Shady Ground

It's just a short walk to the sea. The chalets were built on the beach and the tide pulled in the sea to a few yards before the trees. See previous post for chalet detail.

I remembered staying at another resort at Siar Beach a couple of years ago. The sea was clean but full of jellyfishes. I saw dolphins in the distance. The bedroom floor was covered with sand. (I won't even imagine how those got there.) The mattress was smaller than the bed frame so I saw the headboard resting on a pile of bricks. Piles of bricks reminded me of centipedes so I didn't sleep well that night. (I have way too many phobias.)

This reminded me of a book I read a couple of weeks ago. John and his wife Penny was on another road trip. They were one of those flexible types who can sleep anywhere, even inside the car if no motels were available. They spent all day on the road starting at 4 am in the morning and calling it quits only after 10 at night. All they had was a road map and they detoured often to check out anything interesting. On this particular road trip, Tom and wife joined the couple. Tom is John's colleague.

Tom's wife complained when the window is opened. It messed up her hair. She complained when the window is shut. Stuffy. She complained that the back seat is bumpy and made her sick so she sat in front with the road map. She couldn't navigate because she did not understand road maps. This frustrated everyone. By 6 pm, she insisted on checking into a motel and wouldn't rise until after 9 the next morning. This was a great disruption to John and Penny's plan. After two nights, they left Tom and wife in a motel while they drove away.

How nice it is to have a happy-go-lucky-devil-may-care attitude towards life. I think I got myself into this mess because I fret too much.

My niece ~~~ dangit! I'm always spelling "niece" as "neice" and having to correct it over and over again. I'd tell myself ...

"i" before "e" except after "c"

... correct the error, and then repeat the mistake the next time nieces entered my keyboard. Is it me or is it just me?

Hmm ... where was I? ~~~ Right!

My niece slept in a holiday chalet in a paddy field in Bali. She told me what a singularly fantastic experience that was. (No, Serena. I won't be caught dead in one of those. Paddy fields and snakes go hand-in-hand.)

Then there's the time we went to Penang and having decided to stay the night, went looking for a room. Most of the hotels were fully booked and after some search, we found one in the middle of the old commercial hub. The room was dark and dank. The toilet bowl wasn't clean and the bathroom floor wasn't tiled. But that's okay, you understand?

What's not okay was what my son (who was about four years old at the time) found under the bed. It was a black lacy pair of knickers. I couldn't sleep that night. I imagined all sorts of wild rendezvouses happening in the room and thought up a rash which wouldn't go until we left the hotel.

Nah ... I'm not one of those flexible types.