Rayong

Well, what can I say? Quite a lot actually. Our jolly day out wasn't quite what we all had in mind but the company was excellent so really no complaints. I have a nephew called Rhys, he is a legend, fact. To précis his words when you give him something he doesn't like .....



Me: Did you like that? 
R: Yes
Me: Do you want some more? 
R: No
I think that pretty much sums up my feelings on Rayong.

OK, so we were a little late heading off but this trip should be about one and a half hours. We sat on the minivan me in an individual seat near the door to try and avoid getting travel sick at 11:30 and we walked into Central Plaza having had to get a taxi as it's not "in town" at 14:00. I know it was a national holiday and there was a bit of traffic on the road but I did have an incredible urge to keep saying "are we there yet?" "are we there yet?".

So after trying to find somewhere different and relaxing for lunch you know, where we could chat and maybe have a drink and failing dismally, the girls came up with the option of visiting a Strawberry Town. We had terrible trouble trying to find a taxi and then making ourselves understood. We then found out it was about 36 kilometres away and by this time it was 15:40 and it starts to get dark around 18:00. So we knocked that idea on the head. I also found out later that there are actually no strawberries here and that its more like a resort,

Next up was the idea of going to the beach. Thinking we were being clever we headed to the Information desk in the Plaza as surely their English would be better. Wrong. But they were very smiley and tried their best. We did establish that the beach was 40 kilometres away. So we knocked that idea on the head.

There was only one thing left to do in circumstances like these. Head for the cinema and hope an English film was going to be shown soon. And success, yay, we got to watch Fantastic Four in the Honeymoon Seats very appropriate. We got lucky with the timing as only one of the films is shown in English even though there are about eight screens. 

Of course, before we knew it, it was time to bite the bullet and head back home we couldn't stay forever, the girls had to teach the next day. It was 19:10 I'm reliably informed when we came out of the shopping centre. Then of course we had to get on the back of a motorcycle taxi each don't ask why, I'm exhausted just re-living it to take us back to the Bus Station. Thankfully a minivan was heading to Chan in 30 minutes. Forty-five minutes later we were on our way and I walked through the door to Mr John at 22:00. 

I'm not sure any of us will be in a hurry to head off on a day trip to Rayong any time soon. To be fair, there were some pretty looking shops like Rip Curl and Sketchers if you're in the market for that sort of thing but really pretty much everything else you could find here in Chanthaburi, albeit a little less shiny and probably on a slightly smaller scale. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained but, as I said, the company was excellent. Thanks Emma and Orla