Monday



6 October
This morning it rained and rained and rained! We ate breakfast at a place called Ao Nang Cuisine. The food was nice but very Thai. As we left, I noticed a sign which thanked us for our custom and wished our families luck forever!

After breakfast, the steady heavy rain continued so we decided to stay another night as there was obviously no point in going anywhere when the weather was like this. After I’d paid, Mina told me that we could have stayed at Bah’s luxury resort for only 1,800 baht! Bah could have got us in on an “inspection”. Why she didn’t tell me before is a mystery! Perhaps she wanted to save it as a subject to argue about…

The rain continued. We sat in our dismal room and waited for the rain to stop. It didn’t. We started thinking about Bah’s luxury resort with swimming pool and spa…

For want of anything better to do, I wrote my diary and Mina wrote her poems. She was very fond of writing love poem. After a while, she went outside. Suddenly she came back in again, beaming.

“I’ve got a refund!” she said. “I spoke nicely to the man at reception and he’s given us our money back!”

I jumped up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

I packed my suitcase while Mina phoned for Anas to pick us up. In less than 10 minutes we were pulling up in front of the entrance of Vogue Pranang Bay Resort and uniformed and gloved staff were taking our suitcases, bowing and opening doors, ushering us into cream leather sofas while the manager himself brought us drinks and scented white towels to wipe our hands on…

I started to feel suspicious. Surely, not all customers coming from 500 baht guesthouses received such VIP treatment? I turned to Mina, who was smiling graciously and looking pretty pleased with herself.

“Who do they think we are?” I asked her in a low undertone. “What have you told them? Who are we supposed to be?”

“I told the manager that I am from Petcherat Marina and that it is an inspection,” she whispered. “Everybody knows Petcherat here. I used to be their marketing manager and I showed him my old card. I think he was suspicious at first because there was no letter beforehand but I told him that I was in a hurry. So I got him to phone my old boss at Petcherat – he is a good friend of mine. And he told the manager that ‘yeah, Mina is with us.’”

Soon, we were viewing the rooms which were pretty palatial compared to what we’d just come from. Mina told me that if it was an inspection from a well known big company, then the resort would discount heavily and give us 5 star treatment because of the hoped for follow up custom.

In the end, we settled for a top end open plan style honeymoon suite complete with big circular bathtub next to the huge four poster bed. The views were breathtaking and it had everything you might expect in such a place. The non-discounted low season price was 15,000 baht and they let Mina have it for 2,500 baht.

After the staff had left us, closing the door softly behind them, Mina and I went round our suite, gloating over every detail. Then we straightened our faces, changed into our swimwear and went for a swim in the pool below our balcony.

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