Ban Maduea Wan

A decent nights sleep was had by both of us & we headed to breakfast at 9am, already showered & packed. Sylvian cooked us a delicious American breakfast to send us on our way. Sylvian had also booked our ferry tickets to Ko Phangan & Aiye offered to give us a lift to Don Sak Ferry Port for 200 Baht less than the taxi would cost.

Just after 10am we said our goodbyes & Aiye drove us to the port. We were so glad she was with us, because apart from showing our tickets, she delivered us right up to the pier for our ferry. It seemed that other passengers were having to show passports & vaccination documentation.

Our Raja Ferry is very old, greasy & smokey, but we managed to get a prime seat at the back. At 11.05am, the ferry pulled out of the port & I was secretly slightly glad that we didn’t see any pink dolphins hanging around.

The ferry crossing was 2 and a half hours, which gave Jackie time for a bit of personal grooming & me some reading. We docked at Thong Sala Pier on the island of Ko Phangan at 1.30pm & were met by our pre-arranged hotel taxi driver.

It was 5.4 miles to our next hotel, Salad Beach Resort, a snip at just £21.50 per night. Our taxi driver lugged both our big rucksacks through the resort to reception, where I gave him 300 Baht for the taxi fare. He looked at me a bit funny, then a couple of minutes later returned with my money & asked me what the 300 Baht was for. It would have been a fantastic tip for him, but I was supposed to pay the fare to the hotel receptionist.

After checking in, the receptionist asked us to take a seat for 10 minutes which actually turned out to be 20 minutes. She then asked us to follow her up a flight of stairs & we followed but were getting ready to complain because it wasn’t what we had booked. She took us to the front room on the 1st floor & to our very pleasant surprise discovered it was a double aspect sea view room with a lovely balcony. We couldn’t believe our luck.

On the negative side, the room is a bit dated, but it is spacious with a nice bathroom. We will not be complaining & almost certainly be extending our stay. My value for money discussion with Jackie yesterday had definitely paid off!

After unpacking a bit, we popped next door to Diamond Bar & Restaurant for a Chang & a chicken satay. It was the best chicken satay of the trip so far & we both agreed that Salad Beach was by far the best beach we have visited in the last month. It had a lovely vibe, even if first impressions were that most of the tourists were Russian.

After our late lunch, we strolled up the beach & counted just 4 restaurants to eat in. We bought some provisions from the local shop & returned to our lovely balcony for a sundowner.

That evening we walked to the northern end of the beach & had dinner at a little restaurant called Spicy Salad. Jackie had a pork & rice fish, whilst I had a Massaman curry. It was a romantic setting & evening, I even allowed Jackie to have an expensive glass of white wine!

Unfortunately the mood was ruined by ‘Biscuitgate’. We stopped at the little shop on the way home to pick up a pack of bottles of water. I was just paying when Jackie added a small packet of Dewberry jammy dodgers to our purchases. The shop assistant showed me the new price & I saw that the biscuits cost 65 Baht, but I still paid for them.

As we walked away the actual cost of the biscuits sunk in. Normally we had been paying just 10 Baht for the exact same biscuits. I was furious & blamed Jackie for not checking the price before giving them to me. Jackie in turn was angry with me for blaming her when I paid for them already knowing their cost.

We returned to our balcony for a nightcap & we sat and ate the £1.50 biscuits in silence. At least it was a nice view!

Song of the Day: Room With A View by Billy Vera & The Beaters.
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