Karon Beach.
This is a long beach with good water in the middle. In the south end water is slightly polluted due to discharge. Before the tsunami this was the case also for the north end of the beach, but now the discharge has been changed to a closed canal surrounded by a park. The water in the canal is filtered through layers of sand before released into the sea.
From
the beach there are two crossroads: the
On
the same road across the opposite side you will find a tailor shop - New Fashion
- which is unique in many ways. Owners are the couple Kao and Noi. What is
particularly nice with them is that they are not touting. They still get their
customers. If you once got something tailored here you want to come back. Below
to the left you see Noi at a restaurant in
Their phone number is +66 76 396 918 and mailaddress: kaoandnoi@hotmail.com. Noi and Kao have visited us in Sweden several times and travelled around in the country to get customer orders. Here they are in our garden and their son - Peter - is teaching me Thai:
Once
when I was alone in Phuket I was invited to Noi's birthday party. Before I asked
some of her girl friends what kind of gift they thought she might like. They all
said some kind of jewellery. I bought a nice necklace. When I then arrived at
the party I found that all the other guests gave her bottles of whisky in spite
of the fact that Noi does not drink alcohol. But Kao was happy. I noted
also that Noi never sat down with us, she was fully occupied by serving us and
Kao. I think that is the way in Thailand. As Noi knows some Swedish I sang a Swedish birthday song to her. It was funny
to see the effect: She smiled happily but the rest who did not understand
thought I was singing a drinking song and said: Chok dii (which means 'to your
health'), which was in fact very suitable here.
On the opposite side of the same block Kao has opened an airconditioned bar - Montana Bar. There two nice girls - Ning and Nong - are helping him to serve the guests:
When I visited this bar in November 2009 there were some other nice guests. We came to the conclusion that the bar should change name to 'Ning Nong Tingtong Bar' (Tingtong means crazy int Thai language). I doubt if Kao agreed but he laughed.
Passing
Noi and Kao on their road you find on the same side a restaurant - Chili and
Shells. Here is the owners son:
His
name is Aye and he plays electric guitar, imitates Elvis and attracts people to
the restaurant. Some years ago I sang a Swedish song at this restaurant. He
liked it and asked me for words and notes, which I gave him. He now sings it in
Swedish very good making other Swedes happy.
Jip is 27 years old (2007) and is working since 10 years at the restaurant and she is also attracting people to this place. In 2009 Aye and Jip got engaged - and we really congratulate them both:
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If
you pass Chilli and Shells and continue until the road ends and then turn left
you will find a little restaurant on the left side - J.T.
House, which I can recommend. Some years ago we invested some money
in this place and could see it blossom out a little. Now a Swedish couple -
Pelle and IngMari Selg - have invested some more money into the place. From the
beginning there were three sisters who were running the restaurant - Titti, On
and Pao.
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To the left you see Titti and to the right On getting order from me and my wife Karin. Nowadays one does not see On very often. She found the big love in Sweden and lives in Västerås together with her husband - Ola Bornström.
Pao is a good cook and very pretty - isn't she?:
One of her specialities is 'prawns fried in lepkut'. Lepkut is a bush looking like this:
This delicacy can not be obtained somewhere else and has to be tried. JT House is now (2007) history. The restaurant was taken over by Ing-Mari, who now is responsible for Solidarity Guesthouse at Karon Plaza. She kept the E-mail-address jthouse@hotmail.com. Thus we now entered Karon Plaza (see map in the end of this section). Here you will find several apartment hotels and guest houses with moderate prizes. They are all surronding a chinese small Temple:
Not many years ago this Temple was very remotely situated and now surrounded by a small park and all these guest houses:
Scandinavia Guesthouse and Apartments: scandinavia2004@hotmail.com
2 Vikings Guest House: svein@2vikings.net or sture@2vikings.net
Kangaroo Guest House: kangarooguesthouse@yahoo.com.au
2gether Guesthouse: http://www.2getherguesthouse.com
Solidarity Guest House: jthouse@hotmail.com
Boost Guest: boosttravel@hotmail.com
Here follows some pictures from Karon Plaza with all very nice people:
This is Jerry Joyse at Boost Guest.
Here is Pim at Kangaroo Guest House.
And Odd at 2 Vikings. Odd speaks fluent Swedish, English and Thai.
Another restaurant, which we often visit and which is very popular, is Hale-Halo. You will find it on the beach road between Bangla road and the south end of the beach. The following picture shows Nai Lucky who runs the restaurant:
On Hale-Halo the guests may enjoy themselves with games and cunning toys when waiting for their food. One of their latest toys has caused puzzlements to many guests. They have to release the string:
South of the round-about in Karon there is a large market for mainly clothes:
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... but Mikael and Johan are not going to be tempted by the large supply of low prices.
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Stall after stall after stall.
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Elin, Hanna and Nicole have, however, found the right place for making some good shopping!
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... and I have really found something - hm - a knapsack I have been looking long for - colourless and waterproof. I found it in Rina's shop. Rina is born in Burma married since 14 years with her husband from Nepal. They have two children 13 and 4 years old.
