Khaolak, Thailand - April 2016

The blue arrow on the left of the map indicates where

The tsunami hit the coastline and carried the boat 2klms 

Into the farmlands

Restaurant in Khaolak where we had lunch during our shopping trip

The boat that was lifted 2klms during the tsunami onto the mainland

The boat was 11/2 kilometres off shore and was washed onto the mainland

This part of the coast was devastated by the tsunami

Night markets where we had dinner one night

The boat lit up at night to promote the Tsunami Museum 

The city of  Khoalak is not busy by comparison to Phuket but there is constant traffic and the restaurants are busy with a lot of local tourists.

We caught the resort shuttle bus to the city centre for shopping one day.  The bus does several trips a day and we could book a return ticket or choose to catch a taxi home if we wanted to stay late for dinner.  The weather is so hot a lot of people choose to shop later in the day when it is not too hot. The last shuttle bus home to the resort was 7.30. 

The city appears to be one very long flat street with a muddle of shops, restaurants, supermarkets, chemists, banks, money exchange etc in no particular order.  We did not spend a long time in the shops as shopping was not one of our priorities. The shops were of what I would call market quality and we could barter for what we wanted. There were other more up market shops but you would have needed to know where to find them. People that had been there before were good to get advice from as they had found all the good places in earlier trips. The locals expect you to barter and have vastly overpriced items to start with - half price was still probably too much to pay.

There are wall to wall resorts lining the coastline at Khoalak so there were heaps of tourists which the city would rely on. Food was very cheap and was freshly cooked to order.

The night markets were popular - opening three nights a week.  We caught the shuttle bus in at 5 o'clock and had dinner there after we finished shopping. The markets were only 14 kilometres from our resort so it was not hard to get to and from.