The Art of Rest and Relaxation

We spent the last 9 days working on the R and R process with Kendrah who was attempting to recover and recuperate from Sudan so that she could return relaxed and rested not to mention rejuvenated, and refreshed - ready to rock and roll. (This blog is a joint effort. The words in italics are from Kendrah.)

Step 1: Meet and Greet at Airport:

Step 2: Some Serious Pampering: (a facial to remove the Juba grime)


Step 3: Purchase a Bag to Hold Goods Not Found in Juba:

Kendrah ended up selecting the large stripy one, which was the subject of many jokes throughout the trip being rather large, and difficult to haul around, not to mention the headache inducing colour scheme. However, Kendrah loves her bag dearly, and I admit, it served her well.

Step 4: Some Serious Shopping

My first day and a half were spent in Bankgok. Highlights were all the shopping and eating opportunities. I felt like a starved, isolated Sudanese kid, getting exposure to the commercial world and not able to get enough of it – Pad Thai, bubble tea drinks, every imaginable smoothy/milkshake/iced drink combination, ice cream, unique designer cloths for Value Village prices, electronics galore, sandals, flowers….everything! And everything cheap, which makes it all the more desirable. I bought a big stripy plastic bale-of-a-bag to carry all my purchases in (which by the end of the trip amounted to, 7 laptop cooling fans, 6 computer mice, 14 USB sticks, 1 computer cable, 2 keyboard vacuums, several items clothing, 3 pairs of shoes, 20-some DVDs, a new memory card for my camera, 5 cute (and very effective) hand-held fans for all the ladies in the office, and a large selections of food supplies for Juba, including noodles, nuts, biscuits, dried fruit, ovaltine & sticky rice.).

Step 5: Purge the Dust/Test New Purchases


A half hour spent obsessively vacuming out the dust from all keyboard crevices - very theraputic!

Step 6: Night Train to Surat Thani (sadly the sleepers we booked turned out to be chairs - not conduscive to rest or relazation though Scott made the best of it by using the towel like blankets
to sleep like this)

Step 6: Locate Quiet Beach

From Bangkok, we made our way to Khanom, a little-frequented beach town on the mainland. We had fun getting here, as apparently, hardly anyone takes this route. In the end, we hitched a ride from a helpful lady who offered her sister, the town barber to give us a lift in her car to a hotel she called and booked for us. The bungalows were nice, and located right on the beach, which made it a very relaxing spot. Eating options were very limited, though we did find some good breakfast...

and the town was far from where we stayed, so the place was quite isolated. But the beach was empty, and the water was lovely with fun mid-sized waves. I did a lot of napping and caught my cold here, so I was not very active.

Step 7: Find Tropical Paradise

After 3 days in Khanom, we took the ferry to Koh Pangnang to check out where all the tourists DO go. We picked a beach that sounded less roudy, and indeed, discovered that it was a gorgeous, secluded island escape, accessible only by boat. There were tourists there, but not enough to make it uncomfortable. We had the most beautiful bungalow in the trees with views to the green ocean and flour-like white sand.

It was quite near to paradise. Food was great, though we were limited to 4 restaurants, and mainly ate at 1. The water was very calm and delightfully warm, the only downside being that something was sting us unexpectedly in the water. We could never figure out what it was, but it didn’t have any longterm negative effects – rather like being pinched really hard by a big brother. Quite annoying. (looks like this)

But it was very lovely nevertheless.

Again, I spent much of my time here napping. One of my days went like this: slept in to 9:30, ate a leisurely breakfast while reading my book. Read for about 3 hours. Fell asleep. Woke up, ate a very late lunch. Read and walked on the beach for a bit. Ate supper. Watched a movie. Fell asleep part way through. This was fairly typical.

Step 8: Move Back to Civilization

We decided to move on and to “up the social anty” a bit, to see where the tourists REALLY do go. This time, we headed for Hat Rin, the main “party beach town” on Koh Pangnang. Finally here we managed to escape seclusion and suddenly had access to clothing stores, hair salons, internet cafes, bars, hotels with pools, beaches covered with scantily clad tourists….what more could we want!? Actually it was a lot of fun. By accident, we booked ourselves into a rather deluxe hotel the first night. We thought we were getting a cheaper deal than we were, but in the end, we got a very clean AC room, buffet brek and a lovely pool surrounded by frangipani trees, so we weren’t complaining. Day 2 we had a humbler home. We didn’t spend much time on the beach here, but enjoyed roaming the town and good eating.

Step 9: Get a Stunning New Haircut and Glasses to Match

Step 10: Make the Most of Every Last Moment
The new Bangkok Airport is really very nice - Kendrah rates it a 9 out of 10 for the traveller. Here is how she spent her last few hours in between connections.

Picture this: exquisite gardens between terminal buildings, orchid displays at check-in desks, eating fresh mango and sticky rice with coconut milk and sipping iced green tea while overlooking the planes from the observation deck, moseying over to the spa for a relaxing Thai foot massage in wicker chairs and dimmed lighting, and then not noticing that the time has passed so quickly, that it’s already time for your flight and you need to boogie over to your gate just in time, without having to browse the dull duty free shops, but with time enough to admire the dazzling golden statues of gods riding dragons in the departure terminal.

And so ends the R and R in Thailand. If you want to follow Kendrah on from there, check out her following weekend in Kenya.

Meanwhile, Scott and I are considering taking this up as a profession. Feel free to contact us for your next R and R experience. We have references...

Kendrah Jespersen says: "It’s been very nice. I loved Thailand . And I love Hav & Scott. And I love mango with sticky rice. So it was all-round good. Big thanks to H&S for being such wonderful “hosts”: for all the trip planning, allowing me to nap so often, putting up with my energy-less or grumpy times, encouraging the RRrrrs, sharing your books, your excellent personal shopping services, carrying my big stripy bag, fanning me when I was hot, and for all the fun. Sorry we didn’t squeeze in a few more movies Scott. Let us know where you end up next. Love and miss you already."

Do we have any takers?