Chapter 12 – *knock, knock* Um hi, is this heaven?

The little town of Trang wasn’t meant to be anything more than a stopover. As far as we knew it had no real attraction other than an ATM and the train that would take us up the coast to Bangkok. Lonely Plant only thought enough of it to give it half a page, with a combined eating and sleeping section I might add, so we put it down as a bit of a non place.

Until we found out it had a Tesco that is. And I'm not just talking about any old Tesco, but a Super Tesco. (For all our SAFFA friends, think giant Pick ‘n Pay).

It may sound slightly odd to be excited about the prospect of going to an ordinary store, and a super one jam-packed with people at that. In fact most people, including myself, would normally despair at the thought. So let me put it into perspective for you.

For close to 60 days straight we had survived solely on Thai food. Not that there’s anything wrong with Thai food. It’s delicious! Gorgeous even. But every dish is a taste explosion that never seems to give your palette a rest. And by this stage in our trip the thought of facing another chilli, lime, sugar, salt, soya, fish sauce, coconut milk concoction was kind of making me gag.

I was in need of something, well, bland. Or maybe bland's the wrong word. I was in need of individual flavours, like bread - minus the sugar. Or cheese, just cheese. Mmm cheese...

I had also started to suffer some major wine withdrawals. Anyone who’s spent any time at all with me will know that I’m rather partial to the odd glass of Sauvignon Blanc or seven. And those who were unfortunate enough to be around me during my one and only sober January will also know that the monster unleashed through depravation is far worse than the one copious amounts of white wine could ever conjure up.

For these reasons the Super Tesco in Trang was going to be more than just a source of retail therapy, it was going to be my saviour. Marc's saviour. In fact Thailand's saviour.

Our sardine can of a minibus came to a rude halt outside the train station. But as I opened the door the sun came out from behind the clouds and the angels began to sing. I swear it was like being in the feel-good part of a Disney film. Before me stood a sign that read ‘BAKERY’. And just beyond that glowing sign were people sitting around round tables enjoying pots of real coffee and dare I say it, sandwiches – real sandwiches filled with ham, and cheese, and chicken mayonnaise on ciabattas, and baguettes and thick cut brown bread and croissants...

Tesco was going to have to wait.

When we had gorged ourselves with enough bread to warrant the unbuttoning of top buttons, we could move on with our lives. Next on the agenda, accommodation, and yet again the gods were looking down on us.

We found a gorgeous little boutique hotel right by the train station we were leaving from the next day which had wifi, a fridge, hot water, air-con (4 things none of us had seen in a very long time), and wait for it, a TV. Up until that point I couldn’t remember where last I had even layed eyes on a TV let alone watched one.

And that isn’t even the best of it. Not only did this TV have cable, it had Super Sport on cable, and cricket on Super Sport, and who could be playing this game of cricket, but South Africa. Seriously, could life get any better?

By this point I was about to spontaneously combust with excitement.Tesco was going to have to wait a little longer...

We spent a couple of hours in our little lap of luxury doing the things that regular people do like having hot showers, channel surfing, catching up with emails, opening and closing the fridge door, you know general things like that. And when we started to feel slightly normal like normal people do we decided it was time. Tesco would wait no longer (it was 4 o’clock and we were scared it might shut at 5).

So we hailed one of the retro looking tuk tuks and its driver and said “Take us to Tesco kap koon ka (please)” and he did and it was magical.

Aisles and aisles of things and people and things, just like home, except for the live fish in the fish section, and the seaweed flavoured crisps, other than those minor things, just like home.

Like fat kids in a chocolate factory we filled our baskets with butter and cheese, proper Edam cheese (‘cause that’s all they had) and crunchy sugar-free baguettes and lettuce and tomatoes and salad cream and snack things and it was lush.

Then we headed to the wine section, and it was closed, but only until 5. For some bizarr reason you could only buy alcohol from 9-14 and 17 till 22. A minor glitch in the matrix as it was 16:15 but it was all good. We were willing to wait.

Packed and paid for we took our spoils (wine included) back to the hotel, borrowed a couple of knives and plates from the sweet, sweet restaurant staff next door and made giant sandwiches in our room.

When all was done we ventured to the restaurant downstairs. They put on the cricket for us and just when I thought this day could not get any better, we opened the menu. Pizza and wine. Affordable pizza and wine. Pizza made with proper mozzarella cheese and wine made from Australian grapes (as opposed to rice).

This just had to be heaven...

K&M

PS We haven't uplaoded any pics onto flickr because, well, there aren't really any. I think we were too busy eating...