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Published: January 24th 2020
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Happy Chinese New Year, all celebrating!
I’m celebrating with all except the family who let their small boy pee at the side of the pool of the hotel. He was about 8, old enough to know better!
Last night I decided to get some money from an atm, despite the eye-watering 220B charge, to avoid a 3% credit card charge on Ko Lanta. Research said that Krungsi Bank and Bangkok Bank would both let you get 30,000B in one transaction. Research was wrong. ATM said cannot. I tried 10,000 and that was OK, so I’m not sure what the daily limit is.
So yesterday, with the main reason of gleaning information on the status of the massage huts, I went to number 9, where Tam, the guy who used to be at number 15, now works. If you want a beach massage, turn left at the boat ticket corner when facing the sea and keep walking, through the new Centara hotel and you will see the huts. 300B for an hour, all much the same. I always have a 30 minute leg and foot massage. Getting actual information was quite difficult as Tam’s English is not the best,
he tries really hard to communicate though. I did find out that his daughter is now 7 and he showed me a photo on his phone of her in her school uniform. His wife is in Kuala Lumpur for 3 months as she can earn more money there and there aren’t many customers here at the moment, although it’s high season. Too much competition is my guess. And the huts which have gone, leaving only the concrete bases all fell down in a storm and will be rebuilt. According to Tam. Last year they said they were all going in favour of development, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The massage was pure agony, akin to childbirth. I tried not to scream out and hobbled off at the end with a bruised instep. Let’s hope it did some good! At the least those enterprises are well worth supporting. They work hard.
Today, after a pleasing breakfast of smiley face fried eggs and a cup of tea at Lion&Shark, when I got to the Centara there was a sign saying that the beachside sun beds would all be moved at 2pm to make way for tables for a Chinese New Year’s
Eve buffet. Price 1180B. Wowzers! You’d have to fill your handbag with enough food for a week to make that worthwhile! So I upgraded myself and paid 500B for the posh beds next to the pool, towel included. It was expensive but soooooo comfortable, and as I was there at 9.15am there was plenty of choice. They don’t seem to have cottoned on to the no outside food thing yet, so you can go to the drinks place next door and get a great iced coffee for 40B rather than an average one in the bar for 150B. No brainer! Chan, the attendant, was super nice and helpful. He said that there was another pool at the back and took me to see it. You walk through the grounds, over a bridge which crosses the foetid, stinky stream into which the toilets from the beach restaurants empty, and which makes the sea at the far end absolutely horrible, especially when the tide is going out. This is right between the blocks with the rooms, £150 a night at the moment. I can’t believe the guests put up with it!
Past the gym, shop and spa there’s the restaurant, where
everyone was having breakfast and a big pool with 2 slides and more sun beds. Chan said to change to that pool in the afternoon and stay until 8! So I did change around 1.30, although I was quite looking forward to seeing them trying to move everyone at 2. This didn’t happen. They can’t have had enough bookings, people were still there at 4. There were a lot of Chinese guests, some adults pointlessly but happily snorkelling around the fish free pool. I did have the comfiest day ever, though, until the peeing incident, whereupon I retired for a beach beer at the Last Fisherman’s Bar. The staff are nearly all the same as last year, and the year’s before. They’ve installed buzzers on the tables which go bing bong if you want to order or get the bill. There was a lot of bing bonging but the staff ignored it so if you want to pay quickly best look at your table number and go to guy at the back, now enclosed in a kind of double glazed box. Not clear why! I remembered some of their names, which they seemed to appreciate. Smiley when you go back.
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Disgusting stream flowing sludgily between the rooms There was a little girl playing out back near the loos. I said hello and she rather disconcertingly followed me in and banged on the louvred door of my cubicle. When I came out she was urgently pointing to a collection box with something on it. She was about 7, trained from an early age.
On my way back I did some preliminary research on the bus service to Krabi town for Sunday. No need to pay 150B for a shared van, the songthaew would do (50B) but I needed to know where to get it from and where to get out. Took a photo of the bus stop. Pok was outside the hotel when I got back, he said go down the street and on the opposite side and get out at Vogue Shopping Centre, which I vaguely remember, then I can walk to JP Mansion. I have all day so will just go down on Sunday morning and give it a go.
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