“Ha! 4 engines?!”
Said the speed boat tied up next berth.
“Check out my 5 engine Poweeeeerrrrrrrrr!!”
They must have been having a game of macho mecha one upmanship…
It was really early and literally only travellers with huge bags roamed around the streets looking for the correct ferry pier. Being so early, even the ticket office was still not open yet so I went off and found an iced coffee. Definitely something I’m enjoying starting the day with, out here.
We both thought we would be taking the large catamaran docked here, but we were shuffled along the pier and onto the most macho of speedboats. Passengers going somewhere else got the boat with only 4 engines… peasants. We got the 5 engine boat! They are each only 250cc engines, and collectively, that’s not much more capacity than my motorbike, but my gosh it pushes that boat with some authority! There are about 60 people onboard and it’s got no trouble getting up on the plane and bouncing across the waves. I was glad of our sweet rice cake and iced coffee breakfast. It gave me something to throw up if I needed to. And after 30 mins I was doubting the effectiveness of the anti sickness tablets. Luckily I was alright once I moved to the back of the boat where it was bouncing less. I’m not a boat person.
Once docked in Surat Thani we transferred to coaches and got on the road. I was going to write the blog on the boat or in the bus, but no seasickness tablets allow that. So we dozed, listened to audio books and watched the scenery tumble past till it was time to change transport again. We asked someone at the bus terminal how close our Railay ticket dropped us to our hotel. It was not close, but they changed our ticket, put us on another taxi and we got dropped right across the road.
Once again, Aimi had chosen a great hotel. For just £20 per night we have a huge room and bed, good Air con, a pool, a balcony, walking distance to Ao Nang front and a roof terrace with a fantastic view!
We walked down the main road looking for somewhere to eat, being called “lady taxi” and “mr massage”. Not my strangest nicknames. Surprisingly, we stopped at an Indian place called Kiran Kitchen and gave it a shot. After Thai food for nearly 2 solid weeks, I fancied something different. I tried something called Lamb Tawa with garlic nann and it’s definitely my new favourite. Its so full of flavour and spices. It made me sweat, even tho it was only “medium” spicy, but I was going to sweat anyway. Everything out here is spicy! Aimi had pineapple fried rice, in a real hollowed out pineapple. They also did quite generous cocktails. They came in a lady shaped glass and were quite cheap, so we ordered a second round!
Back at the hotel we noticed that Anna had sent thru the wedding photos. We curled up on the bed and enjoyed reliving the day. She managed to get kayto to look in the camera several times. How she managed that is a mystery to us! We were feeling quite loved up, it was hard to belive that was only a few weeks ago. We will have to pick our favourites to share with the world.
We went up on the roof that evening. From here you get a great view above all the other rooftops down to the beach and out to sea. The clouds made great colours as the sun set over the limestone pinnacle islands out in the bay. It was beautiful. I dont know how she finds gems like this!
Having had a big and late lunch we weren’t hungry for a full meal so tried to choose our favourite pot noodles. It basically ended up as pot luck because what Aimi thought was chicken noodle, ended up being noodle-less white chicken-y gloop. It looked much to much like PVA glue for me to want to try it. And while mine actually had noodles, it was just as hot as the curry I had earlier! I tried to find something without “HOT HOT HOT” on the package but obviously failed. I hope my butt and the toilet is ready for whats coming down the pipes…