7 October
When I awoke, the golden morning sunlight was shining through the soft rain falling on the mountains outside our window.

It was a beautiful scene and I stretched luxuriously on the crisp cotton sheets of the four poster bed and watched it for a while. Then I sprang out of bed and took a cold shower before doing my exercises. Some sixth instinct told me that, not far below, a full continental breakfast was calling me…

And so it was. After I had demolished 4 croissants, 3 pieces of toast, a place of fresh fruit and a few cups of coffee, I felt ready for whatever new adventures the day might bring.

The day’s adventure consisted of returning to the Grand Tower in Krabi and then taking an ancient and rather decrepit long boat to Khao Khanab Nam Cave.

This was a wondrous place – part Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings and part Nature’s cathedral. It was lit by natural formed light shafts in the walls of the cave. Tiny swifts nested amongst the stalagmites hanging from the ceiling 50 feet above and called quietly to each other as they flitted to and fro. Somewhere deep in the darker places, water dripped steadily. It must have been possible to live here then. Apparently it is not uncommon to find human skeletons here dating from ancient times.

On the way back from the cave, we visited a fish farm. This was a ramshackle affair consisting of floating wooden planks and nets submerged in the brown water. We landed our boat and a small squat Thai man came out of a little floating hut and grinned at us.

“Fish fish!” he said and nodded at the old planks at his feet.

We stared down into the murky water but there didn’t seem much to see. He squatted down on the wet wood and reached into the water. He brought up a fish and grinned at us again.

“See! Fish!” he said.

His fish immediately started gulping in air in a pumping motion and rapidly blew itself up until it was the shape and size of a small football covered in spines. Its face looked remarkably Gollum-like.

"Put us back in the water nassty man! Yesss!" it hissed.

He put it back in the water where upon it deflated itself and slunk below the surface again.

After the fish farm, we returned to our hotel. Dook called to say that there was a studio flat available at the place we’d been to see before. I went to see with her and agreed to take it. Mina and I ate dinner at Pizza Firenzi. We invited Dook to join us but she declined. She is still sulking.