So we’ve been by the sea for nearly a week, and I have to say I love it. Absolutely love it! Forget cities, forget towns, I love love love being by the sea. I always knew this, of course, but now I’m 100% sure.

We arrived in the sleepy seaside town of Ban Krut last week – exhausted, sweaty, a little strung out. Sick of being on the move. 5 nights later we emerged (like butterflies out of a cocoon!) rested, relaxed, happy and calm. We’ve spent the last six days getting enough sleep, swimming in the sea, waking up early to watch the sunrise, eating delicious food, reading a lot and spending real quality time with each other. Most days we had a vague itinerary when we woke up (rent a motorbike and explore the surrounds, walk the length of the beach, do some photographic or writing work), but nothing too strenuous. We left plenty of time for afternoon naps and long picnic lunches and spontaneous swims…

It was a delight! Which was why I was so surprised to wake up on Monday feeling down. Nothing specific, nothing related to traveling or being away from home (I went through the checklist and none of the possible problems rang true). Just a bit… off. Now, my initial impulse was to say, “How could you possibly be feeling down? Look around you! You’re in a beach paradise!” but I decided not to fight against it (what’s the point when you’re already not feeling great?) and spend the morning lying in our little air-conditioned bungalow, watching movies on TV. I gave in to feeling down.

And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of hours later I got up for lunch and felt much better. I think maybe I just needed some nothing-time. Weirdly enough, I remember having a conversation about this exact thing with a friend who asked how we’d avoid burn-out. I said, “If we need to take a day out watching TV we will – no problem!” When it came down to it, though, I actually felt a little guilty… Isn’t that silly?

Of course, not having to move around so much has also made it a lot easier to keep an eye on my diabetes, and get back into tighter control. When you’re hopping between trains and buses and walking unknown distances it’s not a good idea to be too tightly in control, but when you’re in one place it’s easier to make sure my blood glucose readings are closer to what they should be. This also means, though, that I’ve had more lows this week than at any other time during the trip. I hate lows! I’m sure all diabetics do…

So we had a blissful (for the most part) six days in Ban Krut, and then got an opportunity at the last minute to spend a night on Koh Talu Island, less than an hour away – a private island with a low-key resort and a truly inspiring coral regeneration project. I’ll be writing about it soon, I’ll keep you posted. We had such a wonderful time there – snorkeling, swimming, and finding out all about the project (see Mark in snorkeling mode here!)

And now we’re about to catch our train back to Bangkok (no running to catch it this time, thank you very much – we’re going to be very early!) Tomorrow night I head off to Vienna for the Novo Nordisk International Diabetes Media Prize Conference (keep your fingers crossed for me!) and on Friday morning Mark will fulfil a long-held dream and go to Singapore to watch the F1 Grand Prix live (the ticket is a little early-birthday-gift from me).

So it’s an exciting couple of days ahead! I’ll keep you updated when I can…

The torrential downpours in Sukhothai continued… late into the night. I know because we caught a bus out of the (open-sided) bus station at 10pm, and we were there from 8pm, so we witnessed the truly ferocious rain. It’s no wonder all the ruins in the old city had pockmarks – that rain would pockmark your skin!

After an extremely comfortable overnight bus ride, we arrived in Bangkok at the ungodly hour of 3.56am. We caught a taxi to the train station, and then sat down to wait till 8am, when our train was set to leave and carry us down the coast to Ban Krut, our tropical paradise. Only, the train was fully booked.

Imagine, if you will, what it felt like to be told at 4.30am that you were too late (too late!) and that the train you were going to wait 3 and a half hours for was full, and not only did the next one not leave for another 5 hours, but it was a slow train so it would take an extra 2 hours to get there! All of a sudden our easy 1pm arrival was pushed to 7pm, and we were faced with an 8 hour wait in a grimy, crowded and airless train station.

I was not pleased.
But neither was I freaking out – which would definitely have been my default reaction before this trip. Mark helped a lot, he was totally calm and relaxed, and resigned to the fact that we would just have to sit tight till the next train arrived. “It’s like a lay-over,” he said, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the things airports had that this station didn’t – aircon, padded seats, internet, shops, etc etc etc

I started getting severely antsy around 7.45am, and on a whim I said to Mark, “I wonder if there are any cancellations, do you think we should check?” He ambled off to the ticket counter without much hope, but by 7.52am he was transferred to another ticket counter, and the clerk there didn’t shake his head immediately… In fact, he looked quite hopeful. 7.57am, and as the 3-minute call sounded we got our tickets – somehow they had found two spare tickets! I nearly cried I was so happy. Of course we then had to buy water for the 5 hour journey, and that cost us a precious minute and a half, so that as we ran to the platform the train started pulling away. Dragging our bags behind us, tripping over untied laces, racing to reach the platform, we called out to the conductor, and thank God in Heaven he slowed down for us and let us on the train.

Phew.

You can see why we haven’t blogged since – we needed to catch our breath!

We’ve spent the last five days in beautiful Ban Krut Beach. It’s a long stretch of white sand with a blissfully warm sea, loads of palm trees, and hardly any people around. We’ve been spending our days taking long walks on the beach, reading voraciously (we’ve both finished a book this week), eating a lot, relaxing, taking afternoon naps and getting painfully sunburnt (this sun is HOT). It’s been such a balm for the soul, and I’ll write more about what’s been going on in my head tomorrow…

For now, we have all these delicious Best Moments of the Day for you – http://bit.ly/1amRtW
Check them out, and let me know what you think!