Never one to miss an opportunity

1/5/11

James work up with the runs and I felt decidedly unwell. As such we did not leave the room during the day. Around 6pm we ventured to the hostel courtyard and played a game called Sat. It is essentially a shape and color matching card game. It was rater addictive and kept the attention of 5 guests and the hostel owner for over 4 hours.

During this time we got talking to Peter the hostel owner and it emerged that he was going home for 6 weeks. For four of the weeks he had another traveler managing the hostel but for two weeks he was short. I jokingly suggested that he should let James and I manager the place for two weeks. Almost off handily he said we could if we wanted to...

2/5/11

The next morning James and I discussed the possibility of running a guest house for two weeks. There were an number of appealing features we thought would accompany such a venture... free accommodation, food and potentially a little bit of cash. All these combined with the general fun we thought we could have it sounded like a good opportunity to save a significant amount of our daily budget for two weeks whilst not depriving ourselves of the sun. This opportunity would mean we would have to extend our stay by one week and change a few activities for the preceding week along with our flights but most things are possible...

I mentioned to Peter that if he was interested we would like to manager the hostel for the two weeks he was away. He said he would think about it and we set off to a hotel with a swimming pool for a day of relaxing and roasting by the poolside. Upon our return Peter had not made up his mind as there would be three days where there was no cover as whilst we could extend our stay by a week James had bookings from the 20th of May onwards in Thailand. Peter eventually resolved to sleep on it and let us know in the morning.

3/5/11

At 7am I hear a knock at the door. Peter has decided that he would like us to manger the hostel and he wants to teach me how to do breakfast. Five minutes later I am in the kitchen with peter who turns our 5 star breakfast and traveler prices. Peter has owned and run a restaurant and cooked for private clients on posh boats.As such I find myself taking copious notes on his omelet preparation, egg frying technique and pancake making skills. A fried egg requires a pinch of salt and chilly to be added to the oil first. Now I like to cook but i felt a little incompetent with Peter hovering at my shoulder but over the course of the morning things got better and by the time James emerged from the room I was in full swing to which James commented "were staying then!"

After a baptism of cooking we headed off to our pre booked cooking classes. We spent the day shaping at the market, preparing two courses for lunch and three for dinner which we packed up and took back to the accommodation for a supper... Oh what a day