It started with a bell.
Like Pavlov's dog, the tinkle of a little bell makes some of my sun-lounging neighbours leap up from their horizontal slumberings and head, zombie-fashion, to the little thatched beach bar for a happy hour tipple. Happy hour can be at 10am here so these are very hardy imbibers.
I am in a very small remote boutique resort built within a nature reserve, on an equally small island, surrounded by stunning limestone cliffs, in the Andaman Sea in Thailand. The individual bungalows and studios are dotted throughout the lush rainforest with only hornbills, tree frogs and black squirrels for company. My company, however, are two of my closest girlfriends, and as the resort is very dreamy and romantic, attracting many a honeymooning couple, we are rather an incongruous trio!
I'm not sure people have quite worked us out. We decided to splash out a little and got separate rooms rather than sharing. We also booked independently so our rooms aren't even close to each other. I then made up a very ill husband in order to get a hideous drunk guest to shut the hell up at 4 in the morning. It's so much easier to tell an inebriated middle aged woman to stop singing and shouting in the adjacent room, if you make up someone that is literally at death's door and can't take the noise. She can't get cross because it's not you that's complaining but your dying husband! The fact that the next morning my gravely ill partner was nowhere to be seen, just added to overall confusion.
I had complicated matters further by emailing the hotel staff a few weeks prior to our arrival, requesting a very quiet room but that was still in hobbling distance to the beach and restaurant. Not knowing which request to prioritise, I was given a beautiful room at the back of the property, right at the top of a hill. We realised, pretty quickly, that it would be impossible for me to limp up there several times a day, so they put me in a different room, on the flat and only a second's walk to the beach.
Unfortunately this second room was next door to the only drunk on the island and below another very active family. Quiet it was not. So after another reshuffle I am now in a one-storey room that's quiet, and on the flat. Hurrah. The drunk woman has also left the island. Hurrah hurrah.
But back to the little bell. I have now learnt that it is not rung simply to advertise cheap drinks, it is also rung by the cleaning girls as they approach your room, to warn you of their approach in case you are up to something in your room. No chance of that with us three solo travellers but as I mentioned before, there are quite a few honeymoon couples here. I'm sure it's so much nicer to hear the tinkle of a bell while you are in flagrante, than housekeeping just walking in unannounced.
The third type of bell tinkle is the turn down service. I have only just discovered this because I spent the evening trying to write in my room rather than at the bar and restaurant. My lovely partners in crime left the island today to do a bit of island hopping so I have another 5 days here on my own. By choice, I hasten to add. I wanted a bit of time before meeting up again on another island, to read and write and sleep and do yoga. Just a bit of time to switch off completely. So as I was scribbling away this evening, on my little patio, I heard a little tinkle outside my door. Then another tinkle, louder this time, before the door was flung open and in came a sweet young boy who bowed deeply, placed a lit citronella candle in my lantern, turned down my bed covers and arranged the mosquito netting. Never will a ringing bell be more appreciated.
I am going for my first massage tomorrow and as anyone who has followed my travel blogs know, I always love a local massage. Some are more successful and relaxing than others. I am hoping it resembles my luxurious Vietnamese or Sri Lankan massages rather than the traditional Chinese massage I had in Singapore, where the masseur literally wrestled me into unfathomable positions before I was slapped punched and pinched half to death.
I will keep you posted.
I am in a very small remote boutique resort built within a nature reserve, on an equally small island, surrounded by stunning limestone cliffs, in the Andaman Sea in Thailand. The individual bungalows and studios are dotted throughout the lush rainforest with only hornbills, tree frogs and black squirrels for company. My company, however, are two of my closest girlfriends, and as the resort is very dreamy and romantic, attracting many a honeymooning couple, we are rather an incongruous trio!
I'm not sure people have quite worked us out. We decided to splash out a little and got separate rooms rather than sharing. We also booked independently so our rooms aren't even close to each other. I then made up a very ill husband in order to get a hideous drunk guest to shut the hell up at 4 in the morning. It's so much easier to tell an inebriated middle aged woman to stop singing and shouting in the adjacent room, if you make up someone that is literally at death's door and can't take the noise. She can't get cross because it's not you that's complaining but your dying husband! The fact that the next morning my gravely ill partner was nowhere to be seen, just added to overall confusion.
I had complicated matters further by emailing the hotel staff a few weeks prior to our arrival, requesting a very quiet room but that was still in hobbling distance to the beach and restaurant. Not knowing which request to prioritise, I was given a beautiful room at the back of the property, right at the top of a hill. We realised, pretty quickly, that it would be impossible for me to limp up there several times a day, so they put me in a different room, on the flat and only a second's walk to the beach.
Unfortunately this second room was next door to the only drunk on the island and below another very active family. Quiet it was not. So after another reshuffle I am now in a one-storey room that's quiet, and on the flat. Hurrah. The drunk woman has also left the island. Hurrah hurrah.
But back to the little bell. I have now learnt that it is not rung simply to advertise cheap drinks, it is also rung by the cleaning girls as they approach your room, to warn you of their approach in case you are up to something in your room. No chance of that with us three solo travellers but as I mentioned before, there are quite a few honeymoon couples here. I'm sure it's so much nicer to hear the tinkle of a bell while you are in flagrante, than housekeeping just walking in unannounced.
The third type of bell tinkle is the turn down service. I have only just discovered this because I spent the evening trying to write in my room rather than at the bar and restaurant. My lovely partners in crime left the island today to do a bit of island hopping so I have another 5 days here on my own. By choice, I hasten to add. I wanted a bit of time before meeting up again on another island, to read and write and sleep and do yoga. Just a bit of time to switch off completely. So as I was scribbling away this evening, on my little patio, I heard a little tinkle outside my door. Then another tinkle, louder this time, before the door was flung open and in came a sweet young boy who bowed deeply, placed a lit citronella candle in my lantern, turned down my bed covers and arranged the mosquito netting. Never will a ringing bell be more appreciated.
I am going for my first massage tomorrow and as anyone who has followed my travel blogs know, I always love a local massage. Some are more successful and relaxing than others. I am hoping it resembles my luxurious Vietnamese or Sri Lankan massages rather than the traditional Chinese massage I had in Singapore, where the masseur literally wrestled me into unfathomable positions before I was slapped punched and pinched half to death.
I will keep you posted.
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