After a very, very, very long drive – all credit to Vaishakh – we have safely arrived at our beach hotel resort. This will be our home for the next 3 days (4 nights), so now it’s time to relax and recharge. We arrived around 5.30 and after a slight panic that I’d lost our passports (I hadn’t) we were welcomed with a pale mark on the forehead and some delicious cold blue tea. It tasted slightly of blueberries, but they told us it’s brewed from these blue flowers growing around the gardens here.

We’re staying in a garden cottage with a thatched straw roof. Air conditioned inside, thankfully, as it is 27 degrees (at 8pm!). The bathroom is outside in a small garden enclosure. They advise lighting citron incense sticks at night in the bathroom to ward off mosquitos (no one wants a bite in the bum when they pay a late night visit).

Although it was dark, we wandered down to the beach to see if we might be able run on the sand tomorrow. It feels firm enough by the shore, so that’s something for tomorrow’s RED January. Dinner in the restaurant isn’t served until 7.30pm and we were a little early so we wandered over to the beach bar. There was a guitarist singing as we had a drink (Mike a mocktail, me a tonic water) and perused the range of free activities we can enjoy while we’re here. I think it’s going to be a lovely few days here.