Hi Gram,
Yesterday was rainy so I just stayed inside and did very little, but oh, what a day we had today! It was hard waking up, but I finally got out of the warm comfy bed and did my morning stretches. David and I headed to the roof for breakfast and decided to sit outside for our last time up there. Oil, the hostess, welcomed us warmly with ginger tea for me and a latte for David. The two of us enjoyed breakfast, then John and Linda joined us up there to say our goodbyes. Oil brought John and Linda some coffee and water on the house, making all of us grateful for the experience. While we were finishing breakfast and chatting, the window cleaners showed up and just climbed over the railing onto board seats held up by ropes. OSHA would have had a coronary if they saw this, but it was no big deal to them.

We said our goodbyes at each floor of the elevator’s descent before I headed to the room to pack. Our driver picked us up just before noon and took us down to our camp in Hua Hin. Klaus met us at the front gate, showed us to our cabanas, and provided an orientation showing us where the gym, kitchen, bathroom, and pool were located. We got settled in, then headed down the street to the mall.

I found a few pairs of shorts, then we wandered around looking at the shops for a while before seeking out the food court. The vegetarian food festival is being celebrated throughout Thailand right now, so we sampled some noodle and tofu from a local shop. That was followed by some mango sticky rice, a perfect treat to wrap it all up. Full and tired, we headed back towards the camp.

On the way to the mall, we passed an interchange that turned one lane off to the side but we were able to keep walking straight. On the way back, we were on the side that curved off, so we followed the curve which deviated further than we thought. A quick reference to Google Maps and we saw there was a secret path that led to the back of the property – so we chose the shortcut. A few scooters whisked by in the first few hundred meters, which reassured us that this was a safe path. When the paved part curved off to the left, we continued on along the dirt path that went straight, just like Google told us to do.

When the dirt path ended and Google maps told us to turn left into what was clearly underbrush, we should have turned around. When we got close to the first fence and realized we would have to scale the fence, we looked down and saw that our shoes and pants were covered in thorny stickers. Now faced with the option of hopping a low fence or pushing our way back through the thorny bushes, we decided one fence was the easier option, especially with the sun setting. We took turns holding bags while the other scaled the fence, then walked about ten feet and found another fence, in much worse condition, harder to scale, and topped with barbed wire. At this point, I think David might have started to question following my advice to take Google’s shortcut, but he kept a good humor about him. We took our time as well as taking turns hopping this second fence – thankfully without incident.

We laughed about the adventure we’d had, vowed to never blindly follow Google’s advice again, and found our bungalows. We said goodbye, then I spent the next hour picking the sticker thorns off my pants and shoes. Exhausted, I headed to bed.