Téa turns 10 today!! Why else would I be up at 6.30am mixing pancake batter in a big pot with a couple of sets of chopsticks? I don’t have a measuring jug of any sort, but I think some of the milk tea cups that we are reusing are close-ish to 500ml, so I’m going with that, and guesstimating the rest.
The pancakes turn out great! We also bought Nutella yesterday, which we rarely have, so that’s a treat as well. We still have both strawberry jam and orange marmelade, making the pancakes go down a treat.
At 8am, Téa’s group of friends call her from Canada. It’s 8pm Tuesday evening for them, and one of the moms has organized with the parents that all the girls are on their devices at the right time. Téa spends just about an hour catching up with her friends, and telling them all the things she’s loving about the Thailand portion of our trip.
The tile fixing crew shows up shortly after 10am. We have pulled the girls’ bedding half way off the bed, as it’s such a narrow space between the bathroom and the bed, thinking that’ll be enough. It’s a one or two (large) tile issue, or so we think, but the crew says they’ll be there until about 5pm. We leave a key with them, and set off to the Black Mountain Water Park.
The water park is a 45 minute ride away from where we are staying, so it’s a long and expensive taxi ride to get there. Even with waiting for the tile crew and communicating with them, we arrive at the park 10 minutes before they officially open. They still let us buy our entrance tickets and go get changed, so we don’t have to wait out front in the glaring sun.
We’re the only people here this early, of course, and the staff is just getting ready for their day. It feels so surreal to be here in this fantastic water park, and be the only guests. Around 25 staff are manning their stations and waiting for us to need them. It’s wild!
It’s hot and both girls are complaining that it’s too warm and they’re not feeling well. I send them through the fountains, and it works! Once they’ve had a taste of the water, I can’t wipe their smiles off their faces for the entire day! (Until the very evil words “time to go home”, of course.)
It’s now 11.30am and we’re ready for a snack. Téa asks for French Fries, and we buy a bag of chips and a couple of beverages. The fries take forever to arrive, so once Joe and Maylin have finished the bag of chips, they’re off to the water slides! Téa and I wait for fries and sit and enjoy them piping hot for a bit.
First excited stop of the day for Téa and I are the water slides. Joe and Maylin are somewhere up there, and we look around as best we can. Suddenly we see a rush of water come out of a tunnel and SPLASH, there’s Joe on an inflatable ring! And SPLASH, there’s Maylin as well! They laugh and advise Téa and I on which slides require helmets and which ones don’t.
Téa and I run up the stairs and try a flat rainbow slide first, holding hands, which of course means I’m pulling her along with me. Maybe we won’t hold hands next time… But at the bottom of the slide all of a sudden I’m at the bottom of the (fairly shallow) pool, and so are my sunglasses. My eyes are too sensitive to light for me to leave them off, and a water park has light reflecting off of every wet surface, so I slide with sunglasses. It’s an easy fix, but it happens every time I come off a slide!
Téa and I try a couple of other slides as well, and after the blue tunnel with light strips inside, I come out nauseous and done with slides for the day. Joe and the girls head around the other side to where the fast slides are, and I become the photographer.
Once they are all done with the slides, we head to the lazy river for a bob around the track. We all sit in inflatable rings, and the lazy river is super slow. It’s relaxing though, and at one point, the river takes us through showers! Refreshingly cold in this heat!
We sit down for lunch around 1pm, the menu has both kid friendly burgers and fries, as well as Thai specialities. We place our order, and the girls head to the playground right by the restaurant. (There are no walls and no air conditioning anywhere, but we’re on the top of a mountain, so shade and a breeze takes care of the temperature.) Suddenly, Joe jumps up from the table, and this little fellow falls down and scurries away from Jumping Joe:
The food arrives. I ordered Pad See Ew, which is mild in flavour, and I add my own chilis to the dish.
A condiment tower in Thailand is different to the ketchup and hot sauce we are used to from home:
The girls both ordered burgers and fries, which came with coleslaw and corn on the cob.
After lunch, we wandered over to the wave pool. Nobody else was in the pool (of course), and so when we arrive and the life guard still hasn’t looked up from his phone, Joe politely asks if the waves will be on at some point. (It’s advertised that the waves are on every 30 minutes, but it hasn’t been on all day, why waste waves on an empty pool?) The bell rings and a moment or two later, when the second lifeguard takes post on the other side of the wave pool, the waves finally start. Both girls are on foam boards and absolutely loving the wave action. Before long, the waves are all done, the second lifeguard disappears, and the first one is back on his phone. Another group of guests (!!!) arrive at the wave pool, and being local, try to sweet talk the lifeguard into turning the waves back on. All the guests are on foam boards all the way at the beginning of the wave pool, holding on and waiting for waves and giggling. Lifeguard apparently says no, and so they put the boards back and disappear off to where they were before.
Right next to the wave pool, the girls discover the kids’ wet playground, where slides and climbing features are all constantly showered in water. They hang out there while Joe heads over to the peaceful infinity pool.
There’s a volleyball net and a basketball hoop over by the infinity pool, so we try those out as a family. A bit hard for Maylin, who has to stay in the one spot where she can comfortably stand in the water. We soon give up on the volleyball idea, and head over to the slides again. But first – ice cream break! (What’s a birthday without ice cream, really?
Before we know it, it’s 4pm. Those dreaded words “after this slide, we’re going home” hit hard after such a wonderful day. We pack up and get changed, and the taxi is 17 minutes away. We manage to buy a couple of bags of chips and something to drink, before exchanging our food card back into cash, and we exit the park. We were first in, but are not last out, with the park being open for another hour. I don’t think these perfect conditions will ever be recreated, this park is usually much busier, but it happened to be Wednesday, and this is their first open Wednesday of the holiday season, most people just don’t know it yet!
We get home around 5pm, and the tile crew is still there. The girls’ bed has the glass half wall from the shower on top, and there’s dust EVERYWHERE. Their bathroom is unusable, good thing we moved everythig out of there this morning. We wipe down all their stuff as best we can, and strip their bed. They’ll have to sleep in our bed tonight. Once the tile fixing crew leaves, the girls and I shower, and Joe goes across the street to buy something to wipe the floors with. He comes back with glass cleaning wipes, and then goes to shower. I try my best to “mop” the floor using glass cleaning wipes, while knowing the crew will be back again tomorrow.
Once we are all clean and dressed up, we head out for Téa’s birthday dinner. Téa and I were looking at menus last night, and she has chosen a restaurant right next door, between our place and the beach. We walk past all 9 pools, and head out the back gate. Across the street are a couple of other resorts, and the one we are heading for looks magical, all lit up in the dark.
The restaurant is outdoors on a cliff over the beach. It’s a garden setting with lights and lots of space between the tables. There are citronella coils burning underneath the benches along the side of the garden, they provide us with bug spray first thing, and they offer a fan for extra protection. It is considerate and all blends in so smoothly with this beautiful and serene garden setting.
The restaurant has seats/sunloungers with what looks like tall cake stands in between, so you and your dinner date can lounge around, watching the ocean after dark. Seriously, I couldn’t see a thing, but I’m glad my camera could! Look how far out the beach goes! This is when there is low tide, and high tide is around noon, so there is no beach when people want it, and lots of beach when it’s too dark to swim…
We had a short walk home, which was good, we were all too full to think about dessert. Téa even decided to postpone the cake until tomorrow, so her birthday could last two full days! Smart girl, there just was no room left in our bellies today for more food…
Happy Birthday, Téa! What a wonderful birthday celebration day.
She says “Thanks Sandra”! And it sure was. It was like all the stars aligned, when else would we be practically alone in a water park?