Peace at Last!

Transfer day was always going to be good for a laugh!! We were up pretty early but had done most of our packing the night before so we got up around 0700, showered, finished packing and headed out to Foodland for breakfast and to get a couple of bottles of water and some snacks for the three hour car transfer down to Hua Hin. Back at the hotel, we checked out and waited for our tour rep. We were expecting it to be Pom who'd picked us up at the airport and taken us to the Grand Palace tour, but it was a very nice young woman instead. She was very friendly and made sure we'd enjoyed our time in Bangkok. We headed out to the car - in the torrential rain - and realised there was no way our cases would both fit into the trunk of the (exceptionally old) Volvo saloon that had been sent for us. One case went into the trunk with our triangular floor cushion we'd bought, the other case had to go into the passenger front seat while Mark and I sat in the back with our two pieces of hand luggage. We spoke to the rep and said we had to have a mini-van or a larger car for the transfer back to Bangkok at the end of our holiday - it wasn't safe to have the case in the front seat - it ended up wearing a seat belt!

Our driver was - bizarre. He looked like a dodgy Thai gangster - all long hair, thin face and worn out black leather jacket. He hardly spoke any English and he could only just communicate with us that a comfort stop at a gas station 2 hours into the drive would last for 10 minutes.

We arrived at Hua Hin around 12.30 pm and were checked in quickly. Our first impression of the hotel - the Anantara Resort and Spa, Hua Hin - was good, it looked beautiful and very traditional. The receptionist attending to us was very nice and started showing us a folder detailing the lagoon rooms, explaining all the perks. We thought we were being upgraded - unfortunately it was just a sales pitch, and would have cost us an extra 500B per person per night, so £10 pppn would make almost £200 extra for the whole time. We asked to see the room we were assigned and as soon as we did we thought there was no need to upgrade - our garden view room was gorgeous and absolutely fine.

We unpacked quickly and went for a wander around the hotel. We weren't bothered about having lunch - we were so tired from trailing around Bangkok that we decided to have a power nap. We'd arranged to meet the hotel's food and beverage manager for an orientation tour at 5pm and get the 6pm free shuttle bus into town, but when the alarm went off at 4pm for us to get ready we both slept through it! The F&B manager phoned us at 5.05pm to check we were still coming and we had to call off, and also cancel the bus - we weren't worth a button! In the end we slept until about 8.30pm, ordered room service - we both plumped for burgers - and were very quickly asleep again through until breakfast!

We're so exciting, ahem! So that's why there's no photos from today - we weren't really our long enough!