Holiday: Rest Day in Khanom

So we arrived in Surat Tani at 6am - just half an hour late.  Our first problem was how we were going to get to our accommodation - as we hadn't been able to pre book a car or taxi.  We needn't have worried, we were greeted by a whole load of people offering these services, we were first in line and within 20 minutes we were on our way in a private mini bus.  The guide book was right - Surat Tani isn't a pleasant looking place - there was nothing there to make you want to stay and explore more.  We were glad to leave.  The taxi ride was a good 1.5 hours to Khanom.  We were greeted with a lovely private bungalow right on the beach on the Gulf of Thailand with a swimming pool.  

It felt completely deserted when we arrived, they were expecting us, so we checked in easily, were shown to our lovely bungalow, which we turned into a mess almost immediately, and ordered our breakfast - we were starving!

The lady running the hotel was lovely and very helpful.  I mentioned that it was quiet, to which she said we were the only guests.  How strange, I have never been in the situation where we are the only guests.  It is sort of nice but also sort of weird.  We had our breakfast - stir fried rice for the boys and fried eggs with questionable pork products for me.  Then we were straight to the pool to cool down - it was bliss.  The morning was mainly spent in or around the pool until we were struggling to keep our eyes open when we went back to our bungalow for a lie down.  

Then we had lunch - pork and ginger for me, stir fried stuff with nuts for the boys.  Then back to our room for the height of the afternoon heat to catch up on photos/blog/scrapbook.

It is very beautiful here, lush green mountains hitting blue sea and lots of chickens scrabbling around.  We noticed lots of chicken statues as we drove in, so assume they are a province symbol or something?  We are getting very attentive service (some people pay A LOT of money for exclusive use of a resort).  We aren't really near a town or anything so we will be staying here for the day, although I believe there is a fish restaurant in walking distance so we will go there this evening.  We plan to go in the sea this afternoon.

So our plans changed, the wind got up so Tom no longer wanted to swim in the sea, so we stuck to the pool instead and taught Matt how to do an underwater handstand, after a bit of trial and error he got there and is now looking as good as me and Tom.  

We also didn't go to the fish restaurant as we felt sorry for the staff here - they have been sat around all day waiting for us to need them.  The thought of the cook not being wanted for the night was too much - so we ate tea at the hotel.  The lady set up a table outside on the veranda so we could watch the sea, which was good.  Tom had a MASSIVE plate of Khao Pad Moo whilst Matt and I shared two curries: a Massaman which was delicious and a Yellow Sea Bass curry which was so spicy that it was almost too much to manage (they toned it down for us too!).  In the end we fished out the sea bass and left everything else and drank A LOT of water to recover!

We then walked along the beach amongst scuttling crabs to try to walk off the food we have eaten today - A LOT!  It was a very quiet, very chilled out day in beautiful surroundings, just what we needed after 4 frantic and very hot days in Bangkok and a terrible sleep on the train. 

Tomorrow we head to Elephant Hills for 3 nights.  I believe there isn't any wifi there, so don't expect any more updates until we head to Khao Lak.