Ban Phatthaya Nuea

We would've enjoyed a sleep-in this morning except that the Captain decided to do a PA which was too early for our liking. I've now reached the part of the cruise (like before) where the thought of having a full on breakfast is less appealing than just having porridge for breakfast. Clearly you can have too much of a good thing!

Today we'd decided to explore Pattaya on our own, so we waited in the Fusion Bar until we were able to disembark. Once again, the cruise provided the option of a shuttle bus for the half hour drive to Pattaya. After going through the visa and disembarkation process we were finally on our way to the beach side area.

We were dropped off at a very fancy looking hotel which had clean bathrooms before we headed out. We really didn't have much of an itinerary planned so we just took it easy. Ted was keen to get a massage so after looking unsuccessfully through a shopping centre, we found a reasonably priced one that offered both a back and foot massage. Whilst getting the foot massage it was a good way to relax in air conditioning and use the wifi.

The back massage however was somewhat different! Unlike the healer I had in Bali, it seemed a tad more aggressive. Also, we were offered an ENDING to the massage that neither of us were HAPPY on getting! We then headed for lunch at a beach-facing restaurant, where the food was actually pretty mediocre.Lucky they had beer!

I think by this stage we'd had enough of Pattaya so we caught the shuttle back with Mark and Richard. Being back on the boat was more appealing so we got an ice cream and went to trivia (which we finally won). We can never have enough metal drinking bottles!

We went for dinner with Chris and his family, who had spent the day in Bangkok. They brought back some sticky rice which I had with them. As the name suggests, it was really sweet so I couldn't really finish a whole serve. Ted and I then went back to watch "Crazy Rich Asians" on the in-room movie channel but I thought it was dull. My back is now hurting a bit from that massage - I'm hoping the pain goes and those Thai women haven't permanently damaged me!Läs mer