One is not accustomed too..

4/6/11

One is not accustomed too..

A) Being asked to leave a venue.

We recognize that we are not exactly what one would call premium guests but being asked to leave a venue and being physically escorted to the gates is a bit much. As flashpackers- we have illusions to grandeur but a limited budget. We a desire never to sleep in a dormitory or take an overnight bus preferring private rooms and sleep trains. That said the budget is not exactly 5 star which is where we found ourselves.

We had set off from our hotel walking along the headland hoping to find a beech. After about an hour with more than a few incidents, near concussion for James as usual caused by his being tall, and innumerate bumps and scrape and a few jumps into the unknown we spied a beech- our salvation. Normally we would opt for a deserted beech but there were in short supply so we though a public beech would suffice.

We emerged from the water looking hot, disheveled and somewhat dirty. We soon realized we had selected an up market beech but we were determined to at least have a drink so we made our way to the bar. After recovering from a mild coronary we both ordered extravagantly expensive drinks. Two soft drinks cost what we would normally spend on lunch! After sipping these and drying off we may our way over to the sun beds and after a minute or so a smiling Thai in a lovely pressed uniform came over an told us we had to leave as the sun beds were for guests only and would we mind paying our bill and getting on a golf cart so they could take us to the gates. Somewhat taken aback we agreed but then horror struck. We were 20bhat short as we had only a little money in our dry bag. Sensing we were living up to there expectations we apologized and shuffled over to the golf cart.

After being left at that gates we decided that we would not have fitted in any way particularly at $ 1000 US dollars a night and with that we turned on our heal and tottered off to our own less expensive and pretentious hotel. How very dare they!

B) Thai drinking habits

The British and certainly me are not know to be shay when drinking. In fact we drink quite a lot. We are generous and will buy a round but what we don’t do is share every drink that arrives at the table like the Thais do. Whilst this is a lovely habit of the Thais it does mean that you have no real concept of what and how much you ar drinking as beer, buckets of whiskey and red bull and other alcohol just keeps arriving and you share it around.

It was this set up that saw us get rater drunk with our new friends Frank and Long. We had met frank when we enquired about diving and which we will do in the coming days. Frank is a lovely German living and working in Koh Samui with this Thai husband. As such we were delighted to be invited to a BBQ which subsequently did not happen but the drinking, partying and general raucousness did. Suffice to say I was so drunk that I literal fell down and James was equally inebriated being unable to undress himself when we got back. I tried to ‘help’ but in the process tour off the shirt sleeve of his new shirt. One was certainly not impressed!


5/6/11

The next day was predictably somewhat of a wash out with monster hangovers. We did enjoy skypeing our mums but that’s pretty much all that happened!