Tag Archives: food

Majestic Princess Days 12 & 13, At Sea

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We didn’t do a whole lot on the last two days of the cruise. We played cards each afternoon, which kind of took me back to our childhood, when card games were quite a common pastime. Izaac is old enough now (13) to have a really good grasp of all the rules and play as well as an adult.

On the last evening we (minus Izaac, who preferred to enjoy the solitude and convenience of his cabin and room service for one last time) had booked a table at the Crown Grill. Before we boarded I booked both Allegro and Crown, and in both we got the best tables we’d had all trip. I don’t know if prebookings get allocated first, but if I ever went again, I’d book a table in each of the bookable restaurants before boarding and just cancel if I didn’t feel like going on the day.

The Crown Grill was great, it’s one of the three restaurants on the ship that cost an extra $40 per person rather than being complimentary. We had a very chatty waiter, which is always nice but especially nice when you’ve had a lot of time talking to your beloved family ;-).

All the courses were excellent and we decided to lash out and order all of them, but made the critical error of eating all the delicious cheese bread that was put on the table first. I had a lobster fish cake to start, followed by a blue cheese-crusted onion soup and an enormous fillet Mignon with shared sides. I’m always superprised by what stands out in a meal and, aside from the steak, the creamed spinach side was delicious!

The waiter brought over three salted caramel brûlées for us to share at the end and we all staggered off feeling as though we were going to explode. A fitting end to our journey!

Lamai Beach

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I am writing this from home, having discovered that the last two posts I wrote about Lamai (our last stop) have disappeared. This means that several paragraphs of me complaining about Justin Bieber on high (and I mean HIGH) rotation in every hotel, restaurant and bar in Thailand will just have to be done without – sad, I know. It honestly seemed as though some governing body in Thailand had issued the same 10 track CD to every likely establishment in the country and by the end of our three weeks I thought seriously about sticking a fork in my ears.

Lamai Beach

Audio-torture aside, we had a nice time during our last week. Lamai is a beach just south of the more famous Chaweng Beach, which runs down the eastern side of Koh Samui. This was our third trip to the island and we had decided to try Lamai as it seemed a bit quieter – the parade of hawkers, spherical and sunburned eurotrash, and whizzing jet skis of course has it’s charms (in terms of cautionary tales, perhaps) but we’d heard good things about Lamai.

Lovely lush tropical gardens in our resort.

We definitely experienced quiet. In the evenings the beach was almost deserted as it was the low season and some of the bars and restaurants were completely closed. Despite this, our resort (The Pavilion) was at least half full and there were families and groups out on the beach throughout the day. Only one jet ski at a time seemed to be in operation too, so that was also something.

Lamai main street.

A big sign on the beach warned that it was jellyfish season so I did get in the sea a couple of times but tried to keep Luke between myself and the open water.

On our second last night I made the mistake of looking up the kinds of jellyfish and related incidents to be found locally and scared myself out of going back in. Fortunately the hotel pool was perfectly fine – although Luke wasn’t happy that it had not been heated to bath temperatures.

We ate out every night and enjoyed a great number of 70-140 baht cocktails. If you’re heading to the area we highly recommend Pik’s Bar. They have a list of 140 cocktails and they’re all the equivalent of $3 AUD each.

Pik’s Bar

Lea decided Pina Coladas were the best thing since sliced bread and after her first we barely saw her without one in her hand, even at breakfast! Just kidding, of course. We didn’t usually start drinking until we’d spent at least 8 hours reading books on our sun loungers.

Our only activity, apart from eating, swimming, reading, and drinking, was watching the local gang of dogs wrestle each other up and down the beach. A form of entertainment familiar to everyone who has ever been to the coast of Thailand.

We became quite familiar with the pack and one morning I found one of them (who looked a bit like our old dog Penny) asleep on the walkway right outside our room. After that I bought a little packet of dog treats from the 7-11 and handed them out whenever they came near.

We did find a few really lovely places to eat in Lamai, one of which wasn’t Thai (all the Thai places are excellent, mind you) called Emporio Caffè.

The proprietor and chef was an Italian fellow from Rome who made the pasta by hand and shared some of his grappa and limoncello with us. The pasta was outstanding and so of course we went back two nights later. Although it was a very simple cafe it had the typical frescos. If you find yourself in Lamai be sure to go!

Luke and I left Samui on a very early flight and spent a night at the Novotel in Bangkok before a daytime flight back to Melbourne. I ended up with a headache from watching three movies and the entire available catalogue of Big Bang Theory (it’s the show I watch when there’s nothing better to watch) and disembarked at about 8:30pm to find Melbourne airport the busiest we’d ever seen it.

The lady managing the extensive Sky Bus queue told the people in line that the trouble was that the Cox Plate (a prestigious horse race), Pax (a games convention) and a Taylor Swift concert were all happening on the same weekend.

Once we got into the city we discovered that in fact the Taylor Swift concert had just emptied out from the stadium beside the station and there were crowds five deep to get onto the trains. We ended up standing up for the 50 minutes it took to get home and then walked the last kilometre. The guy at the local kebab stand spied us walking past (this was at almost midnight) and asked Luke if we were going hiking.

Arriving home was a bit weird. Last time we’d come back we’d had a house full of people and Penny to greet us. This time it was more like letting ourselves into another Airbnb. Luke had paid for professional cleaners to go through the house before we returned and they’d cleaned some things well – and some things not so well. A lot of our belongings were in boxes as friends had lived in the house while we’d been gone.

We lay down on a mattress in the spare room, turned out the light, and agreed solemnly that really, there’s no place like home.

Pik’s Bar

Doing Nothing At Lebua In Bangkok

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View from our balcony.

I have almost nothing to write about Bangkok because we planned on doing nothing and barely ventured from our hotel.

Luke’s parents, Lea and Pete, were meeting us there and we were all travelling through Thailand together for three weeks.

Luke and I arrived first in the mid afternoon after a ten and a half hour flight from London on which I slept almost the entire way. There is an immense feeling of satisfaction when this happens – like performing some kind of magic trick that makes a whole lot of boredom and discomfort disappear. Luke’s parents arrived late the same night so we met them at breakfast the next day.

The first morning we woke up to huge pink thunderclouds. The view from our balcony was magnificent.

As I have written previously, Lebua does an excellent breakfast buffet, even by Asian hotel standards. There’s food from almost every continent and whether you want crepes, bagels, hummus, roast pork, sashimi, salad, wonton soup, curry or even a bowl of humble cereal, your tastes will be catered for. Thanks to 3am jet lag every morning I made it down in time for a light six am breakfast then a return at eight or nine for food with everyone else.

Breakfast by the pool.

Speaking of jet lag, even though Luke and I came from the same time zone it seemed to affect us completely differently. I struggled for a week and a half with waking up super early and feeling like a zombie at 4pm, Luke sporadically woke up at midnight for several hours and had trouble getting to sleep in the evening. Why is this so? If you know please leave a comment!

After breakfast I would spend an hour walking up hill in the gym while Pete and Lea would hang out by the pool and Luke did some video editing. Pretty soon it would be time for the complementary afternoon tea with all drinks included.

The balcony outside the restaurant where we had afternoon tea.

Lea discovered she quite likes pina coladas (I mean, who doesn’t, amirite?) and we’d all get a bit squiffy before a quiet evening of looking at the view from our balconies and going up to the roof bar and trying to take photos while avoiding buying any overpriced drinks. And I do mean overpriced! The cocktails were all $20-$30 and one of the glasses of champagne was $100.

So, not the most thrilling post I’ve ever written but you can see why we like to stay here – complete indulgence! Although we didn’t spend a huge amount of time outside the weather was noticeably cooler than it is in April (on our other trips), being around 34 degrees rather than 40. Walking around at night (we did leave the hotel a couple of times) wasn’t a sweat-drenched nightmare.

Next we headed to Chiang Mai to experience a different side of Thailand.

Three Plays, and High Tea On A London Bus

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While in London Jess, Luke and I stayed at a flat in Camden that was in an excellent location for two reasons: first, it was only a block away from Camden tube station and second, because it had a huge glass window that overlooked a narrow street where van played dodgem cars – literally ramming each other to make parking spaces. As we watched I couldn’t help thinking how much my dad would enjoy sitting 5ere and watching the mayhem play out below.

The apartment, like all AirBnb places under a certain price, had its oddities. Like 18 halogen downlights in the small lounge/kitchen space and a bathroom fan switch that was so high up it almost touched the ceiling. Weird.

While in London we did a bunch of things! Here they are in a roughly chronological list.

The Play That Goes Wrong

Andrew and Lila came down from Cambridge with us and we bought them tickets as a thank you present for letting us use their house as a backpackers hostel.

We had seen a bit of the play on YouTube and it didn’t disappoint live. Much hilarity, both slapstick and more clever humour. Well worth the ticket price.

High Tea On A London Routemaster Bus

My friend Lorraine and her daughter Rosie were in London at the same time as us so Jess and I joined them for a lovely afternoon tea on a bus!

We arrived a little early and had a chat to the bus driver who was a proper cockney.

I booked an upstairs table and we had a lovely time! They catered for vegetarian and gluten intolerances (Jess and Lorraine) and the food was good!

After we’d eaten the food pictured above the scones were brought out and these were the first warm scones we’d been served in all our UK afternoon tea experiences. We were very pleased!

I will admit that we didn’t pay all that much attention to the commentary and the only thing I really remember is passing the ship front from the movie Kingsman.

Not a cheap experience, at £45 each but worth it for the special treat.

Cereal Killer Cafe

Jess’ friend Erin joined us for the next few days and we all made an early trip to Cereal Killer cafe to see what the fuss was about.

Although not all he ones pictured above were for sale. I had Oreo and a peanut butter cereal mixed together. It was delicious but tasted more like dessert than breakfast. There was literally nothing healthy on the menu.

The decor was neat – very 90s bedroom chic.

A Comedy About A Bank Robbery

At the end of the first play we saw they announced that the same production company was putting on another play in the West End so we went to see that too.

This time it was just Luke and I – Erin and Jess went to see The Lion King – and we LOVED it. It was funny and clever and they set design was fantastic. Go see it if you get a chance! We bought tickets on the day and still managed really good seats. The theatre itself was beautiful- like a wedding cake turned inside out.

My photo doesn’t really do it justice.

The Importance of Being Ernest

We saw this production on our last day and it wasn’t bad. I’ve seen it before many years ago and I like all the Oscar Wilde I’ve read but I wasn’t thrilled by this interpretation. It felt rushed and the two male leads seemed to be shouting most of the way through.

Camden

We all did quite a lot of walking around Camden. We looked at street art.

And I went with Jess and Erin super early to take a photo at… well, you can guess where.

On our last day Luke and I took a walk around Hampstead Heath and looked at all the dogs. I’ve tried to go to HH a number of times previously but my hay fever has always flared up. Autumn was definitely in the air this time so I was safe.

Our last meal in London was a return to Five Guys, a burger chain Luke’s Aunt Sue had recommended. We enjoyed it a lot more this time as we’d been able to read the menu, unlike our attempt in France;-).

Also Oreo shakes are amazing!

So that ends the European part of this trip! We packed our bags and boarded our Thai Airways flight for Bangkok. I spent most of my awake hours on the flight thinking about how I could manage to come back next year to do more hiking in the north of England. We’ll see!

Here Comes The Planet 79 – Where to eat pizza in Naples (2018)

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Being the pizza lover that he is, Luke explores some of the most renowned spots in Naples to buy a slice of the finest Neapolitan Margherita, and gets down to eating. After watching this video you will know where to go (and also maybe where not to go!).

For a more detailed description of every pizza Luke tried while in Naples, head to this entry of the blog.