Our day began in a similar way to yesterday, with morning teas and coffees, and after that we ate breakfast. 

We spent most of the morning relaxing. The ladies sat by the pool bar reading their books, and I played my little travel piano.

The view from our lunch table, not bad eh?

After lunch we returned to the room to gather everything needed for a paddle. We took our beach shoes and I put on swimming trunks, and we headed down to the beach and found a vacant spot with three free loungers. As the sea was quite warm, on the return leg of our paddle along the sea front, I gave Liz my T-shirt, watch and hat and waded in a bit deeper. As soon as Char noticed I was up to my waist, she returned to the room to put on her tankini before rejoining me at the seafront where we proceeded to swim in the sea together. Liz remained on the beach encouraging us and taking some photos while Char and I were swimming up and down. Liz then returned to her lounger to guard all of our bags and shoes and towels – aka have a rest with her eyes shut. Once we’d had enough sea swimming and tolerated as many mouthfuls of sea water as we could put up with, we decided to go and test the temperature of the hotel pool and see if it was equally as warm as the sea. Char jumped in first and minutes later I discovered that it definitely wasn’t as warm. However, the spa Jacuzzi pool was definitely a little warmer. That done, we queued for drinks at the pool bar to take away the seawater taste and returned to where Liz was still sat patiently on the Sunlounger with her eyes closed catching a few rays. We chatted for a little while before Char decided that she was going back to the room to shower and change. I had another dip in the sea to give her time to finish showering before returning to the room for my shower. Why sit on the balcony in wet trunks when I could take another swim and enjoy the gorgeous surroundings? 

The main pool at night. (If you look closely, you’ll see Char on the opposite side of the pool, in front of a palm tree.)

We reconvened at the pool bar for ice-cream, pre-dinner cocktails and a very enjoyable chitchat. All too soon we were five cocktails down, and it was 6:30 pm and time to intrigue and expand our taste buds in the Taste of Asia restaurant. During the day the pool bar food court serves a selection of hot and cold food, ice cream and pancakes. But in the evening it transforms into a speciality restaurant “A Taste of Asia”. 

Our journey into the Far East began with prawn crackers and sweet chilli sauce. Once we’d ordered our main courses, our sharing starters arrived. It was an inspired mix of dishes – four types of sushi (with wasabi and pickled ginger flakes), dim sum, deep-fried pancake rolls and small Chinese samosa, spicy mayo and soy sauce.|

I did my best to encourage the ladies to open their minds and try everything. With that in mind, I cut one of the dim sum in half and they gave it a try. Liz drew a line with the sushi, but as a confessed rice hater that’s understandable. Char was game to try the Sushi that wasn’t topped with an offensively large slice of fish.

For main courses Liz had the prawns, Char had the Katsu chicken and I had the crispy duck. Liz wasn’t expecting the prawns to come with really spicy mayo which they did, and I wasn’t expecting the crispy duck pancakes and hoisin sauce to be a tempura dog but it was very nice and I really enjoyed it although I was so full from the sushi that I didn’t eat the rice that accompanied the crispy duck. All of us went for the banoffee dessert for dessert. Unlike a Banoffee cheesecake or other dessert of that style, this was a circle of frozen banana mousse on a biscuit base covered in toffee sauce, served with a ball of vanilla ice cream and garnished with toffee swirls. It was absolutely gorgeous, and now your scribe is so stuffed I couldn’t face another bite of anything.

And this is the Banoffee desert with vanilla ice-cream, biscuit crumbs and a swirl of toffee sauce.

We’ve all had a lovely day, and the ladies are partaking in a coffee while I finish off the blog. Good night, see you all tomorrow.