From the moment I wake up, before I put on ma makeup, I say a little prayer for you because you're livin in practical poverty compared to us livin like kings (and queens, equality 5eva). We had to turn the aircon off because it was too cold (living rough) and we pulled the curtains to watch the sun rise over the ocean just after 6 when we woke up, but then realised they rose over the mountains which required getting out of our bigger-than-king-sized bed, so we dozed until the buffet opened for breakfast.
And oh my god, they had literally had everything. We got there about 7 and were greeted by a man with a smile bigger than my face who asked if we would prefer tea or coffee (coffee, obvs, which was actually really nice for black plunger coffee). I loved it already, and that was even before I saw the spread of food. I started my food journey of looking at everything at the fruit bar. There was every type of fruit that I know, and so many exotic ones that I didn't. We sampled dragon fruit, rose apples, weird types of melons I'm not going to attempt to spell, and my new favourite fruit which has a crazy name but it also referred to as the "queen of fruit". Queen of my life more like. A cute little Thai lady saw us struggling to open it with a knife and then showed us how you're meant to squeeze them to break the shell and then eat the flesh in the middle. It's similar to a mandarin, only white and with big seeds in every second piece. So sweet and delicious, I can't even describe the flavour, but I had 4 so you can imagine how good it is.
With the fruit they also had a little bar with plain yoghurt, strawberry yoghurt, fruit salad and bircher muesli. I was in health heaven. There was a blender where you could make your own smoothies (which we did, following their recommended recipe of natural yoghurt, ice, watermelon, dragon fruit and pineapple - v delish) and every kind of cereal and cereal toppings you could ever wish for. And this was only the beggining.
Then there was the salad bar which was filled with random, non-breakfasty foods. It had all different fresh veges and things to make your own salad + dressings and croutons and vinegars and oils. Then other random things like salami and funny sardine looking fish and fancy cheeses and cucumbers (wanted to steal some cos my eyes are still puffy from travelling and lack of sleeps). If you were thirsty there was all different types of juices, which I made many different breakfast cocktails with. The winner was watermelon & mint, pineapple, guava and orange. Mmmmmmmm.
And like any other buffet style breakfast, there was the hot food section. But this was unlike any hot food section I had ever experienced. You had your usuals like ham, bacon, grilled tomato, but then there was also onion and garlic sauteed potatoes, jasmine rice, vege stir fries, steamed fish stir fry with broccolini and the real kicker, Phad Thai! Jake was so stoked to have noodles for brekky. I was more stoked about the fresh prawn wonton soup, because dumplings are my favourite of foods. They were damn good dumplings too, not really breakfast food but the stuffing wasn't stuffing, it was a massive king prawn. Zero complaints from Jade.
Apparently they thought this still wasn't enough food cos there was heaps of different crunchy and soft breads and rolls and croissants and sweet bakery treats (chocolate croissants were a major win). Then every kind of spread for yo bread - including Nutella, but sadly no vegemite - and a toaster if you wished to use it. Beside that there were about 4 waiters standing behind a bar, and it took us a while to realise what they did. The first lady made all the coffees and the 100s of different teas (lychee and rose was the best, need to steal some to bring home). The next one made fresh pancakes before your eyes, and the bar in front was decked out with anything you could want with them. Berries, bananas, maple syrup, Nutella, lemons and sugar, and so many different bowls I'm assuming were different types of syrups and compotes and mouth watering ingredients. This is tomorrows breakfast, because I was already pretty full when I discovered this valuable information. As well as pancakes, there was a DIY waffle maker, with the batter ready made for you to pour into the toaster thing. You could have custom waffles as well with choc chips to add to the batter and berries and so many other goodies. They probably even had icecream hiding somewhere, but it would have melted in about 2.5 seconds out in the open. I haven't mentioned that we sweated our way through breakfast, but was still so amaze.
Next to out new best friend the pancake and waffle maker, there was Jake's new buddy, the man who made the eggs. You just told him how you wanted them done and he cooked them to perfection and brought them out to you on a tray and bowed about 5 times as he delivered them to you. He also had all fresh veges chopped up like onion and mushrooms and capsicum and tomatoes that you could pick and chuck into a bowl and he would turn it into the world's best omelette. We are yet to try it but they looked so damn good and smelt incredible. Too much good food to try, lucky we have a week!
So we sat at a table right near the window which looked right over the pool (I don't know if I mentioned this, but it's the longest salt water pool in the whole world - dayummm) and we could see the beach through the trees as well. Such a rough life. You had to walk over the little pool on a wooden bridge to get to the buffet, and the pool was filled with koi who would get excited when they saw you and think you were going to feed them. `All the waiters and waitresses were so nice and would give you the biggest smiles and bow and wish you a good morning, and ask if you needed anything. We honestly felt so spoilt, and couldn't believe that this whole buffet was free, every single day. So blessed.
After we ate our fill we went back to our room and died of a food coma, had a shower to get rid of the ridiculous amount of sweat on us (eewww) and laid out on our balcony enjoying the view and looking at the brochures of things to do. We booked a bike ride for tomorrow morning, which we hope is the one to the nearby waterfall like we asked for, but pretty sure the guy put us down for the one to the markets because his english wasn't very good. But hey, we aren't complaining! Fresh fruit n veges and cheap rip offs of western brands, plus feeling good exercising after eating double our body weight in breakfast foods. We also looked at the different types of kayaking and elephant tours you can do around here, and hopefully we can get to see monkeys as well. So excited.
By this time it was about 10.15, and the buffet breakfast ended at 10.30 so we figured we may as well take advantage of free things and have a second breakfast! Feeling very much like hobbits, we filled our plates a second time and stuffed our faces until we went into another food coma.
This is livin' Barry.
