If you'd like to extend your interactions with Thai people beyond bartering with tuk-tuk drivers or ordering another Singha, I heartily recommend booking a cultural exchange trip with this sustainable development / community-based tourism organisation based in Kuraburi on the Andaman coast, two hours' drive north from Khao Lak.
I received a warm welcome from the friendly AD team, who arranged for me to stay with a Thai family in a local fishing village. I got to see and experience various activities that the villagers undertake to support themselves in a post-tsunami world, including planting mangroves, weaving palm leaf roofs, designing batik, fishing, and much more. It gave me a real insight into a very different way of life - and was plenty of fun besides.
Andaman Discoveries also arrange longer-term volunteering opportunities, teaching English at a local school, helping out at a local orphanage, or in a school for disabled children in Phuket.
Soi Nangyon, Kuraburi.
You can get an overnight bus from Bangkok, or it's a three-hour bus ride from Phuket.
www.andamandiscoveries.com
Is this your business?