Someone's birthday

Monday 20^th August, 2018.

Happy Birthday Trevor.

Our mate the barman at the Beach Bar the other day had a guess at how old Trevor was. It must be a game he likes to play. Anyway, he was spot on! We were both amazed. He had a guess at my age too which was a bit brave, and he was a year less, but I said that was ok, always better to guess younger when it comes to women!

 

artist's impression of the JW Marriott Khao Lak

When we got home from dinner last night, there was a letter from Management under the door. What have we done now??? No need to worry, it was regarding the Indian wedding and how other guests at the resort may be impacted. Looks like most of the festivities will be across on the other side of the resort, and someone, can’t remember who, told us that the wedding party and guests had booked out wings 3 and 4. That’s a lot of rooms!!

 

wedding decorations at the front door

viewed from below

Monday 20^th will be setup and decorations at Aquamarine Pool between 11am and 4pm, then a private dinner from 4pm to 11.30pm.

Tomorrow will see setup and sound check at the Olive lawn and Marquee lawn 11am – 2pm then from 5pm – 8pm will be Bharat – wedding procession at Olive Lawn (Privatised) so I guess that means we’re not invited! Then 8pm – 12 midnight Wedding ceremony and a party at the Marquee Lawn (again privatised) with fireworks for 5 minutes sometime between 8 and 9pm. At least we should be able to see those!

Wednesday 22^nd kicks off at 10am with another Wedding ceremony at Takrai and Sakura, the Thai and Japanese restaurants on-site (privatised)till midday. Then lunch there as well from midday – 4pm. Again, no invitation for us! The guests are then given some recovery (aka food coma) time before things get going again at 8pm with yet another wedding ceremony and a party at the Marquee Lawn scheduled to end at midnight (let’s hope so).

Management says “ It is expected that there may be some noise due to the entertainment at the wedding and sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.”  I’m actually looking forward to seeing (what we can) an Indian wedding and definitely hearing the music. 

The cynic in me assesses the offer of ‘rainy day activity – free shuttle bus to Phuket, 20^th – 24^th August’ as a ploy to clear the resort of as many guests as possible while the wedding takes over. We bumped into the Kiwi fellas this morning and their assessment is that the weather in Phuket actually is better than it is here at the moment. It’ll be a very long day whatever the reason. The coach leaves the resort at 9.30am and delivers guests to Central Festival Phuket, a massive shopping centre, and departs again at 5pm. The distance is around 100km and travel time is approx 2 hours. “You can either enjoy your time at the mall or take a short taxi ride to visit Phuket Town (10mins) or Patong Beach (30 mins). Spending all day trolling the shops or maybe seeing a movie, seems to me to defeat the purpose of a 2 hour drive to get to the sunshine. The jury is still out on whether we’ll partake of this ever so generous offer. We visited Phuket and Patong Beach pre-tsunami and as much as we’d like to return to Patong Beach to see how it’s recovered, a big day like that also means one less day of sitting around chilling. We’re on holidays! We shouldn’t have to make such tough decisions!! Might wait and see what day Pam’s Restaurant runs their cooking class. I think I’d definitely prioritise that over a day trip to Patong. 

 

our end of the pool

The couple at the next table at breakfast today are from Wilson’s Prom, and we end up chatting with them long after we finished our meal. The food here is amazing, the variety at breakfast has to be seen to be believed. I’m astounded that I read complaints on tripadvisor about the food letting the place down. Those people must be really hard to please. Lunch today is going to be at the Deli, the coffee shop under Reception. I looked at the menu yesterday and it looks good, so we rock up and guess what? Menu has changed. “Because of the wedding”. Grrr. We choose from the menu that will be in place for 2 days and while it wasn’t what we were looking forward to, we were happy with what we got. Trevor asked if he could have the beer promotion, buy 2 get 1 free. No is the reply, it’s off “because of the wedding”. Grrr. Best thing to come from eating there was a conversation with a fellow guest who put us onto the fact that they sell bottles of wine there much cheaper than anywhere else and they’ll put their logo stamp on the label so you can then take it into any restaurant. Bargain!! 599 THB inclusive of the killer ++ taxes. You’d pay that much for a carafe in the restaurant which is about half a bottle. One of the resort’s best kept secrets! I’m not sure if the Marriott logo is the same worldwide, I guess it is. I recognised it as soon as I saw it. It’s a Wyvern, a mythical creature that I’d never heard of before until we visited the Hamelin Bay Winery in the Margaret River area in WA last year. They have the same creature on their logo, as it was the family crest of the ancestors of the winery owners. Small world!

It's earlier into the pool today because we don’t have to go in to KL and we’re going to Skype with Patrick and Heidi at 4.30. While we’re talking with them, the doorbell rings and there are 2 lovely staff members with a birthday cake for Trevor, a lovely and unexpected touch. We really are being taken good care of here. We met some more neighbours, again from Melbourne.

 

birthday cake number 1

Kat and Phil, the Melbourne couple who came to the resort with us on the shuttle from the airport are keen to do the cooking class at Pam’s, so we decide on Thursday, if Pam has no others booked in. We’re going there for Trevor’s birthday dinner, so will talk to Pam when she finishes cooking. It was busy there, but not really noticeable when we first arrived as all the guests were fairly spread out. There was us and 2 other couples from the Marriott, and at least another 3 or 4 other couples. We booked with Pam via facebook and if you’re within a certain area, pick up and return is provided free of charge. It wasn’t until a thunderstorm rolled in and the tables had to be consolidated under the main roof that you really noticed how many people were there. So, we had to move from our beautifully decorated table, but the staff moved the flowers for us. I had the recommended frozen mango daiquiri. It was huge, and very good.

Pam's Restaurant and Bar

our original table under it's own little roof

lobster and fried rice

We pre-ordered a lobster 2 days ago for the special birthday dinner and I think there were some envious looks from the nearby tables. It was pretty spectacular. Trevor really enjoyed eating it, every last scrap from all the legs once we finished the main body. It certainly looked like a lobster massacre after he’s finished! 

 

birthday cake number 2

We bought some food and beverage credit when we arrived and when we got back from dinner we thought we’d check the bill, the woman at the desk gave a questioning sound when she pulled up our room number. Another problem? No. It’s your birthday Mr Ellis. Happy Birthday! Phew! Another nice touch. We bought 5000 THB credit which gave us a bonus 1000 THB and we’ve nearly gone through it all already!! It’s non-refundable and non-transferable, so we didn’t buy too much and were fairly certain that we would use the 6000 and then probably more. Thought we’d have some birthday cake with a cuppa when we got back but we’re both too full.