Picked pretty much by a pin in the map, plus why wouldn't you want to go to a place called Prachoab Khiri Khan.

We've decided to quit the back packer ideal, not that we ever really fit with the mung bean munching hippies nodding along to acoustic guitar versions of songs by that Adele woman, always droning on about getting dumped, having a period or growing a moustache. We've hired a car.

We're going to take it for a month and wend our way from Hua Hin to Trang. Big part of the decision is that we've previously passed a lot of this ground in trains and buses and the ex-perience was one of

"OOOOH! Did you see that"?

"No, what was it"?

"not sure"

"Hang on what was that"

"No idea"

This way we figure we get to stop any time we want and spend as long as we want.

Prachuab has a walking market which runs over the weekend where you can buy every conceivable constituent part of pretty much anything that has a face, have it fried, boiled, broiled barbequed or just plain raw. You don't have to have the chicken feet or tendons or fish swim bladders or indeed the conjealed pigs blood soup. For your information, the conjealed pigs blood comes in little blocks (like robinsons jelly blocks, which you disolve in water to make yer jelly and custard) and they float them in some warm clear soup.

Kim and I had chicken skewers, fried chicken and some little tarts filled with egg and seafood. Each came with a little salad and dressing, is packed into plastic boxes or bags and we sit on the pier and munch away, all lovely...total cost 100 baht (2 quid)

We also amuse ourselves in horror by watching large rats and cockroaches run all over the rocks below the pier. Very well fed I'm sure!.

Prachoab has a "chapter" of a Harley Davidson motor cycle club. We suspect they're all officer's from the local Thai Airforce base. They have all the kit, the monkey hangers etc. It's all let down by the fact a number of them have pink neon lights attached to their spokes which, doesn't really match with the "Wild Ones" Jackets......

We have a beautiful room which comes with breakfast so it would be rude not to! Brekkie is an cultural smorgasborde. When we enter the dining room we're in the japanese section. There are around half a dozen sweety jars filled with multi coloured marshmallows...SOO Cute! Some have little faces on them Soooo Cute!! There are a waffle iron and a do-nut maker. You put the marshmallows in your waffle and/or do nut. Soooooooo Cute!!!, one of the do nut makers has a "kitty face engraved on it so that your donut has a kitty face on it, SOOOOOOOOOOOO.........

"KIM!! .............Put the knife down....that's a good girl,............ now, take your other hand from round the nice japanese girls throat......good, good, now, let's go boil an egg.

Next section is inexplicably an area where you can make Tuna and coleslaw. All the cabbage is there and the tinned tuna, nice.

The Asian section pretty much has Congee.

Congee is Thai for "watery soup" into which you put various bits of animals and plant life.

The "soup" looks a bit like washing up water round my sister Janets house. Pete won't let her have a dishwasher and keeps a lock on the fairy liquid bottle such that it is rationed precisley in line with the number of washes you should get out of a bottle according to the adverts ....plus 10.

So after washing up all the sunday roast trays 20 plates, cups, saucers etc you get to that bit where there are no bubbles left. The cutlery is still in there, lurking at the bottom of the sink, you can't see it through the slightly greasy looking water but you know it's in there... See that water?......................That's Congee that is.

Here's a thing. Have you ever had cause to wonder up to a military base or establishment in the UK? Maybe on business or on one of those open days they have. You're met by some fearsome security bloke who looks as if he'd just as soon pop you into a death grip rather than hear any crap reason you may think you have for "gaining hentry to 'er Majesties military hestablishment" "But, it's navy days" you croak while losing consciousness....

Wing 5 of The Royal Thai Airforce faught bravely, even heroically against the Japanese invasion during WW2, only surrendering when ordered to by their King.

Maybe as a reward, wing 5 occupy Ao Maneo. An unbroken sweep of flour textured golden sand bordered by pines on one side and an emerald bay, with the obligatory limestone karsts on the other. You rock up to the guard house, they make little jokes about "only one foreigner at a time" and in you go!

Behind the pines an access road lined with food courts.......too tired to leave the beach? Wing 5 personel will take your order and bring it to your beach chair. Thirsty? Need a beer? Wing 5 personel etc etc.

Need a break from the sun? Go to the steak bar...they have a live band!

Kids getting fractious (You're going to love this!!) Take them to the PETTING ZOO!!!! They have deer, goats, horses, they'll stick a stetson on you and walk you round the parade ground.

Fancy a banana ride, one of our Thai top guns will whizz you around the bay and tip you giggling into an ocean that is as warm as a bath, the bay is shallow for about half a mile, it's like bloody paradise. I can only imagine Air force personel fight with knives to be posted here.

Easter passes us by here in Prachuab. We try to ask about it here but all mention is met with bemusement. It's perhaps unsurprising that Thailand hasn't invented Easter yet. I mean why would you have a festival celebrated with choccy eggs when the temperature rarely drops below 30°?

We learn here that as measured in Budhist years it's actually past the year 2500! Bad news is England still haven't won the world cup and no one knows what the f*co Brexit means.

A little way out of prachuab we visit Waghor and it's aquarium. There's not much in the way of concession to western visitors. In fact some of our fellow visitors seem to find us as interesting as the exhibits. Thoughtfully the Thais have grouped the exhibits and signed them so as to be really informative for brit speakers/readers. Very small fish, small fish, medium size fish, large fish, very large fish. I feel like David Attenborough.

As usual there's the odd tank which seems to feature little other than grit, maybe a desultory gill movement but we're inclined to like the place until we see the turtle enclosure. It can't be bigger than 6x5m and 3feet deep. There are 5 very large turtles in it. They keep circling this pitiful enclosure hardly a stroke in length. Their fins and shells have scraped some of the paintwork to bare concrete, flecks of blue paint litter the squalid water.

I'm writing this some 5 days later, it pains me to think that those poor creatures have marked every minute since skulling up and down that turgid tank when they should be in the limitless blue somewhere.