After standing for thirty-minutes outside the Bangkok airport on a balmy night, a gentleman comes up to us holding a sign with my name. He’s with an air-conditioned van from the Thirteen Coin Resort ready to drive us 25 miles to the hotel. Thirty minutes later we were at our final destination. We walk into an enormous hotel lobby. Old, dark, and along one wall there are refrigerated cases of hanging meat. We paid the balance of our bill 1050 baht ($32) and 300 ($9) to our van driver. We then got back into the van and in the dark were taken along a windy, tree-lined road to the building we were staying in room 312. There’s either a huge puddle or pond out there with plenty of frogs croaking. Right now, it’s a bit creepy here, in the middle of nowhere with no other known guests.
The room was a pleasant sight. A king-size bed, proper air-conditioning, TV, and a bathroom with a separate tub and shower. Very deluxe. After talking, getting caught up, sharing pictures, showering, and relaxing we finally went to bed at 4:00 am. The best thing, check out is 4:00 pm. No rushing in the morning. Since I felt like I was sleeping on a rock, the pillow was so hard I was up at 7 am. Showered, dressed, and enjoyed the outside terrace table and chairs. It was a pleasantly warm, humid, cloudy day. Now that the sun is up the view from our balcony is beautiful. A pond, coconut trees, and other beautiful trees I don’t know, birds singing, crickets chirping, a goat, a few cars, and the sound of children a few blocks away can all be seen and heard.
We seem to be the only hotel guests around and walk over to the main building for our complimentary breakfast. We see a few other people and order eggs over-easy, toast, and bacon for me while Andy has eggs, toast, and sausage. Sausage is actually small American style hot dogs, two plain, two with cheese. We made this a down day. It’s beautiful and very calming here. We played cards, made some travel plans as we looked at our travel books and decided to stay here another night. So, our day continued to be relaxing, playful and since it’s so humid we swim in the 4-foot-deep pool that looked like it had been filled with rainwater. A few squalls of rain with thunder and lightning throughout the day. Dinner at 7 pm at the hotel was a sweet and sour fish for Andy while I have a hand-tossed oven pizza. I watched the pizza dough being made at breakfast. Pizza is very different and very good; ketchup type sauce with tomatoes, green peppers, cheese, mushrooms, and pineapple toppings. Before bed, I watched Mama Mia. Good night.
