Sichon

Sichon. Supposed to be another one night stop. Turns out to be 4 nights and one of most memorable experiences by far. How did it started? Well, looking for a nice place to stay. I found some, but way to expensive so I left kind of turist area, with few resorts and went to fisherman's village on the other side of river, where was one local hotel. Later it turns out that this part of village is inhabited by small muslim community which was organizing weekend market(once per year) for collecting founds to built/upgrade mosque. I don't need to mention that I was only white guy there and no one speaking english.

The first day trip around village.

A bit more beach :)

Ehhh.......

To give you a perspective. It is GREAT!!! No resorts, no high hotels, no turist!

And you can get fresh seafood from one of those boats :D

The most typical form of transportation in Thailand. Isuzu D-MAX(together with Toyota Hilux most popular pick-ups here and moped with side-thing(adapted here to carry people or loads, but can be found as taxi, restaurant, ice-cream, coffee/tea/juice shop and many others)

Really poor. Fishermans make around 8000 BHT per month. I spend that much money in a week :/

King Rama IV. Monument which supposed to be finished 3 years ago, still on going.

Here is the market. To what compare it? I would say to something what we call in Poland "odpust", so it will be somekind of market, happening once per year close to catholic churches where you can buy some sweets, toys and here additionally clothes, a lot of different food and some restaurants.

How I decided to stay there so long, when there was almost anything to do there? Well. The story.
I was walking on the street, checking different food stals and trying different food. I got to place where many ladies where grilling coconut rice in palm leaf. I tried one and wanted to pay for that one. Lady understood that I want as many as I have coins in my hand. So, she took all the coins and me, without possibility to explain that it is not what I want, decided to leave. No reason to argue about few USD. Later the same evening, I was trying to get some another food to try and there was a guy speaking english on the street.
Chanon or Sin(there was third name which I don't remember) turns out to be a hotel manager from Phuket which came to his village specially for this market. He is only there once per year. Exactly when I was there. So, then we get together and I started to meet his family(basicly half of village was related somehow to him).
He also explaind me why all the people where pointing at me. It was that the story about money spread around village and lady was feeling so bad about taking all the coins, but she didn't know how to make it right. It is not happening normally to be so honest towards turists in Thailand. Or even anywhere.
So the next days I spent together with Chanon and his family.

Market :)

Kids performance :)

I need to mention here that I was officially welcome from stage. The lady directing all the stage things said in english:  "we would like to welcome the white guy, standing right there close to the trees on the left side. It is not normal to see farang here, but we are very happy" - with her very "good" english. WOW. You can imagine how much I was surprised :)

The little dancing princesses :) All muslim as you might notice.

The beach bar. No alcohol allowed. Muslim doesn't drink. Officially...

I was refering to food, so here some examples. Didn't manage to try that one, but it was some sea food with vegtables.

Naturally "grilled" chips. Big ones, the man was changing the sides of the "chip" continuesly. Taste a bit like prażynki(english, snacks?)

That one was interesting. The white is very sweet, like meringue, but all the colourfull things are seafood. Dried ones. So imagine the taste of sweet together with seafood essence. Really weird.

Here is some kind of sponge cake with jam. Pretty good, but extreme sweet(as everything here)

Some kind of pancake with meat inside. As I am not eating that much now, so I haven't try this one.

The first night together. Sin(Chanon) is the first on the right. The rest is his family, close, not close or friends of family. I was refering to alcohol. They are muslim, so they do not drink. Officially. What they can do? They prepare a some kind of drink without alcohol. They boil some kind of leaf(probably betel or kind of tabacoo), add a syrop(a medince bought in pharmacy) and coke(the best without gas). It is working, I can tell :) Feeling quite happy after few of those.
Converstation was one time experience. Chanon got tired of translating everything, so guys saying something to me, repeating, shouting, getting closer to make sure that I'm hearing them better and me. Saying, yes yes. They were loughing, but I didn't feel awkward. Somehow, I really enjoyed not understanding anything and just listening, looking at the sky and them. This kind of special moments....

So, here is a group :)

One day we spent on the travel. Chanon have a Toyota Corolla and it is perfect car for 7 guys. I got front seat, as a special guest. Guys seemed happy to move from Sichon and no problem to squeeze in the back seat.

So, some remote beach.

And there is Poland...

Ka'Chang!

Here we took lunch.

So there was a fish.

Tom Yam, spicy sea food soup.

Fried crab and later arrive raw crab papaya salat, but forgot to take a picture.

Then we got to very remote, small fisherman island. Connected by small bridge with mainland. Life there is moving soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow.

Small houses.

The views

The climate.

Fishing?

Couldn't be better :) Typical Fino scooter with fishing net :)

Long live the King :)

Hmm....

People are smilling and happy to see Farang :)

I don't know.

The last night in Sichon was planned as fishing trip. The first problem was, I got a dog bite, so I spent half day in hospital, then my leg was stiff. Stupid dog, luckily was a hotel owner dog, so got vaccination etc(but still really stupid dog). Then generator on the boat was dead, but they managed to borrow one.
So we are setting off. I was told that there will be 5 -6 guys, so I get 10 beers and some snacks. They can't buy beer.

It turns out that we were around 12 people on the boat, guys off course started preparing they leaf drink and we were sharing a beer. Like old times. Very old.  Half of plastic bottle going around( I can tell you that on the way back, after 4-5 h fishing some of guys where sleeping and having problems with keeping balance. They got drunk after such a little amount of alcohol and leaf drink, really they are not used to drink it)
So, off we go :)

Why so green? They use green lightbulbs to attract fishes and squids to come. So everything is green.

More squids. I catched one as well, but there no picture :(

What to do with squid? EAT IT!! We got gas tank as a small grill. No spieces, just fresh or salt water. You can't get fresher sea food :D

Here is our "glass" :D

Well, we didn't catched that much, but another fisherman boats on the way back supported us with crabs, shrimps and fishes. I got all the best parts to try, even when I didn't want them. So nice guys......

Another one !

The next morning, I packed my self and went to say goodbye. Last coffee together, some fruits and goodbye picture. It was amazing time in small town of Sichon, where muslim community was so friendly to me. All the media bullshit about muslims you can put between books. I haven't met such a friendly people before.

Thank you Sichon :)