As Carole's last week here this trip dawns, we settle into everyday pastimes. Lots of reading, some walking, nice food and the odd why why... Some not so good food too. We revisit John's garden a restaurant set, unsurprisingly, in a beautiful Thai garden. They are owned by different people to last time we went and although billed as Thai fine dining, it didn't quite hit the mark. A first for me when eating Thai food, I wanted to ask for salt and pepper. When commenting to the waiter about the blandness of the food he said we should have asked for "more curry" - perhaps not the fusion you expect in a Thai restaurant. We manage to get in to Chaweng on Sunday for the traditional Sunday lunch at Tropical Murphy's for Gill and some shopping with the obligatory visit to Jim Thompson's for Carole.
Although for Carole this is less everyday as in Geneva the shops don't open on Sunday. We do however pop in for a pre shopping Sunday lunchtime cocktail in the Library Hotel beach bar, a very "cool" place but with what is very strange and to me rather unappealing red swimming pool.
My main shopping consisted of a pair of lightweight trainers for walking. This purchase has turned out to be a bit of a saga and proved Ant's favourite saying of "buy cheap, buy twice". Never being a girl to do things by halves, I managed to magnify this into buy cheap, buy three times... I decided not to bring my old walking shoes from home but buy a new pair of lightweight trainers here. But before I could manage to get to Chaweng, the flip flop blister monster decided to rear its ugly head after doing too many miles in the Haviana's. I bought some cheap pump like shoes locally to allow me to get around. Whilst these didn't hurt the first set of blisters, they managed to create a whole set of new ones and when in Fisherman's Village one evening I had to make a distress purchase of another pair of shoes in order to be able to walk home. I go into the smart trainer shop, every designer you can name. All fakes but quite expensive. The girl was very proud of them though "good fakes, made in Vietnam, not cheap fakes from China"... Hmmm, life gets even more confusing when you get fake fakes..... But it had to be done. They were not that good though and after a day my ankles in them looked like they were about to collapse inwards. So when we finally get to Chaweng I get a pair of real ones...
Probably an age inappropriate bright pink but they do double duty as hi vis at night... I thought I had got a bargain, I assumed they must be cheaper here as they are made next door in Vietnam but no, I check the UK price online after buying them and they were twice the price here. So including the other two pairs of emergency shoes, all in all they proved to be the most expensive pair of trainers ever!
But their Health & Safety benefits did come to the fore - but not in the way of avoiding an errant motorbike as I had imagined. I was walking along a lane on a breezy day and crossed over to avoid the ever present threat of a coconut falling on my head.. (Yes, I know, you are more likely to win the lottery....). As I did I only just managed to avoid treading on a slithery brown snake emerging from the grass on the other side... Afterwards I did wonder what might have happened had I just been in my flip flops, perhaps the very expensive trainers were not so expensive after all...
