Wednesday 19th
After breakfast we managed to get to the beach at a slightly earlier time of 11am. We went straight for 2 of the 10 or so sun loungers left on the beach and told ourselves that we should be ok as a few people who clearly weren't with the hotel were on them today. Well we had perhaps one hour on them before Liam's panicked voice seeped through my reading haze to say a security guard was on his way over. Sure enough there he was, suited up and striding with purpose over the sand. After him asking us if we were staying at the resort, we tried to make the excuse of well, art who works at the bar told us we could use them. But that didn't go down well and we were told we needed to either pay £5 each or get off, we chose to get off! But instead of moving away Liam decided to "make a stand" and only move off them right to the side so our stuff was so close it was touching them. Nobody once tried to use them, and there were a good 20 not being used in the day so we thought it was a bit silly but still, we had a nice afternoon.
We both read our books for most of it, sat down at the edge to cool off for a while, the typical stuff we tend to do on a beach day. I think we were there until about 5pm before heading back. Although we both kind of wanted to go back to the same restaurant as lastnight we agreed we should probably try somewhere else. We saw an Italian that was highly rated so went there, the prices were mid range so decided to go in. After we had ordered drinks we noticed the lovely little "10% service charge not included" at the bottom so ended up sharing the cheapest pizza on the menu. It was a good pizza, and there was a lovely big Christmas tree really nicely decorated right next to us so all in all it was a nice meal.
We went for a cocktail each after, somewhere cheaper! We got in around 10 and as we were getting ready for bed Liam noticed a mole on his head that wasn't there before. It looks like a normal mole, but he's worried because its new. So, despite the fact we know he will likely be told to keep an eye on it for any changes, he wants to go get it checked out in the morning.
Thursday 20th
Liam decided on waking that the doctors wasn't urgent for today and that we would go tomorrow as we had time to kill before our ferry.
So we had a slow and lazy get up, walked to the cactus restaurant for breakfast before deciding to take a walk with it being more overcast than the other days.
We went to a place called chocoffee because we had a voucher and it was free tasting. Some of the chocolate was wonderful and we wished we could buy some but there's just no way it wouldn't melt and be ruined. There was also lots of really different coffee but it was all from penang which is where we go next so we made the assumption it will probably be cheaper there than here as it had had to travel from there to the island. I hope our assumption turns out to be right!
We kept on walking past a few nice looking shops and cafes, the sun crept out from behind the clouds as we went and it became hotter. We came across a grocery store with a strange little fruit that we had seen many many times in the last few weeks and even questioned each other whether it could be the fruit we've been looking for. We had always decided no, it can't be it's not the right colour from the description we've had. But there on the sign was "mangosteen"...we couldn't believe it! We've been wanting to try it for weeks and weeks and its been right under our nose. We promptly bought half a kg and walked down the street eating some of it. I think we had out it on a bit of a pedestal but it was still very yummy and possibly one of the best fruits we've had. Liam feels its the best he's had.
We were walking in the half hope of finding the aquarium with our interest in marine life having been tugged at since scuba diving in koh lanta. We wernt too sure though as it wasn't cheap to get in. We came across a couple of duty free shops and were curious enough to go in and see, what a wonder land!! We absolutely loved going round seeing all the stuff and saying look how cheap this is! Look how cheap that is! Unfortunately we're in a position where we can't just pack it into a suitcase and go home so it mostly had to stay on the shelves. We bought 2 little bottles of alcopops on the cheap for tonight, and a special Cadbury dairy milk bar to put away for Christmas Day. We almost bought more alcohol because it was so CHEAP but its difficult to carry it around and we're not massive drinkers so there was no point really.
By this time the sun was out more than it has been all week so we made our way to a near by beach and set up camp for a couple of hours. The sun was in and out of the clouds but it was still hotter than the other days. There was a lady there who looked I've my nanny brown rolling around in the water and playing in the sand, she was adorable! We ate a candy cane whilst looking out over the sea and reading our books. Liam played in the sea,nothing new there.
Afterwards we went somewhere for a nice cold glass of fresh orange juice, it was wonderful after a hot couple of hours with only warm water to keep us going. They were even playing Christmas songs over the speakers, such a lovely feeling sitting there together listening to them with our drinks.
Following that we headed back to our hotel room, showered and headed out to the night market at around 8.15pm. It cost us a couple of quid to go in the taxi but the taxi was a good 10 minute drive so I'm glad we didn't walk, we wouldn't have got there in time as it closes at 9.30. It was a nice standard kind of market, lots of people there buying food, there were clothes stalls too. We even saw a little cage with baby ducks inside being sold. The typical food was rice or noodle based, with some snack like things like pancakes. We bought a varied selection of stuff, hailed a taxi and headed back. You're not supposed to eat on the street here due to the Muslim culture. We ate our goods along with an episode of Big Bang before I went onto Skype for a short chat with the girls, Internet allowing. Thankfully the Internet kind of worked, we got to video for a short while but ended up having to drop the video for just voice as it was too pixelly and the voices were going strange. Ended up being on there for just over an hour which was very nice.
After that I went straight to bed, another headache was brewing and I wasn't feeling so great. Liam stayed up a while longer, I think he stayed up quite late but he insists he didn't so who knows!
