Week Thirty Two

Our Gatwick flight was delayed around 30 minutes – which is relatively meaningless to us – but for the fact the layover in Doha was only 50 minutes. The result, we missed our connecting flight to Bangkok. To the credit of Qatar Air they offered to put us on the next flight to Bangkok only 90 minutes later. Wendy saw an opportunity……. Qatar also fly from Doha to Phuket direct, so she made a plea that we had missed our connecting flight from Bangkok to Phuket due to the delay (white lie – that flight was not until over 24 hrs after we landed in Bangkok) so could we change our flight to direct to Phuket. Qatar air agreed and so it was we bypassed Bangkok and went straight to Phuket. Upon arrival at Phuket like a flash Wendy was on the internet and looking for somewhere to stay as our hotel in Phuket was not booked until the following day. She found a place to stay Bandara Hotel in Panwa – only 2 miles from our next hotel, what a find and only £40 for both of us with breakfast.
The Bandara turned out to be a very nice place to stay, rooftop infinity

pool and very confortable beds. We could have stayed much longer but it was only ever a staging post, nonetheless it was given a glowing report on Trip advisor.
Thursday saw us arrive at The Cape Panwa Hotel on the southern tip of Phuket Island. This was a classy 5* hotel with all the bells and whistles. Our room was about the same size as the downstairs of our house in England! In such sumptuous surroundings we soon settled in. This was always going to be a chill out week with no plans to go on any trips, just simple indulgence for the whole week. Access to the resort was via a single road which was up what can only be described as a monster hill, atop of which was a bar affording marvellous views of the Cape Panwa bay. The private beach was a little rocky under the water but it was an absolute picture to look at, sweeping white sand with the obligatory curved coconut trees leaning over the water. On the shore was a 1900’s colonial house still in original condition, complete with brown Bakelite light switches and

perfect balcony and veranda. This is now a bespoke authentic Thai restaurant serving the most splendid food.
As I seem to be suffering from an odd ailment called plantar fasciitis (sore heel) I could not jog as usual, so in a vein attempt to balance my calories by exercise I took to swimming, as did Wendy. We are quite proud of our efforts swimming 30 to 40 lengths of our 25m pool each day. We are unlikely to make the swimming squad but we felt better for it.
Over the course of the week at the Cape we met some very nice folk, the most humorous was a retired RUC cop who was, as you might imagine, full of (very) tall stories, seemingly his skill was single handed dealings with bombs. He claimed to have been blown up twice and shot once. Along with the fact he had a massive heart attack and was ‘dead’ on the bed for some minutes before he was resuscitated with a defib! Not the most believable guy in the world but nonetheless entertaining.
Our favoured bar and restaurant for the week was known as, ‘Top of the Reef’. They were a little fussy on dress code –requiring long trousers and shoes as well as a shirt. I only had with me one pair of trousers – blue jeans – and no shoes, so I had to make do with socks

and sandals and jeans to comply. Once the ordeal of dress was dealt with you were treated to a relaxed cocktail bar and fine dining, during the week we had lobster and beef wellington amongst other fine offerings. Every night we were entertained by a young Thai girl who played piano and sang (not the best singer to be fair but good on the piano), Maitti was her name. During the week we discovered not only did she speak Thai and English but also some German and fluent in Mandarin. She worked six days per week and told us she had six days holiday per year! Its hard not to feel sorry for someone with so much to offer who works for so little in return – not too much quality of life there. Kinda makes you feel embarrassed to be there loafing about.
Very quickly the week was over and we were off to our next location, Khoa Lak, just off the island of Phuket around 2 hours north.