Tuesday 7th Feb

Left our hotel around midday. Got a long-tail boat from Koh Mook Pier to the mainland and then a mini van brought us (eventually) to the huge monolith of a hotel in Trang called Rua Rasada. Arrived here around 2.30. We’d met another English couple about 6 days ago who had stayed here, they’d said it was huge and with not many guests so you literally have 4 or 5 staff tripping over themselves to help. It feels weird being in a sterile, conference type hotel (remember those business ‘do’s’ in the 90’s and you’ll get the picture, minus any other guests). We’ve decided to stay in our room for a bit as it’s blistering hot today and we are finding it difficult having the staff following us around as if we need something. We’ve decided to head out to the centre and the night market which opens around 5pm, hopefully it’s cooler then…

Night market was fascinating AND we ate the cheapest meal of the trip so far, we ate some fairly unhealthy things; chicken satay, a fish on a stick (a bit satay like) plus shrimp fitters, fresh OJ and sticky coconut rice with fresh mango, I think it cost us £2. We then wandered into the Centre of Trang with the hopes of finding a bar so that we could jump on wifi and order a Grab car. No such luck but we went into a shop that was open, they didn’t speak any English but they kindly got someone who then jumped on his moped and then he came back two minutes later with two Grab mopeds! We could hardly refuse, so J sped off on his and I sped off on mine. We managed to stop briefly and J took my photo… what a mess. We then got back to the hotel and a lovely Thai man was playing the piano and trying to get us to do karaoke with him. I said we had bad voices….we escaped up to our room.

Wednesday 8th

I was up early, did some yoga on our huge balcony. Then into the bathroom for a shower but it wasn’t a great start to the day as I realised that one of us had managed to stand on a cockroach during the night that had been lurking around our toilet. Got a bit of a shock when I went in there and saw the poor half crushed roachie in its death throes (I thought they were indestructible?). Weirdly that’s the first one we’ve seen during the whole trip in arguably the best hotel so far. How does that work AND we’re all the way up on the 9th floor! Anyway, it took a while for me to feel like eating so we decided to head out for a walk, which seemingly not many people do here so we were stared at quite a bit. Went into a huge shopping mall and found that all the younger kids wanted to talk to us or wave at us, we felt quite the celebrity pair. We ended up buying some sushi for brunch. Headed back to our hotel after our little shopping trip (washing powder, chocolate and sushi!). We relaxed by the huge pool, swam, read and enjoyed the last bit of relaxation before it goes bonkers tomorrow with Bangkok followed by Manila! After a bit more yoga (thanks Lou) late afternoon we headed out to Lion’s Tale, a restaurant J had found online, it had just what I needed, fish with spinach and asparagus, really simply done, I must admit I’m a bit done on the Thai food, although I might regret that once we get out to the Philippines. Anyway, whilst in the restaurant one of the customers, a lovely lady man came up for a chat. I do love the Thai’s, particularly here in the South, they seem so friendly.