where do i even start with this one....

After staying in what I thought was an expensive place two nights ago I decided yesterday morning to move to a cheaper place. I also realized that I really don't need the air conditioning as long as I have a fan. (I don't think the AC was working in my more expensive room anyway!) So I went walking down the beach looking for something a little cheaper and found something in a better price range. I booked it and moved over to the new place.

It had tons of potential. The room was cozy but actually looked pretty good. The washroom was a sad state of affairs but meh, that didn't really bother me.

I spent the afternoon on the beach. I finished my book and went and found another one in the book shop. It was actually quite enjoyable. Until... I saw some clouds to the North. Realizing that I was about a 10 minute walk from my room I quickly left (the weather was rolling in pretty quickly). I got back to my room just as it started to pour. Luckily I had my new book to keep me company... and more...

I opened the windows completely to let the cool wind in, I settled onto my bed, under my bug net... when... all of a sudden... through a rat-sized hole in one of the windows came... a .... RAT.

I quickly sat up... Looked around... heard it scurry around on the floor and then didn't hear anything. I wasn't quite sure what to do at this point... it was somewhere under the bed.

After sitting there a couple of minutes trying to decide what my action plan should be I jumped off the bed, put on some socks and my running shoes and ran out of my room, leaving the door open. I sat outside watching the door to see if it would come out... nothing.... i went back in, took a chair from outside and tried propping the mattress up to see if maybe it wasn't there and I'd just imagined this whole thing (rats never crossed my mind so I would've been surprised if I had actually imagined this)... I couldn't see anything under the mattress.... I closed the window the rat had come through just in case it had left... I sat down... and thought this through as much as I could've... and then realized I couldn't do this all night long.

I went to the front desk and explained the situation... I've never seen someone not care so much about there being a rat in someone's room before - I guess this happens quite a bit here. He offered the solution of putting a rat trap in my room (oh, fantastic... now not only is there a rat in my room but it may get caught in a trap while i'm sleeping??) I agreed to this as it really seemed like my only option. They installed the trap... I went for a walk. I came back to find the rat looking at me, while standing next to the trap and then running out through the now closed window!

At this point I'm irritated because clearly the trap won't do anything and the rat can come in and out freely through the closed window. Off to the front desk I went again... This time I explained that the rat was coming in and out through the closed window. The man at the front desk started giving me what I think was his 'speech' on how to avoid getting rats in your room "Keep your door closed at all times and close the window that the rat is coming in and out of." But... I'd just told him, the window is closed and it's still getting in...

At this point I insisted that they do something about the window. The guy at the front desk got one of the maintenance people to come and tape up the hole in the window... Funny enough, just as the maintenance guy walked in the rat was in the room... The maintenance guy didn't speak a word of english and my frantic gesturing didn't really phase him at all... I thought that taping up the hole might work but I also thought that this was silly... that chances are if there's a hole there, it's because the rat made the hole and is using it to get in and out of the building. I felt a little relieved when it was done... but had a feeling this wasn't the end of it...

I decided that staying in the room and reading was a bad idea so I went out and found some food and watched a movie at the nearest restaurant (they show movies at 8pm at night at some restaurants). After the movie I went back to my room to find that the tape the maintenance guy had put up was now completely chewed through... fantastic... and we're back where we started.

My options were now to either change hotels (seeing that they didn't care about the rat problem in this place) or just stay the night and hope that i can barricade myself into my net on the bed...

And so... of course... I opted to stay the night. As I was falling asleep I heard a shriek come from another room in my building... I'm guessing someone had just seen a rat - I found it kind of funny... Anyway I left the light on all night and used all of my bags and things to create a pretty heavy seal around my net. I woke up a few times confused by the light but there was no sign of the rat... until about 4am when I noticed it coming through the hole again and I startled it back out... I ended up sleeping okay but was definitely on high alert (waking up at the faintest sound and jumping whenever my feet would touch anything other than the sheet).

I woke up this morning and decided that I think I'm done with Railay for now. I was actually really enjoying it here but the combination of rat and the staff's indifference toward my concern about there being a rat under my bed just leaves me feeling uneasy about staying here any longer... I could just go back to my first hotel but... it's okay... I want to see more of Thailand than this...

I'm heading to Patong today... another long day's journey ahead...