road estate, and started walking back to our starting point. At this point we were most definitely out of water and sweat was dripping from every part of our bodies. About 45 minutes after getting out of the taxi we were both starting to give up. We stopped again to re-evaluate Google maps, whilst standing under some shade. Little did we know where we were standing under a tree, we must have not noticed the sign next to this tree with our hostel name on it. We were standing outside our hostel for a good 5 minutes being totally oblivious to it. We laughed off our frustrations and went inside finally.