so we were up early again,
leaving the hotel this is what the bottle Christmas tree looks like in the daytime,
to day we hired a baht bus to take us to Lonely Beach,
so we made our way along the main road that runs parallel to the sea,
although there is some single story development,
much of the land on both sides of the road is undeveloped,
with jungle almost encroaching on the road in places,
having said that,
there are a number of new developments that have been finished,
any way I have uploaded a few of the things that you will see traveling further down the coast to Lonely Beach,
surprisingly,
in the middle of almost nowhere a few bars will suddenly appear,
like this one,
then we had a bit of drama,
the hills here are incredibly steep, and this truck had come to a halt on this hill,
our driver stopped fearing the worse that the truck would roll back down the hill towards us,
the drivers behind us stopped as well,
but eventually the truck made it, so the other vehicles followed us up,
looking through the bamboo we thought we had made it to the top,
but the journey had barely begun,
pictures just do not convey how steep these hills are,
vehicles were almost disappearing in the bottom of each dip,
and how about this for a 'S' bend?
the sign says it all,
we eventually after a few more hills and dips arrived at Lonely Beach, where some workers were making some wooden furniture,
our Baht bus left and we made our way to the beach,
a quick pose,
then we made our way past the restaurant,
and bar onto the beach,
but there was a slight problem,
looking both up and down the beach there were no deck chairs,
as we did not want to spend the day sitting on the sand or sat at one of the bars we decided to make a move to another beach,
although I guess difficult to get to there was a nice development in the hills over looking the bay,
our journey back up the hills began,
the baht bus we hired this time looked like it needed a service as it was smoking so much,
not that the drivers behind seemed to mind,
also I do not think that the brakes on this bus were as good,
as going down hill things sped up,
in fact towards the bottom of one of the hills,
we were going at quiet a lick,
the last big downwards hill,
the one that the truck was stopped on and we were almost back to the beach we wanted to go to as a second choice,
so back past the shops,
Indian restaurant,
resorts,
and roadside fruit stalls,
and we were back to the beach we were at before,
again it was pretty much deserted,
as we sat down we were treated to a surprised, the restaurant owner gave us a few nibbles, some sticky rice and cashew nuts free of charge, what a nice welcome back,
which we all enjoyed,
after Diana finished her ice cold coconut,
a dragonfly decided to visit,
our food arrived,
there was lots of it,
despite trying to stay out of the sun, I just some how kept getting redder,
just some of the food we ordered,
another perfect day on the beach, things just could not have been better at the second beach,
whilst waiting for the baht bus I noticed this tree opposite,
it had a huge trunk, or at least it appeared that way,
we made our way back to Paddy's Palms for a refreshing beer,
we then had a quick look next door, it was the White Elephant's opening night and we had been invited,
it was a double sized bar with a pool table,
with plenty of seating outside,
and inside,
back in our rooms they had as usual been made up, I am not sure what the towels are supposed to look like but someone spent some time folding them,
then glad rags and new bangle on and we were out to the White Elephant,
the girls had gone out shopping and Maureen had kindly bought this bangle for Diana, it was made out either mango or mangrove wood, we are not sure which,
by now the outside of the bar had been decked with balloons,
inside the group was in full swing,
Diana decided on a cocktail,
the staff were also bring round trays of food to try,
all of which were bite sized and delicious,
'Cheers!', from Diana,
but she had a cocktail really,
Nick and,
Maureen stayed with the big beers,
I went with vodka and soda, meanwhile Frank went round with more trays of smoked salmon,
did I mention the complimentary sangria's?
which as you can see were delicious,
Frank the perfect host called by to see that all was well,
and to make doubly sure it was another round of sangria's hit our table,
we were by now ready to get some shut eye, yet another exhausting day on the beach, but before we left I had to take a picture of this leopard, I do not know who the artist is but he or she I think captured the menacing look of a leopard so well, anyway enough of that we were all off to bed.
