Day 20 - An Englishman Abroad

I woke up sometime around 4.30am with a raging sore throat. I thought it was the air conditioning, but later I would realise that I had a cold on the way. Jackie counted her hidden away shekels and mysteriously found an extra 2000THB, which apparently we needed to spend.

It was after 9.30am when we left our spacious cool hut and embarked on the 2 mile trek to our beach. Bizarrely when we arrived, well after 10am, we were the first people to actually sit down and occupy the deckchairs.

We purchased a banana smoothie and a passion fruit smoothie. The temperature was 30 degrees, no cloud or breeze. We were hot and bothered. A few walks up and down the beach and multiple dips in the Gulf of Thailand could not cool us down.

We returned to our usual lunch haunt, where I had their signature Mango and sticky rice, which was purple. Jackie ordered a Pad Thai which was not the best and neither of us even managed to finish. I think we are now officially ‘All Thai’d Out’.

The afternoon had Jackie with her head under the umbrella and me reading my book with my back to the sun.

When I wasn’t reading, we amused ourselves watching the endless parade of girls and young women taking constant selfies or getting their partners to take endless photos of them in ‘sexy’ poses in and out of the sea. One woman in a bright orange bikini spent literally the whole day walking up and down the beach posing for photographs taken by her fat friend. Presumably for Facebook, Instagram or TingTongBrides.com etc. The vanity of all these women was just extraordinary.

Gone 5.30pm, we trekked back to Samed Garden Resort. We were dripping in sweat when we arrived. We changed our sodden T-shirts and went straight back out to C Smile for a couple of Changs and we ate a particularly crispy pork omelette and a basket of chips.

Later that evening we played Top Trumps with a bottle of Hong Thong. It was still 28 degrees without a hint of a breeze and we just melted on our verandah. It was a relief to get back into our chilly air conditioned room.

Song of the Day - Vanity by New Model Army.Read more