Eat, Drink, Sleep

Phil asked me to blog today so I am sorry folks you are stuck with my waffles once again.  It’s been months since Phil has been able to work on his book and I am glad that he has started to write again. Mind you, not sure I am going to be able to write anything of interest for this blog posting, because of the monsoon rains we really haven’t been up to much, mainly just eating, sleeping and drinking beer.  Yesterday (Saturday) we actually awoke to torrential rains so we stayed in our room until it slowed down then ventured out for breakfast. Our check out time was midday so we decided to stay in our room until we got kicked out; Phil worked on his chapter and I wrote the blog and caught up with emails.

Thankfully by lunchtime the rain had almost stopped, we checked out of the hotel and went to Octopus for an early lunch.  More curry and afterwards we grabbed a taxi and made our way to Patong which, because of the traffic, took nearly an hour.  Patong is a big place and first impressions whilst making our way to our hotel weren’t great.  Pretty much what I expected really, very built up with buildings squeezed in everywhere and lots of development.  Once again, grey skies and drizzle as we checked into the Nap Patong.

I really messed up BIG TIME with this booking.  After discovering my mistake with the room rate, I went back on the www.booking.com website and saw that apart from screwing up with my currency conversion, I had actually selected the 3 night special deal and only booked 2 nights!  There was no way of altering my booking online because it was non-refundable offer, so I decided to phone customer services to see if I get the extra night for free.  The call centre was in the UK and eventually I got through and spoke to an American lady who said no problem she would sort it with the hotel.  I said to Phil, if we are paying through the roof we may as well take the free night and spend it in luxury. 

If I am honest I was kind of expecting trouble with checking-in, maybe the cynic in me but the rules of booking.com were very specific.  The staff at the front desk didn’t speak great http://thenakedbloggers2011.blogspot.com/English, I don’t speak any Thai but eventually the manager was called and he explained to me that the extra night had been booked but was not free and had already been charged to Phil’s credit card.  Now Phil was already pissed off for having to pay so much for 2 nights so learning that he had to pay for a third night didn’t please him much.  I was really in the doghouse!  To be fair, the manager, sensing our distress, gave us an upgrade to a suite which soothed Phil especially when we were shown our Blue Moon Deluxe room. www.nappatong.com

Our room, which is not really a suite, has a terrace with steps leading to a rooftop terrace. We have a fridge stocked with complimentary soft drinks, a kettle, a massive shower and a flat screen TV.  It does have the wow factor and would be amazing if we had sunshine instead of rain.  We have a view which overlooks the pools and the ocean.  The Pap gets a place in my top 5 hotels, the Leela in Goa being my number 1.  As we were staying 3 nights on the trot we decided to unpack which was a nice feeling.  It was mid-afternoon by this time so we walked down to the beach and along the busy road to find supplies. We found some reasonably priced wine, got TV nibbles and some cheap DVD’s as we have a DVD player in our room.  Then it was back to our room for internet. We have free Wi-Fi which we get in our room which is another bonus.

Last night we went down for the buffet because it was cheap, roughly £7 each.  The buffet was excellent; I have eaten lots of great Thai food both at home and in Thailand but the buffet at The Nap was seriously good.  I didn’t think I was that hungry but it was so delicious I ended up having several courses as did Phil.  After dinner, we saw that it was raining, so decided against heading into town to check out the Patong nightlife and instead went straight up to our room where we watched a couple of movies before going to sleep.

This morning we were awake early so were down at breakfast for 7am.  The skies seemed a little brighter and I did think we could have some sunshine today but the grey clouds have appeared.  Still it’s not raining yet even though the forecast is rain for the foreseeable future.  I am not sure of plans for today; as I type, Phil is out on the terrace writing his book.  He’s not happy this morning because he has lost all of the writing he did yesterday.  I don’t think he has actually lost it, I think it probably somewhere on his new Apple Mac Air but he’s not familiar with Apple Mac’s yet and he doesn’t know where to look. 

Phil did say at breakfast that he would like a blog and a book day but I feel like exploring, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. Patong is too big to explore on foot and I think we are going to need to hire a bike.  Otherwise I don’t feel that I can pass judgement on Patong without delving deeper under its surface.  Having just typed this last sentence and it’s gone really dark and the rain is lashing onto our terrace. Its amazing how it can change so quickly. Phil’s come dashing back inside and I think no exploring for us today.  I’m snuggling under back under the feather duvet in our king size bed with the remote control.  C’est La Vie, a duvet day then it is.