Early rise at Nhong's place in the Bangkok suburbs, as we parcelled up our belongings for the journey south.Today, we said goodbye to Wiew who was to return to London for ten days or so to do her monthly accounts report before coming back to Thailand on company business for S&P.
Our new friend, Noy, she whose family sent us kilos of mangosteen and langsat fruit, had volunteered to drive us to the Victory Monument in the heart of the city where we aimed to pick up a minibus to Cha-am.
Travelling by minivan is the only viable public transport option to get to the resort. The drivers' routine is that they wait for a full load of passengers and luggage and then set off - every ten minutes or so. The fare for a two-hour trip is about four pounds, so quite cheap.
Once again, we were to depend upon the kindness of strangers, because Nhong had contacted a colleague in Cha-am to pick us up at the minivan drop-off point and take us to our hotel a few miles south. So we met the lovely Pook and her English-speaking friend Na.The hotel is an attractive beachside complex and I am sure we'll be able to relax here after the last three weeks of relentless sight-seeing.
We spent a couple of hours last night in Bangkok walking around the local shops trying to find some but it just isn't that popular amongst the Thai people.
There's a village a hundred metres from the hotel which caters for the tourists like us who are too cheap to pay fancy prices in the hotel restaurant. Restaurants, bars, tailors, grocery stores, nail and massage parlours, bike rental shops, taxi-stands, all clustering round the hotels like lampreys on a whale shark. Tonic must be out there; I think the gods will be with us tonight.
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