Kata is hard to describe.  Jason and I have just had a 30 minute discussion about it and agreed on the following adjectives: higgledy-piggledy, energetic and eclectic (the oppressive heat having beaten all the high brow words out of us). Basically, it’s a licorice allsorts type of town, with shops and cafes on one side of the road and Club Med devouring  most of the land on the other. It definitely has a holiday feel, with shops full of must-have aquatic gear (inflatable seahorses topping my list) and incessant roadside questioning from touts who want to shake your hand and make you a suit. Jason attracts most of this attention and intercepts this mercantile foreplay with a wave of his hand and a linguistically unrecognisable grunt (lest the vendors work out where he is from and  some kind of intercontinental relationship be forged, resulting in the obligatory purchase of a safari suit).

That first afternoon, we had a great lunch at one of the local restaurants (yellow curry, pad thai  and chips – guess who had the latter?) and then headed back to the hotel for a  well-deserved dip in the pool. On the way back, we noticed this Auto Bar, which is essentially pop-up cafe in a converted VW Kombi. An idea to bring back home perhaps, Mr Strain?