Week two starts and we've done stuff!

We're doing it! We're going out! Granted the first day was a walk up the beach to the lagoon complex, a group of five lakes all with very beautiful hotels on (banyan tree, that sort of thing). We'd looked it up on maps and decided to walk along the beach while it's shaded in the morning, the tide was in higher than it had been a previous morning so pushing the pram was a struggle! We weren't on soft sand but it wasn't ideal at all. About 1km after we'd thought this place would have jumped out at us we stopped and asked a security guard at a hotel. Thai helpfulness is so fantastic that this security guard radioed his mate, walked us through the hotel complex (lagoon resort, the most beautiful hotel I've ever walked through, definitely a Kuoni job!)  and put us on their free shuttle bus to canal street, the shopping area of the resort!! I never cease to be amazed by the hospitality here.

Once we got there we discovered canal street is Bicester village on steroids, far, far to posh for us and our sandy kids. So we decided after a play in the park there and an icecream that we would try and get a bus back. Ellie had a fab chat with one of the chauffeurs for the posh people, he was lovely. Jim's taught her that she points to her chest and says "Ellie" people will know her name. So everywhere we go she will randomly wave at people, point to herself and say "Ellie", very cute! While I think about it, she also waves the hawkers off on the beach with a "no thank you" which they and us find very funny! Anyway, we gave up on the bus after a ten minute wait and had a walk back to the place we'd seen on the way there with elephants! Ellie and Jim had a fifteen minute ride on an elephant around some parkland near one of the lagoons, this is her Christmas present from Uncle Brian and Aunty Lesley! After they let her feed the elephant, it was fantastic! As we were leaving, two minibuses turned up with a bride and groom with some bridesmaids. They were spectacular looking, they headed off on their elephant plod, wonderful... Needless to say we spent the day recovering by the pool!

Next day we did it again! We sorted ourselves early (after Ellie had had her obligatory "milk in the dark" which is quickly becoming her new fixation!) we headed to Surin Beach. A completely different scene to that of Bang Tao where we are. It's the next beach along and is full of very trendy beach clubs that run the stretch of the sands, with funky music, awesome bars, towards the end they are much fancier, with champagne bars, red swimming pools (just weird to see) and sun beds costing £20 per day! We were tempted but tend to do things at half day pace so £20 for a half day would have been ridiculous. We headed right to the end to try and catch some shade. Shade is becoming our big issue, not huge amounts if it on a beach, if we do find some, we can't keep Joey in it as the beast is magnetically drawn to crawling into the waves, so we can do beaches for about an hour before it becomes hot an awkward..... About an hour later it became hot and awkward so we headed off in search of lunch. Rather than one of the super cool bars we actually opted for a Thai bar on the sea front. It was amazing, feet in sand, drinking singha, eating chicken and cashew nuts without a tear from the kids, definitely one of my highlights so far! Needless to say, once we got back, we needed to recover!! I wanted to add pictures but typically the connector thing I put the memory card into isn't working so as soon as I can get some uploaded I will add some with references back to the events, like Ellie's elephant ride.