Day 69 4th Feb
Today starts off much like yesterday ended.... With my head in a map trying to get things planned for the remainder of our time here, only now I've got Shirees help too....
We discuss our options and tentatively make a view plans.... Every decision made has a knock on affect to other plans, but after much deliberation, and a breakfast we've finally got a plan sorted and hotels book......
This hotels very nice, and these a large amount of wild life area... We pass frogs, lizards, birds, a huge finger length snail and geckos on our 20 second walk from our room to the breakfast area.
Shiree is keen for a sun bathing day by the pool, but I'm not, so I grab one of the hotels loan bikes and go off in search of the bus station to buy a ticket for tomorrow's travel yo Krabi.
Finding the bus station is easy, but getting a ticket is not.... Come back at 14.00 I'm told..... It's 13.00 now, so I go back to the hotel to grab Shiree, it's lunch time and we'd spoken of riding around the streets looking for somewhere to eat.... She chucks on some clothes and grabs a peculiar looking old bike with loose handle bars that oddly resembles a Honda Monkey bike and off we go..... The streets are empty which is nice for riding and we just plod around..... The suns hot but the breeze from riding keeps you cool. After riding around for about 10 minutes we end up right back where we started and order at our hotel..... We know the foods good here and the places we passed on our ride cater for a Thai speaking clientele only so instead of ordering blind we have played is safe.....
We both order the same dish again, but this time decide on a meal we both hope will not prove as spicy as last nights..... And it doesn't.
From here Shiree retires back to the sun lounger and I get back on the bike again for another trip to the bus station... I park back up in the same spot, walk in and stand in front of the same girl and ask the same question... "Can I have two tickets for tomorrow's bus to Krabi please" she looks at me and says... You come back at 7....
I say to here, but you told me to return at 2....
She says you come back at 7......
I give up now and get back on the bike..... At this rate it'll be easier for me to buy a push bike of my own and pedal to Krabi.....
On reflection during my pedal back to the hotel I wonder if she is misunderstanding my requirement of buying tickets for "tomorrow" and is simply telling me to come back at time when the next Krabi bus is in the station instead.....
Once back, I join Shiree at the pool and pull my top off the whitest body that's been here in a long time....
It takes some doing but I eventually convince Shiree that she doesn't really want to read her book and instead wants to mess about in the pool..... persistence pays off and she finally gives up any remaining hope of reading and jumps in. A bottle provides the entertainment for the rest of the day.... Who'd of thought hid and seek with a clear plastic bottle or catch could be so much fun..... Fun that only gets stopped once we become the attention of an extremely persistent MASSIVE fly that just won't leave us alone.....
After showering we switch the TV and notice a familiar sight on the telly.... Bull fighting.... But not bull fighting in the traditional sense.... This is Thai bull fighting and it's unique to Thailand and it's stronghold is the Deep South..... Where we currently are....
Thai style bulk fighting is done without the use of a flag waving matador..... Instead two bulls just lock horns and push it's other around until one backs out and runs away....... It's popular here, and is bet on heavily and seems less brutal than c*** fighting..... I'm not 100% that it happens every time, but the match we saw had both bulls upright and alive at the end of the show.....
We watched this programme as the sport is show a lot in local telly here and I wanted to see how the fight ended, as some bulls that get take. Into the ring simply aren't in the fighting mod and just walk around looking for food....
We head off to the restaurant and again order the same dish..... Muslim curry..... We weren't quite sure what ingredients a Muslim curry would have but hoped it was just a misspelt Massaman curry instead.....i
In the end it was just a simple curry, and was delicious, it was easily the best dish we had from the restaurant.... It's a shame we've found it on our last meal.