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Published: September 28th 2007
Hi Friends and Family,
Breakfast was a huge buffet of bread, jams, noodles, spicy meat balls, bacon (Yum), pate, ham, a very strange sort of boiled egg, fried eggs, tea / coffee, pineapple, melon, cake and various juices - orange, lemon and pineapple.
Today, we went on a boat trip to the sea amongst the islands. Our boat was a typical snorkelling boat with wooden seats that was later converted to a long dinning table. We did have life jackets on board but fishermen believe that life-jackets bring bad luck!There was a lot of jollification on the boat as we practised being Kate and Jack from "The Titanic" with the "I'm the King of the World" pose!
The sea was the best I've seen yet. Emeraled green and lovely with a wonderful smell. We sailed for a while and docked near some cliffs so that people could snorkel and swim or dive or do whatever the hell they wanted.I didn't go into the sea myself as I preferred to do some sunbathing, posing, writing my diary and postcards but moist importantly, held court by having ALL the local girls on board giving me a pedicure
AND a manicure
whilst stripping the stress of walking from my feet! All for the handsome fee of $6.
Part of the boat trip included a sea food buffet of giant prawns, calalmari, spicy slices of beef, rice, noodles, cooked leafy veggies, crunchy sweet spring roll, chopped pieces of baguette, beer and soft drinks galore with melons, pineapple, bananas and cup cakes for dessert. On our cruise, we docked at an aquarium which had a lot of exotic fish and sea creatures.
After sailing on, we docked again at a picturesque fishing village filled with kids running around and many, many women touching my skin, sliding their fingers on my arm in amazement of such a dark colour. I got a lot of compliments with the ladies all calling me beautiful and the kids all laughing and running and saying hello. I guess they haven't seen many dark Europeans.
The Aussies in our group were surprised at the reception tha I got. One lady even commented and said that I would probably get a fan club wherever I went. She"s not far wrong!
The village was a mix of lovely, colourful and fantastic buildings and corrugated roof shacks. It
was a blend of rich and poor, old and young, modern and traditional, families with kids abroad or Vietnamese Overseas and families without.
The highlight of the day was our 20 minute ride in a basketboat. A basketboat is a huge woven basket which a few people can sit in and which is paddled by women (mainly a team of mother and daughter). Women who spoke perfect English with clear accents, I might add. There are wooden planks on the floor of the basket boat and you don't sit in the basketboat but on the rim of the basketboat. It was a really cool ride and we all looked like bobbing tea-cups in the sea.
We had some freetime so some of us went for a well-deserved and relaxing mud bath session together. That was fabulous fun. Less than $4 and 20 cents for towels and 40 cents (returnable) for a key and locker.While we were marvelling at what pleasures to expect, I accidentally put my arm around the neck of a womans' husband. Whoops!
The mudbath session started with us being provided with towels and keys for our lockers. You change and then go to a
communal outdoor power shower section where the water spurts out by standing on some metal pedals. It was lovely and warm. After that, we went to a huge bath that 9 of us sat in and in which mud spluttered out of the taps. This mud was not thick and gooey but thin and smooth. We had little plastic pans which you could use to cover yourself or anybody else with mud! We slid into it and floated in it and thought what fun! It was. A lot of fun!!
After the mud bath, we showered in the pedal shower again and then went through some columns of stones which had spurts opposite to each other, row after row after row of hot steaming water. It was lovely and you could go up and down. The "showers" automatically came from the stones.After this, we had 2 baths of hot steaming jacuzzi water which was so theraupeutic and relaxing. I felt like floating to sleep. It was so calming that when everyone left the bath, my companion and I decided to stay in.
From then on, we just revelled in the pleasures of hot water in an outdoor setting
because the spa is based in a sort of tropical affair.
The baths are built into the stones and there are trees and sweet-smelling flowers everywhere and most importantly, mixed baths if you so desired, so you could bring all your mates or the whole family with you! After this, we went to the warm swimming pool to swim a little and then we spent a lot of time in the waterfall. Again, outdoor, on the rocks. We sat on the rocks and let the warm water wash our aches and pains away. It was bliss.
By the time we left, it was dark and the harsh white lifghts began to get turned on. We hired a taxi ($3) and then decided to have a quiet private dinner without "the crowd".We were in a beach resort and fishing area so it was imperative that we had fresh fish. We found a lovely classy restaurant that had trays of fresh fish and sea- food that you picked out yourself and which they then cooked. We settled on Groupper fish ($1.5 per kilo).
We revelled on the fact that we perfectly alone in our own private world, when not
long after, the group turned up at the exact same restaurant!!
Anyway, our fish came served with potatoes, leafy veggies and had been BBQ with garlic. We also had the normal spices and sauces to accompany it. We shared 2 huge bottles of Tiger Beer and then it was cocktail time.
P.S. The town is beseiged with wealthy Russians and the Russian family on the next table had ordered live snake whose head was cut off and the blood poured into a glass of rice wine. They also had huge bottles of vodka and buckets of ice and other live dishes. Good for them!
I was pretty exhausted by this time time so I only had a Singapore Sling cocktail, whilst my companion had a 52-K Bomber
AND a Banana Mama cocktail. Grand total $21.
Not too long after, we merrily returned to our hotel.
See ya on the morrow!
Meet up time 8:30.
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