Day 22 - Saying Goodbye to 2021 in Style

Woke up at 5am to the sound of a small animal with claws (or a tarantula with clogs on) scuttling around on our ceiling. It was most unnerving.

I got up at 9am, looked in the mirror & remembered that I had got myself a ‘Pompadour’. I started looking for Song of the Day for yesterday’s blog & found the perfect song to sum up my new hairdo.

Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday except that we spread our Bovril on the toast and we had a splash of rain. The hotel manager, Lucas appeared & excitedly informed me that they had got some smoked ribs in especially for me from a new supplier & I’d be the first to try them. Great, I’m now going to be a guinea pig tonight!

After a morning on the beach we popped back to our room for just one beer each on the balcony. During our lunch break, Jackie received a friends request on Facebook from Big Anne & within minutes they were conversing about the trials & tribulations (or lack of) of getting back home. I just hope that Big Anne doesn’t get wind of my blog!

We returned to the beach for a somewhat cloudy afternoon, then called it a day at 4.30pm to prepare for our big night.

At 6pm & all dressed up to the nines, we went back down to our Sunset Beach to join our fellow diners for pre-dinner drinks & to watch another non-existent sunset. Our fellow diners included a family of Canadians, who were teachers living in Bangkok, a German couple who accused us of being the spitting image of a couple of her friends & 3 Brits who we didn’t actually get to talk to.

On the beach we had a couple of mojitos & chatted to the Canadians about our respective travels & life in Thailand during the last two years. Once darkness started to fall, we were ushered up to the The Hill Restaurant, which was a beautiful setting, an open air terrace overlooking the bay. The remainder of the diners were already sat in the restaurant.

Each group, mainly couples, had individual tables. I was proud of the fact that I was the ‘special one’ until Lucas burst my bubble by telling me that there was another meat eater in our midst. It turned out to be the accusing German woman & it would seem I was more ‘special needs’ than the ‘special one’.

Lucas did the rounds taking drinks orders. We, like many, ordered white wine & Lucas came back with two Spanish bottles for us to choose from. We made our choice without any mention of prices to influence us. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap!

The 5 courses came out as per the photos & the scheduled menu. Instead of the fish I had chicken satay, spicy marinated pork & smoked ribs. Jackie definitely benefited from my ‘fish intolerance’, because she had a whole lobster to herself while other couples had to share exactly the same sized lobster & she definitely had more sashimi. What was most impressive was the fact that Jackie ate every single bit of fish, it was only when & we got to the steak course that she suffered. I did help her out!

Lucas was extremely passionate about the food & took great delight explaining to us what each course was & how it was prepared, which all added to the overall experience.

Despite sipping the wine instead of our usual guzzling, we had to order a 2nd bottle of wine half way through the meal. Following dessert of chocolate brownie, mango & coconut ice cream, we had a small firework display on the beach in front of us, which was intimate and a nice conclusion to the meal. Jackie videoed the tail end of the fireworks on her phone & was so pleased with herself she started WhatsApping all & sundry her firework display & with a ‘Happy New Year’.

Lucas then invited us to join him on a bar crawl to end at Pattaya Beach in time for the fireworks scheduled to take place at midnight. We were keen to go, but we were too stuffed to contemplate drinking for the next 2 hours. We have turned into a couple of middle aged lightweights!

I apologised to Lucas that we were too knackered & then I signed for our meal. I had a minor heart-attack when I saw the cost of the wine, luckily we didn’t know what the cost was otherwise I would never have ordered the 2nd bottle, which would have put a minor downer on the evening.

All in all it had been a fabulous evening & one that will live in the memory for a long time to come. Surely that is what life is all about!

We ended our evening with a couple of cheeky Hong Thongs on our balcony & retired to bed at just before 11pm.

The 20 minutes worth of fireworks on Pattaya Beach woke me up at midnight!

Song of the Day: Special Needs by Placebo.Read more