Bang Bao Pier & Buddah View Restaurant – Thailand

We arrived at Magic Garden to check-in.

The huts have a certain charm but our bathroom was infested with ants! One day, I had come out of the shower and was lying on the bed in a towel, when I felt a stinging/itching sensation on my skin. I looked down and threw off the towel in horror to realise the whole towel had been full of ants and they were all over me! I jumped back in the shower trying to wash them off, but didn’t have a towel to dry with. There was no one around and I had to use a pair of my cotton trousers instead.
They only started to disappear when a lizard made a home behind our headboard and would go and eat them. The lizard would make me jump as he’d often appear randomly behind our things as we reached for them or flick across the bathroom wall. At one point he actually fell on me in the shower, I screamed, slipped and fell back, and nearly cracked my head on the toilet!
If you are looking for something cost effective and authentic, then it would be great. If you are more accustomed to luxury and not being quite so up close and personal with nature it may not be the best thing for you!

We had quite a few days, relaxing on the porch by ourselves or a beer in hand with new friends.

We walked up the road a little and then hailed a cab to Bang Bao pier. Once a sleepy fishing village, it is starting to build momentum. In Bang Bao, we stopped at a brilliant coffee shop for iced lattes and bubble tea.

We walked from there up to the pier, the length of which is lined with market stalls, shops, cafe’s and restaurants. There are also little blue huts on stilts over the water to stay in.

We wandered down the stalls, stopping here and there and buying a random assortment of things while munching on fresh grapefruit slices and coconut cakes wrapped in banana leaves.

We stopped for a light dinner and drinks at Buddah View restaurant as the sun was setting. The restaurant has glass tables you can sit at with your feet dangling over the water.

After dinner, we made our way back and stopped at a Tibetan stall. Full of intricate pieces of jewelry and traditional prayer items. I bought a silver Tibetan necklace and H (after much debate) purchased a singing bowl.

Which she became slightly obsessed with.

I also bought a hand stitched rucksack (which started falling apart several days later) and a blue silk kimono from stalls on the pier.

We grabbed a cab and went for a few drinks in town. In Ting Tongs (the club we had drunkenly discovered on our first night with the tree growing through it) we bumped into a group of Welsh lads we had met earlier.

From there it was drink, more drink, and some crazy dancing.

 

 

(re-edit from September 2015)