Day 25 - Breakfast with a Mermaid

Woke up suffering the effects of eating too much curry the previous evening. It didn’t stop us going to breakfast, but Jackie could only manage coffee & some omelette. I ate all of mine & most of what Jackie would let me have of hers.

Today’s entertainment at breakfast was the appearance of a mermaid sitting on a rock in front of us. It was like being in Copenhagen…….I imagine!

After breakfast we collected up all our dirty clothes & dropped them off in reception (not literally) for cleaning at typically the dearest place we have so far found on our trip, 80 Baht per kilo. Jackie gave it all to the nice, but dim, girl to deal with. We have visions of our clothes being worn by all the staff, because no one has a clue who they belong to.

With the tide being high & consuming most of our beach, we decided to have another march around the island to burn off that bloody curry. We started in reverse & explored the resorts to the west of us, including their toilets!

We ended up on a now clean Pattaya Beach & saw 3 separate pontoons loading queues of Thais into speedboats to get them home for work in the morning. Apparently today was a Thai Bank Holiday.

After Pattaya Beach, we did Walking Street, then walked Sunrise Beach to the ‘pleasing on the eye’ Zodiac Bar for a couple of large Changs. Black clouds gathered as we supped our beer, so we headed back through the locals village & almost undiscovered jungle tracks before arriving at the opposite end of our Sunset Beach.

Over lunch of a Chang & onion bhajis, whilst a quick shower passed over, we googled accommodation & travel routes & booked a 2 night stay in a hotel in the place where the pink dolphins live. We aren’t going mad just yet!!

The afternoon was spent on deckchairs on our beach, which promised to provide us with a decent sunset. The beach was fairly full with tourists with the same opinion as us. We waited until gone 6pm, but yet again it was another unmitigated flop.

After giving it up as another lost cause, we didn’t hang about & an hour later we were heading into town. We stopped at reception & spoke to nice, but dim lady again & this time Jackie put her in charge of organising our return trip to Hat Yai Bus Terminal on Wednesday. We have now relied on her slightly more than I feel comfortable with, but hey ho!

Tonight, we had decided that we would sample some of the fare on the street stalls, followed by a quick drink & cards back on our balcony. It didn’t end up that way.

We started off with a couple of sausages that were reheated on the grill. Jackie started eating hers first & stopped half way through saying it wasn’t what she expected, then said it was cold/undercooked in the middle. I ate mine despite her best efforts to make me gag.

We went to a different stall & ordered a couple of chicken sticks. Mine was nice, but Jackie said hers was a bit grisly. And who is the fussy one?Jackie then declared she wanted to go to OMG Bar for a little something else to eat & a beer.

We arrived at OMG Bar just after 8pm & ordered 2 Changs & a Pad Thai to share from the waiters. It was a quiet night, we would eat & drink up & go. At 8.30pm, everything changed when a crowd of 30 plus people descended on OMG in a huge cloud of cannabis smoke. They were a mixture of Thais & westerners, but they all thought they were super cool. It transpired that it was the birthday day of one amongst them, a very loud dramatic transsexual in a white dress.

This made for good people watching, but what topped it off was the same band from previously started up. The very talented duo turned out to be our waiters from when we arrived. We stayed until their final song, a decent version of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Song of the Day: Mermaids by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
When Mermaids Cry by Eagle-Eye Cherry.
The “In” Crowd by The Mamas & The Papas.
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.Read more