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  • Day 2 - A Day of Plotting and Planning

    December 11, 2021 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Woke up very early to the sad news that Thomas ‘Mensi’ Mensforth, legendary singer with the Angelic Upstarts had died from Covid. Followed soon after by the depressing, but unsurprising news that England had capitulated and lost the 1st Test in Australia.

    We should know better, but out of laziness we had the American Breakfast at our hotel, which seems to be the same throughout Thailand - an insubstantial plate of cold bacon & eggs with pale toast & jam. The only bonus was the free unlimited coffee.

    After breakfast, we booked a taxi and a bus for tomorrow to take us just over 200 miles up the coast to the town of Ranong which has a ferry port for the Thai islands in the Andaman Sea, just south of Myanmar. We also plotted our onward trip, identifying locations and hotels we wanted to stay at, now the world (Thailand) was our oyster. I booked a hotel for one night in Ranong for £19 through Booking.com with £1.90 cash back (wow) via CompleteSavings.com. CompleteSavings.com then refused to play ball whilst I was trying to get my 10% cash back on more substantial accommodation bookings.

    We then headed out for a stroll to:- 1. Visit Mai Khao Beach for a spot of plane spotting; and 2. To buy an SD card reader which I stupidly forgot to pack. The stroll was totally unsuccessful:- 1. The beach was part of the Sirinat National Park and there was a 200 baht (less than £5) fee each for foreigners to enter. We were too tight to fork out for this which as I write I am already regretting and 2. After traipsing round the streets I was informed that the nearest shop I might get one was 15km away. For the meantime I won’t be able to upload my photos from camera.

    We returned to our hotel and sat on sun beds around the spotless swimming pool. I read a book, whilst Jackie read a Thai visa Facebook forum with news that some Brit had tested positive for Covid when they landed at Phuket & were now confined to 10 days quarantine in the local hospital. This prompted a panic with several people deciding to cancel their Thailand holiday for fear of spending Christmas & New Year stuck in a Thai hospital. (It sounded like the Bangkok Hilton). Thank god we were both negative!

    I was in charge of lunch which was intended to be a couple of beers from the 7-11, but they apparently don’t serve alcohol until 5.00pm. I’m not sure if this is a Covid thing or what. So instead I returned with a selection of snacks including Spaghetti Bolognese Baked Corn Snacks & Cheese Choco wafer. Hopefully I won’t be trusted with going shopping again!

    It was a lovely 30 degree sunny afternoon as we chilled out on our sun beds under the the gently swaying fronds of a palm tree 🌴. I tried & failed to secure any cash back, whilst Jackie continued to read her Facebook forum which had turned sinister, with a husband & wife seeking a Thai lady for a sexual relationship. This seemed to give the green light for sex tourists to add their penny’s worth, then genuine tourists started giving them a torrent of abuse for misusing the forum. It sounded much more interesting than my book!

    At 5.00pm on the dot, I dashed down to a local supermarket for a couple of cans of beer & upon my return I managed to book 4 nights onward accommodation via CompleteSavings getting us £14 in cash back. That would more than pay for tonight’s dinner. Right result. I celebrated with a Spag Bol snack that tasted of Spag Bol, but a very sickly sweet version of it.

    Jackie was hungry and decided she wanted to eat locally rather than walk a mile to some restaurants we had kindly been recommended. We ended up back in the same restaurant as the previous night, which was disastrous and we later found out was due to alleged staff shortages. Our dinner took over 90 minutes to arrive & was nowhere near as nice as the previous night, in fact despite ordering exactly the same dish I got something completely different. To add insult to injury, the bill was more expensive because despite not having a pancake for afters, we had drunk more beer waiting for the food to arrive.

    We both unwarrantedly blamed each other for this perceived debacle, which led to a tetchy nightcap on our balcony eating the disgusting Cheese Choco wafers. (As I write it feels like we both somewhat overreacted. I put it down to jet lag. 1st world problems, hey!).

    Songs of the Day: Last Night Another Soldier by Angelic Upstarts.
    Mr Politician by Angelic Upstairs.
    (My Tributes to Mensi that do seem topical in the current climate)
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