There’s nothing wrong with having noodles for breakfast. A little unimaginative, granted, but there’s no harm in enjoying the fine Thai cuisine as much as possible. But, something clearly thought I was relaxing and too happy – so Kat suggested I get my hair cut. I know that the mop of hair has become difficult to maintain, with variable environmental conditions and varying qualities of products available throughout the trip , we have affectionately referred to the mess as ‘Bob’. Bob needed to go, or at least try and get some control back and by mid morning I was waiting in a hairdressers. Reclining in a torture chair to wash my hair (they seemed adamant that it needed a wash before a cut, it was so dry and brittle), they clearly weren’t used to taller visitors. The same was said of the chair in front of the mirror. I’m not sure the chair could go down any further and yet it felt that my stylist was stretching up to my head even when I was slouching. Torture finished, I had only lost a few centimetres of my mane and sun-bleached blonde hair.
Katherine got a quick snip too. I’m not sure that her cut warranted the 200baht they charged her, compared to the girl before us, but maybe they had used so much product in my hair it worked out fair. 
Around the corner, on the upper road of the main town, we found a shop that sold everything from seeds to sunglasses, baby powder to boat propellers. It was a wacky shop and we found some stuff for snacks and breakfast for the next few days, plus a big water.
Walking the tourist strip, we enquired about some scuba diving. One place was only prepared to take Katherine on a Scuba Review basis and charge an extortionate fee for the privilege. That was a bit of a kick in the teeth, but maybe they at least had some standards and rules. Iwas seeing far too many dive centres on one little island and my alarm bells were warning me to be careful. We did settle on a company. I won’t mention a name as I’ve written this blog after the day of diving and it shan’t be polite.
Diving sorted, we chilled on the beach for a few hours. Reading books, doing puzzles and letting the waves crash against the sand. It was bliss. I tried to adjust my numb bum to a more comfortable position on the log and I should have stayed where I was. I had been blocking an ant hole and now that I had given them some space to manoeuvre, they attacked with ferocity. Legs, lower back and left hand were dotted with ants injecting minute capsules of formic acid. Being anti bites and stings, my skin crawled and I had a beautiful patchwork of red ‘join the dots’ on my body. I could no longer sit still, so in sympathy (I think there was an ulterior motive) we had a Milo milkshake at the nearest cafe. Mums bathed in the shallows with their naked babes, unaware of the deadly jellyfish in the area. Tourists were setting up GoPros for non-existent sunsets and locals were either mooring up boats for the day or already splashing about in the water to chill after a long day. The atmosphere of the beach was fabulous and it was relaxing to take it all in (even if I was fidgety). 
Even though we needed to be up early for diving the next morning, we enjoyed the last three episodes of Quantico on the iPad before getting some sleep. Not sure how we feel about it as a series. The main character isn’t the lovable sort you expect of a series and there were so many questions left unanswered that it made us question it negatively rather than in a conspiracy way. The tangible love stories throughout were ridiculous and yet the jumping between chronological events was well put together and the script had so much promise. I personally think there could have been another few episodes to the first season to wrap things up in a nicer bow and still leave clues to the next season. Hopefully it’s not going to be another program like ‘Prison Break’ that string it along after it should have finished.
Friday 21st October 2016
Trans Travels 