Room with a view (by Joe)

Blinkin' 'eck: travelling the southern Thai beaches and coastlines you see an incredible quality and quantity of natural beauty - perhaps too much?

Turquoise waters, palm trees, white sands and bright flowers all bathed in bright tropical sunlight. But after a month in the south, we've been exposed to so such incredible natural beauty that I've lost the plot.

Arriving in a quiet family resort in the north of Phangan island a week or so ago, we were offered this accommodation (see left) with a balcony with the view at the top of this blog (see top).

Hearing that it was available for 300 baht a night (just under 5 UK pounds), I turned to Laura and said - without any intended irony:

"Bah! ... call that a sea view !?! ... this place is well overpriced."

It put us in mind of the Fawlty Towers sketch with the demanding deaf woman who complains about the view from her room and Basil Fawlty says: "You can see the sea; it's there, between the land and the sky .... what did you expect to see from a Torquay hotel window? ... the hanging gardens of Babylon?! ... herds of Wilder-beast sweeping majestically across the plains?!?"

Too much sand, sea and sun: I'm clearly losing the plot (the doctor would almost certainly prescribe a week or two in west London).

Joe