I write to you whilst attempting to placate a playful 9 week old kitten called Ruby, who is trying to to play with my hair and face. Cute but a bit scratchy! Don’t worry, this is not a disease ridden feral cat from the streets of Bangkok, but a delightful domesticated beauty owned by our friend Lisa’s parents, Maude and Bruce, who very kindly put us up for a few days in Auckland while we looked for a suitable road-tripping vehicle. Yes, we are now in New Zealand. We have already done the Northland (that is, north of Auckland) but details of that will come later…
To back-track, we spent most of our two weeks in Thailand on the hilly, jungle-covered island of Koh Chang. We stayed in the tiny fishing (and now tourist) village of Bang Bao, at Cliff Cottages, a resort on a peninsula a little walk away from the main pier, with it’s own beautiful little rocky cove on one side and white sandy beach on the other. Cliff Cottages is peaceful, relaxed and very pretty. Our little wooden hut was up on the (surprise, surprise) cliff, overlooking the clear water where we could snorkel and swim. We had a bed, a fan, a mosquito net and a balcony complete with hammock. The toilet block was a short, sometimes muddy, walk away. We spent our time very lazily on the whole (Adam was not in the best of health – he’s better now) with a brief spell of jungle-trekking activity! This was surprisingly less scary than one would imagine, even when we did encounter creepy crawlies! Our group was an eclectic mix of nationalities and ages, the youngest trekker was only two, carried throughout by her lovely (brave) parents. The scariest moment happened when swimming in a deep pool at the bottom of a waterfall (sounds idyllic, I know) as a young Chinese man decided to jump in without telling anyone he couldn’t swim! As I watched him flounder and then start to sink I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him over to the side. He, in his panic, did not relax and allow himself to be dragged but thrashed around and began to drag me under too, but thankfully an older Austrian man noticed him too and helped me pull him to safety!! Our regular haunt for dinner was run by a lovely Thai lady who couldn’t do enough for us, sooo sweet! We made our own scrabble set too, that was another highlight! What a busy life we lead!!
Adam has written somewhat more extensively about our weeks in Thailand, feel free to follow the link!
We left Thailand contented but even happier to be on our way to see friends in New Zealand! There’s nothing like church family!!
I will continue in due course with details of NZ fun!!
