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Saturday
23rd December 2000 Day
11
We weren't
going to picked up today until 10:40am, how wonderful! A proper lie in!
I didn't wake until 8am. Heaven! Julie said she'd been awake since 6:30am.
We ordered breakfast to our room, and quickly packed the few things we'd
taken out of our suitcases. Mostly toiletries. We got our wet clothes
off the balcony, but because of the humidity they were just as wet as
they were last night. Before checking out we went for a quick walk down
to the beach. The clouds appear to have gone, with a glorious sun shinning
down. Whilst we sat at the lobby the piped music was Christmas songs,
and bizarrely enough, 'Happy Holidays', came on. Our theme tune for this
vacation! Good omen?
The minibus
was on time, and we prepared our selves for a three hour drive to Krabi.
After a few minutes we had noticed that the driver had a strange habit
of not using his brakes! The concept of braking into a corner and accelerating
out of it was just lost on him. We went careering into bends, hanging
on for dear life, not knowing if we were to come out of the curve alive,
or shoot off on a tangent into an orbital trajectory! No kidding! I'm
sure we went onto two wheels quite a few times. Just past Phanganga Bay,
we took a short cut down a really bumpy dirt track, but at least it was
a fairly straight road. Before too long we were back on the main road,
tearing around bends! The scenery around here was getting increasingly
spectacular, with huge limestone cliffs jutting out of the earth in the
middle of nowhere. They looked so out of place. As if they had been dropped
from the sky as giant monolithic standing stones of the gods! We stopped
at the roadside to look at paddy fields where they filmed parts of "Good
Morning Vietnam." The driver stopped for me to take a photo, but the view
didn't look that impressive from our [disad-] vantage point, so I just
quickly snapped one photo and climbed back in the minibus. Further down
the road we stopped at a Shell garage where we were able to buy more bottled
water, and MAGNUM ice creams!! The banana crisps that Hannah had also
looked delicious, but she rationed me to only 5 pieces.
We arrived
at the Andaman Hotel after travelling a mile down a crater filled dirt
track, dodging huge lorries, throwing up dust in our way. Our first impressions
of the hotel were satisfactory. They didn't seem very organised however.
They appeared to be either lethargic and couldn't be bothered, or extremely
laid back and stoned! We were shown to our room by the same girl who checked
us in, and she did a good job of showing us where the safe was, where
the shower room was, where the fridge was, and so on! The room was very
large, and hexagonal in shape. Our shower room was also huge, and hexagonal.
The whole place smelt musty though, but we'd soon made it smell like home!
We had access to our rooftop to use as a private area to sit and sunbathe,
but with all the chalets tightly packed it wouldn't be that private. Although
we didn't seem to have any neighbours. In fact we seemed to be the only
guests? Of course that wasn't the case, but it was by no means busy.
We popped
down to the beach and were really disappointed. The tide was out, and
beige coral was on display, giving it the lunar landscape look. The sand
was also very coarse, more like broken shells than the white powdery sands
we saw so on the picture postcards. Incredibly, finally smashing the illusion
of paradise portrayed by those glossy images, in the next bay along the
coast, there was a large jetty, loading onto huge tankers whatever those
lorries we were dodging earlier were transporting.
Back up
towards the chalet we trudged, feeling a bit down. We didn't want anything
to spoil the holiday however, and looked at the positive side. Only slightly
further down the coast was the stunning Rai Ley beach, and other beautiful
islands were only short boat rides away. If it were sea and sand we were
after, the best in the world were only ten minutes away!
Time for
lunch, so we popped to the Ocean Cliff restaurant where Hannah finally
got to experience drinking coconut water straight from a fresh nut! After
all the hype and anticipation she decided she didn't really like the taste!
She did however fall in love with the corn soup she had for lunch. My
fried rice was also tasty, and Julie's tuna sandwich was good. She did
have an issue with the bottled water though. The seal was broken on the
bottle when they brought it to our table, and she was convinced it had
been tampered with! I did test it, and it did taste salty? We came to
the conclusion that it was probably 'purified water' and not bottled mineral
water. We'll know next time to ask specifically for mineral.
On the way
back to the room we passed the swimming pool and weren't at all impressed
by its size or its design! Not at all aesthetically pleasing! It was also
quite busy, too busy in fact to be relaxing. We were still very difficult
to please! Thanks to the Le Meridien at the Golden Triangle we had become
holiday resort snobs!
We got changed
for the beach, and walked down pass a Thai massage booth near the shore.
The massage tout caught my eye, but he only wanted rub in salt into my
wound! Once again someone else spotted my tattoo and took great pleasure
in telling me he was a Liverpool supporter!
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