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Published: March 14th 2009
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We both slept like logs (even in the most uncomfortable bed in the world), up until someone beeped their horn right outside our room at about 5.30am. I wasn’t impressed and couldn’t get back to sleep for ages afterwards as once I was awake I realised how noisy it was. We were used to being kept awake by cockerels and pigs but not motorbikes and traffic!
Eventually I did drop off and we both woke up at 9am, realising we’d been in bed for a full 12 hours!
The bonus of this resort, Boomerang Cottages, was that breakfast was being served until 1pm meaning we didn’t have to feel guilty about having our lay in!
Breakfast was a buffet served in the little restaurant on site. There were fried eggs, dodgy fatty looking bacon, weird looking sausages, and an array of continental breakfast goodies including toast, cereal, croissants and waffles - there was even a little croissant oven for us to use to heat our pastries!
We spent at least an hour eating, so that we could be sure we wouldn’t be tempted to buy ourselves lunch later, and then asked if we could get dropped off
at the beach as the resort offered free lifts (and I really didn't want to risk the walk along the road!)
As we were dropped off at Kata Beach, I was shocked at how over developed the whole area was. There were wealthy shops and tourism establishments right beside the poorest people living in shacks. There was sewage running into streams, painfully thin stray dogs and cats on every corner and tuk tusk and scooters crammed into every layby. The air felt full of petrol fumes mixed with sewage smells. There were people vying for our attention, trying to get us to buy dvds everywhere, and all of the stall holders tried to get us to buy things as we browsed past. It felt like hard work walking down the street, partly because of the intense heat, but also because we constantly felt we had to be on the defensive.
The beach itself would have been lovely if there weren’t thousands of people on it already. I couldn’t see the sand and sea for the tourists and no sooner had we stepped onto it, I wanted to get off as it felt claustrophobic.
There were hundreds of
resort beds and umbrellas, lots of long tail boats waiting to take people to other beaches, and ladies walking along the sand trying to get the sunbathers to buy cheap dresses. The beach was backed with lots of tuk tuks, taxis and scooters. The air was heavy with fuel and smoke.
We decided to use the afternoon to go shopping rather than lay on the beach as we could see that this wasn’t the sort of beach for us and we weren’t sure how many shopping opportunities we’d have on the smaller islands.
The clothes shops were cheaper but it felt too hot to try anything on and we quickly got bored with stall owners trying to haggle with us for things we didn't even want to buy. I was glad to get picked up and go back to the hotel.
Back at the resort we read up on the tours available and Matt decided that we needed to visit the Ko Similian islands. It said in the guide book that they were a beautiful island chain, but they were a long way from Phuket so it would mean a long day out. We booked it for
the next day.
As we were up a very steep hill we were really confined to the resort restaurant at nights but that wasn't a bad thing as the resort was run by Italian owners and the menu was a real mix of foods. For the grand total of about £12 we ate plenty and couldn’t manage dessert.
As we had to be up early for the trip the following day, I asked Matt to change the clocks on the mobile phone we used as an alarm. He took it off me and handed it back a few minutes later.
When the alarm went off at 5.30am I jumped up and started to get dressed. When I looked at my watch it said 3.30am not 5.30am.
It turned out that when I’d asked Matt to change the time on the phone, he’d taken the phone off me, got distracted and handed me back without doing anything to it.
There was some serious anger before we went back to bed.
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