#MissingFactor50

I woke up 5 stone heavier, packed my bags and said goodbye to my big bed and tiny black men. Somehow my stomach growled for me to feed it! My promise to never eat again broken within less than 9 hours!

Our plan was to rent scooters and ride up to the view points and see some beaches. “We’ll have two bikes please!”
“You have bike license?” I have literally seen a toddler in control of one of these motorised bicycles.
“No, we have drivers licenses..”
“If you caught, you pay big fine!”
So small children with no helmets on the handlebars yes. Grown adults with driving licenses no. Plan B is it!

We hired a tuk tuk to take us up the hill to the viewpoint. The day was gorgeous with just a few white, puffy clouds in the blue sky. The view overlooked the three bays, each beach covered in soft sand and palm trees while dozens of green plants filled the cliffs before us. The only negative was an eagle chained up by its foot for people to take photos with. I contemplated setting him free but it probably would have attacked me and I would be the one in the Thai jail covered in scratch marks selling my bras for cigarettes and waiting for Mr Darcy to bail me out.

Our next stop was a beach. I bought some definitely real Ray Bans from a man that definitely looked like a designer sun-glass salesman

on the beach.
“800 baht, polarised- look.” He showed me that with the glasses I could see the cars on the little picture, and without, I couldn’t.
“100!” I counter offered.
“No! 400?”
“150!”
“For you, I do for 200.”
See, definitely real!

The beach was busy with people sunbathing, surfing and selling stuff that no one needs. One man tried to sell me a wooden giraffe.Sensing our reluctance he showed us that you could pull it’s

limbs off to fit in your bag.
“Oh great! Now I want to buy a large authentic giraffe sculpture from Thailand!”

Another man held up a terrified looking lemur at us that was clinging to his hand to avoid falling. Presumably he was wanting us to hold it for a photo, I suddenly felt short changed from all the times I let my friends hold my hamster Ralph and didn’t make them pay for a photo with him. I glared at him to show I disapproved of his monkey money making scheme and he walked away.

My skin began to colour as we cooled off in the sea, the strong waves almost knocking us off our feet. I could feel myself burning but I had nothing with me to shade myself. Two weeks of monsoon rains had not taught me to be prepared for the Thai sun.

Once back at our beach, we realised we hadn’t eaten or had a drink in at least an hour so we found more fried ice cream to rectify the crisis. This time I had a brownie one, my only criticism would be that it could use some soft doughy chunks in the middle like my best friends Ben & Jerry. The clouds darkened and the weather began to turn so we headed back to our hotel pool. But no rain came.

By the time we had visited the market, I was bright pink. My nose shone like Rudolph and my arms gleamed like rubies.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I moaned as I pulled on tops to try.
It was almost time to go, which meant we had to have one last cocktail. I ordered a strawberry daiquiri and was quite horrified to see that I was a darker shade of pink than it! The weekend had gone slowly but now it felt like it was over too soon. To make matters worse, this time we didn’t have a ‘we’ll see you in..’ date. By the time we arrived back at the hotel to collect our bags their taxi was waiting. We hugged goodbye and it was time to go catch my rickety blue bus... #sadfaceemoji