Food, glorious food!

It has to be said, Thai food is amazing. Needless to say I am eating far more of than is good to me and wil probably have to book an executive seat on the way back (Thai Airways recommend this for obese travellers. True.)Anyway, I have gorged myself on far too much seaweed and cashew nuts and other loveliness and I’m now so full I am unable to fully straighten out my body. The restaurant was full of Thai people who looked at me askance when Ellie said something so funny that I made a strange noise somewhere between a guffaw and a cackle. This level of indignity is not socially acceptable in Thailand and as a result i will probably find myself in the Bangkok Hilton in the next few days. (No, it’s not a hotel.) In between me being inappropriate, the restaurant’s clientele were officially being entertained by a chap I will lovingly refer to as Piano Man. Piano Man plays a souped-up Bontempi organ with incredible gusto and style, and is occasionally accompanied not only by Singing Lady (who lacks his gusto and style), but also Violin Man, who bears an uncanny resemblence to Mr Miyagi and who plays like Stephan Grapelli. It is not as camp as it sounds, and in this setting is actually quite wonderful. There are people dancing, but we did not join them as they were doing it in the proper ballroom stylee, and we can not do that. Actually the hotel has a huge sprung-floor dance studio which is available for hire; I have strong urges to rent it for an hour and dance like a wild thing whilst videoing myself, and then put the results on YouTube. I am lucky that I have enough dignity to resist these urges when they come upon me.We went swimming as dusk turned to night, which it does incredibly quickly here. The pool was warm and empty apart from Ellie and I. I taught her a less drowning-prone version of backstroke, which I think she was grateful for. On the way out we saw two lizards, small and almost translucent, several cats, a bat and a whole load (what is the collective noun for the, please?) of toads. Tiny toads, and one was happily swimming in the foot bath at the pool. Well, he was happy until he realised he was too tiny to hop out, although this didn’t stop him trying on numerous occasions. Luckily, Ellie is the toad’s friend and gave him a helping hand, and off he hopped between two bungalows.

I braved a trip to the 7-11 on my own, whilst Ellie was having a massage and purchased a phone card. This was the second phone card I’d bought today, the first of which turned out to be a mobile phone top-up card. Obviously my mime takents are not as impressive as I thought.

I was shocked by the amount of ‘whitening creams’ on sale here: the Thai female beauty aesthetic is diametrically opposed to that in the Uk. In fact, I can’t recall seeing any fake tan in the supermarket at all. Needless to say I feel like a great gallumping carthorse next to all the tiny Thai women.

I’m getting more used to the heat, but we’ve had the air conditioning on most of the time in our room. It’s on the ninth floor and the windows don’t open. When we wake in the morning the glass is hot to the touch.

I still can’t get over quite how strange it is – even the cats and dogs look different – but I’m loving it here. It’s blissful to get a break from the British weather and the mundanities of day-to-day life, although I miss everyone terribly. But it is grand being here, even popping out to the shops is an adventure, not least because the pavements are full of not pt-holes but huge big craters, and as you know I’ve never been the most dainty of people!

Love to you all xxx