Our Weekend Away

Well, I have now spent three days surrounded by Chris's work colleagues - they are lovely lovely people but I have never in all my life seen a group of people that can eat so much!! AND they are still thin.....it's not fair you know....not fair at all!!!

Anyway, 30 double decker bus loads of us left from in front of Chris's office building last Friday morning to go to Pranburi which about a three hour drive from Bangkok. We had just taken our seats when Roong, one of the girls from Chris's department, handed us both a very large bag that was completely stuffed full of Thai snacks. Now, I love Thai food but some of the snacks are just bizarre and there were two things that had me scratching my head in a 'but why would you want to eat that' kind of way - the first was Teriyaki flavour crisps....'that doesn't sound so bad' I hear you say....well, the crisps were not actually flavoured....the crisps were plain and you poured the Teriyaki sauce over the top of them....hmm.....soggy crisps anyone?? The second was fish sticks.....these are not like crisps with fish flavour these are bits of really stinky fish that have been flattened (Steamrollered perhaps) and then cut into stips. They might be delicious.....to be honest I've not tried them.....I have never been able to get past the smell!! There was also a snack made from green peas and one from fried Yam - We kept all our snacks and gave them to Moon when we got back (her wee face lit up and she's been munching her way through them ever since!!). We stopped in Hua Hin for lunch at a fantastic seafood restaurant next to the beach where we had all kinds of yummy fish things and we managed to completely astound the Thai's at our table who were gobsmacked to learn that we liked spicy food!!

The resort we were staying at, Evason Hideaway Resort, was absolutely stunning and the room we had was about a two min walk from the beach, the pool, the restaurant and the bar (One thing that did make us chortle was the fact that the resort had two bars and two restaurants - the bars were called The Bar and The Other Bar....I kid you not and I bet that you can now guess what the restaurants were called....yep....The Restaurant and The Other Restaurant!!). We got checked in and then went and sat by the pool and had a couple of drinks (well, it would have been rude not to!!!) till it was time to get back onto our bus to be taken to another seafood restaurant by the sea. The food was just amazing and there was tons of it!! I caused much amusement at our table cause I had to be shown how to get into my crab (I wasn't very good at it and did manage to ping a bit of shell off my plate but I don't think anyone noticed!!) but it was well worth it - the meat inside was so tender and succulent that my mouth is watering at the moment just thinking about it!! Then we headed back to our hotel where we collapsed in our room and opened a bottle of wine that we had brought with us.

We had the whole of Saturday to ourselves so after breakfast we went for a walk along the beach, then sat by the pool reading, then had some lunch, then did some exploring around the resort till it was time to go to that evenings planned activity......I know....hard life eh!!! Now, I have to say that I was really not sure what to expect - I had been told that some of the staff from the firm would be providing the evenings entertainment so it was with some fear and trepidation that I got on the bus that was taking us to the event. There is no way on this earth that I would want to get up on stage in front of my bosses and over 1,000 colleagues and sing and dance but that's exactly what they did and they were fantastic!!! There were four dance acts (A mixture of traditional Thai and modern dancing), a fashion show and an absolutely hilarious show which featured a game of ping pong. It was very clever - there were about four guys on stage dressed completely in black (Including balaclava.....they must have been boiling!!) and the back of the stage was covered in black fabric then two guys came on both wearing tracksuits but the legs of the tracksuits dangled free. One of the guys dressed in black had a pingpong ball on the end of a stick so it looked like it was moving from one player to the other and the other guys moved the legs of the tracksuits so it looked like the players were flying through the air to get the shots. It was very very funny to watch!! We had a great night although I still have absolutely no idea what the hell we were eating.....the menu was, very helpfully, written in Thai and we had no Thai's at our table to translate it for us. Dishes and dishes of food just kept arriving at the table (I think there were about 10 courses) all of which featured unspecified meat substances!!

We had decided on Saturday that, if we could, we would try and get up in time to watch the sun rise over the sea and I am very pleased to say that we did indeed manage to get up!! So at the ungodly hour of 5.30am the alarm went off and the two of us dragged ourselves out of bed and went to watch the sunrise - OMG it was spectacular and very romantic!!! We then grabbed some breakfast and decided that the only really sensible thing to do was to go back to bed!! We then packed up our stuff, grabbed some lunch and then piled back onto the bus and back to Bangkok where we were greeted by two very excited Splats!!

Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Well, we've made it to two years without Chris killing me or me killing him - It's a minor miracle!!

We had an amazing anniversary!! As you already know we had decided to use the vouchers I won and go to Hua Hin so at 10am on Sunday morning, having had croissants and coffee for breakfast (Yes....that well known traditional Thai breakfast!!), our car and driver turned up (and before you have a canary it's not expensive here to hire a car and a driver - our trip cost about £30 each way) . Mr Sam was lovely and we'd been in the car about 30 minutes when he handed us over a CD and asked if we wanted to listen to it.....we had a quick look and then a laugh about some of the old songs that were on it so said yes. We were then a bit confused when a screen appeared on the dashboard of the car and Mr Sam plugged in a microphone - it was Karaoke!!! The car had Karaoke - I don't think I have ever laughed so much in my life!! We declined to sing as it may have put him off his driving but every time either of us looked at the screen we started giggling!!

It takes about three hours to get from Bangkok to Hua Hin but the journey was more than worth it!! The hotel was absolutely stunning - on one side you had the beach with the sea stretching out as far as the eye could see and on the other side you had the most amazing mountains. We got checked in (The room was lovely) and then went for a romantic walk along the beach (ahhh!!). Lunch was fab - we sat at a table actually on the beach and had a glass of wine (Oh my GOD it was good.....well actually it could have been crap but I was so happy to have some wine that I thought it was the nicest wine I've ever had!!) whilst we ate lunch looking out over the ocean. I promised Chris I would write about this (I am doing it under duress) - I had a donut moment!! I couldn't figure out why, when I looked through the binoculars, everything appeared smaller (Stop laughing.....It was definately the wines fault - my story and I'm sticking to it!!).

We then headed along to the swimming pool bar (It was one of those ones that is in the middle of the water and you sit in the pool on stools whilst you have a drink) and I actually managed to persuade Chris that it would be lovely to have a drink there. So, we spent what was left of the afternoon in the pool drinking champagne (which sounds very romantic till I tell you that I spent the time laughing at Chris as he wiggled his legs about in the water saying 'This is weird!!' and he spent the time tipping me in the water for laughing at him!!).

That evening we got a taxi into Hua Hin and went round the night market there (It's nowhere near as good as the one at Chiang Mai - I think we've been spoiled) then had a nosy round the streets. Hua Hin is quite different from the other places we've visited here so far and I liked it but not as much as Chiang Mai (and I have to say that I have never seen so many German tourists in one place in my life!!). We found a lovely little bar called the Monsoon Bar where we had a drink and then we continued to wonder round Hua Hin till we found an Italian restaurant that looked nice (We weren't looking for an Italian we just happened to see one that looked nice) where we had some dinner. When we got back to the hotel we had a night cap in their open air lounge whilst listening to a Thai couple sing opera (which was a bit odd but actually very good!!).

On Monday, which was our actual anniversary, we sat out on the balcony of our room and opened our presents (It was very exciting - I love getting presents!!). Chris had bought me some Issey Miyake perfume which I absolutely adore, some Issey Miyake body spray, a little notepad and a lovely casual cotton bag with a Nancy Chandler design on it. I bought him a snazzy wireless mouse (toys for boys - you really need to look at it before you figure out that it's actually a mouse!!) and a little wooden elephant. Apparently your second anniversary gift should be cotton so I had written him a little message, printed it onto a cotton sheet, rolled it up, tied it, put it into a small bottle and gave it to him. (I thought a message in a bottle kept up the beach theme). He lucked out with the cotton bag and admitted that he had had no idea cotton was the 2nd anniversary gift!!

We then went back into Hua Hin to visit a temple that we had spotted the evening before and then went a trip up to Chopstick mountain (which is also known as monkey mountain - you will see why in a minute). There is another temple that you can stop at on the way to Chopstick mountain so we decided that we would go and visit that as well. We took more photographs of yet another huge gold Buddha and climbed a very steep set of stairs to get to the temple at the top. The climb was worth it (even if I looked like a burst tomato yet again) and we spent quite a while gazing out over the sea - the views were absolutely stunning!! We then headed to Chopstick Mountain where we discovered why it is also called Monkey Mountain. There were monkey's everywhere!! Quite a lot of the females had little ones clinging onto their stomachs which was very cute so we decided to buy a bucket of food to give to them. God, they are not shy and they are also not quite so cute when they decide to stick their bums in your face (I was praying that it didn't need to do a big jobbie!!). We then climbed yet more stairs (I still hadn't recovered from the last lot - to be fair neither had Chris so I didn't feel quite so bad!!) and a lovely lady took our photo at the top.

That night we got dressed up and went and had dinner by the sea. The food was fab!! We had spring rolls filled with beef mince and blue cheese which were served with a honey dip (They looked almost too good to eat - they were served in shot glasses with the dip at the bottom) and lamb kebabs with a garlic dressing for a starter. We both ordered barbecued steak for a main course which was cooked to absolute perfection (Chris said that it was one of the best steaks he has ever had!!) then I had a chocolate mouse cake with creamy coffee ice cream and Chris had Cheesecake. The following morning Mr Sam collected us and brought us back to Bangkok.

We had a brilliant time!!