9.7.24

Our bed at Baan Nokhook in Surat Thani is a thinnish mattress on a large concrete slab.

The pillow looks great and squishy until you put your head on it then it becomes a pancake. Despite all this I slept for ages and didn’t hear the loud music from another room. John could sneak out and join in any parties and I’d never know.

John has been arranging the car hire. It was to be dropped off at 9am, but after our research we realised we need to be at Rajjaprabha Marine pier before 9.30am ideally.

The guy arrived at 8.10am, so even better.

Once out of the busy city it was a pretty drive and we arrived at the Pier about an hour later. Just 40thb to park.

The boats are are a set price, for 2 or for 3 hours and it’s best if you can find other people to share with.

We saw a couple also looking to share, however they wanted just a 2 hour trip, but we wanted the 3 hours option. They said ok, they’re happy to do 3 hours.

While I was in the loo John established that they’re Russian but he immediately forgot their names. We’ll call them Igor & Nikita for this blog.

The boat was 3500 thb, divided by 2 couples. Then there was a 300 thb each National Park fee,  and then 40 thb  each jetty fee.

Just enough time to grab snacks and iced drinks.

We were so lucky with the weather, it was warm, not as humid as Hua Hin and clear enough to see the incredible landscape.

It really was worth a 6 hour train journey detour to get here. John chose very well. Probably one of the most beautiful landscapes we’ve ever seen. WARNING Photo overload!!

After an hour or so we stopped at Laguna, a holiday complex and restaurant.

John went kayaking, had a swimand later we both enjoyed some chicken fried rice.

The initial stages of Johns’ kayak adventure are worth a watch.

Igor put his head on the table and had a snooze. Nikita fed the fish and took photos.

Back in the boat after an hour or so and we then saw the incredible views from reverse direction.

We said our goodbyes and drove to a nearby view point. We didn’t actually find the view point, but found ourselves in a beautifully landscaped area with amazing views.

We stopped for drinks, and the rain came.

It threw it down. The air con in the cafe was so cold, 2 choices, 1- freeze to death or 2 – drown.

John was a perfect husband, he went and got the car and I ran out and jumped in.

Our original idea was to explore other areas of interest but the rain wasn’t slowing down.

We arrived back at our coffee cafe house room, once again rammed with school kids.

John messaged the car hire guy, no point keeping it and having to wait around for collection tomorrow.

I really fell in love with the car, a Suzuki, it reminded me of the old Renault 5 sports cars.

The only downside was that I was yawning and so tired. The tinted windows made it look like a really miserable dark  cold rainy day. It felt like it was time to snuggle down with a duvet.

It was only 5pm, it was still 30 odd degrees when we parked up.

Luckily it stopped raining just as we felt hungry. We turned right instead of left, just as we were running out of potential places we spotted a Vietnamese eatery.

It was a bizarre menu really but we didn’t feel comfortable about just leaving. There was a family at one of the other tables, they never said a word to each other.

No one else there, just loads of empty seats.

Our spring rolls were not the best. I made a really stupid mistake whilst visualising deep fried mushrooms. John had a big bowl of pork bones which looked so grim, although apparently it was nice.

The rice noodles were good although not much you could go wrong with them.

Feeling bad about leaving a big bowl of mushrooms, I mixed them with the very delicious oyster and peanut sauce, added some coriander and aniseed leaf and managed to eat most of them.

Meanwhile 2 staff cleared the familys’ table. They snuck of so quietly, no thanks or goodbye. The staff were clearly discussing this and pointing to the food they’d left.

That motivated me to eat a few more mushrooms and I gave a big thumbs up to the kitchen staff to cheer them up. They were very happy.

Rock and roll as usual, back in the room by 8pm!

We listened to music and I got slaughtered at rummicub as per usual.

We don’t care about the food or the rain. We’re just feeling so blessed to have had the most fabulous 3 hours today.

We have another amazing trick up our sleeves for tomorrow…to be continued….