The early start to the day proved necessary, as the temple we were visiting was the other side of Pattaya. Despite being billed as a day in the countryside the first 45 minutes of the trip stayed well within urban areas, only the final 5-10 minutes showing rural locations.

Even those were heavily built up, large walled communities, painted houses inside, none of the market stalls covering the rest of the place.

The tour guide is called Alvin and uses the third person. Alvin will take you to the next point, Alvin is waiting for the bus, Alvin will give you ten minutes here, Alvin needs to shut up.

He’s a teacher when he’s not tour guiding, using the same props to teach us the lineage of the current king that he uses with his class. Some interesting snippets but he’s far nicer when you catch him one on one, he drops the facade and you can see the real person.

The coach wasn’t full and I had four seats to myself, facing each other, a table in between. I sat facing the rear, mainly because that let me avoid the window pillar. My litre of water fell over, breaking my glasses, the arms bent into skewed angles. Running repairs kept me going, well enough that I didn’t even switch to my other pair (which live in my camera bag). One arm is now loose but I can’t tell if that’s the screw needing tightening or damage to the joint itself. I suspect the latter.

As the bus stopped at a light I sat listening to Alvin telling me how to pronounce Bangkok in Thai (baen gog, with the second g mostly silent). A motorbike overtaking the bus stopped as it comes into view, a yelp penetrating the windows and as the motorbike fell over sideways, green glass shattering across the road, a pale brown dog wriggled free from the front wheel and fled onto the pavement, disappearing up the street. A lady in a face mask approached the bike, its rider rubbing his leg as he stood up, then wheeled it to the gutter, The bus moved off.

The first stop was a temple built for King So-in-so. They all get their own temple. I didn’t get around to asking Alvin what happens when they run out of room to build new ones – the country can surely only support a few hundred more kings at this rate.

It’s a nice temple. The whole park area is treated as ‘temple’ with little (and some sodding big) buildings scattered throughout. We had the chance to walk into a couple, one holding a relic (i.e. dead body part) of a former someone or other they called Headmaster. Another you could also enter but the sign outside forbid walking on the carpet. Kneeling only, although I guess they’d allow the unsteady to crawl. I decided another 70 days of holiday required working knees and stayed outside.

The park area itself has multiple ponds, fountains, landscaped lawns and trees. Flowers are all over, including in little urns along the pathways. Make that big urns, something three foot in diameter isn’t so little.

I expected a drive to the next stop, a museum, but we just circled around the edge of the lake that bordered the temple. Reaching the site we all piled off the bus and Alvin taught us how to cross the road. Apparently it’s a complex and difficult task, involving situational awareness, judgement, timing and the ability to walk. He didn’t actually say those things, instead telling us, “Wait for me, when I start to cross then go, and don’t stop.”

Thanks Alvin.

The museum itself was a strange thing to find in the middle of Thailand. Every exhibit was Chinese, including the teracotta soldiers and brass chariots.

Leaving the museum we finally passed through proper countryside, cows in a meadow with long beaked white beaks, a pagoda on a hill, tilted over. Minutes later we reached the next stop, a quick photo opportunity, that I’d seen from the museum. It’s another buddha, the whole region miserably failing to follow the teachings of the very person they venerate by building so many images of him.

This one at least was done for a different reason. A local hill was being cut into, the rock used to make cement. A local businessman – the one that created the museum – raised a million baht (or bhat? I should check) and used lasers at night to project an image of buddha onto the flat side of the hill. People used gold leaf to paint over the laser lines, and during the day carving was done to further enhance the image. The result is a 130m high gold leaf mural, and a lot of tourists.

“Take photo” demanded Alvin, so I did.

(As his name badge reveals, he isn’t actually called Alvin. I guess he doesn’t feel we can pronounce his real name, or perhaps he uses a pseudonym to prevent the schoolkids find out he’s moonlighting).

Ten minutes away is a large waterpark, a vineyard and a restaurant attached to the vineyard. We had lunch there, a buffet from which I chose the rice and pork.

It tasted ok but didn’t excel; I’ve had better in Chinatown in Manchester.

Lunch came with a drink and offered Coca Cola or the local beer I drank my first alcohol of the trip, the local premium offering, Singha. It was a cold lager that tasted like cold lager so I guess they’re broadly on track.

I abandoned my fellow tourers in the restaurant and went back out to the carpark to see if I could find again a small lizard that I’d seen on the way in. It saw me coming, skittered away then paused. I now have a photograph of a six inch long brown lizard, iridescent orange flashes on its flanks. It’s a slim elegant thing, rather pretty, by far the best thing I’ve seen in Thailand. (It’s also an awesome photograph, but can’t get it off my camera yet).

The last stop of the day was called the Gem Gallery, the self-styled “World’s largest jewelry store”. I’m fairly sure they can’t however spell jewellery. I have no idea why we stopped there and amongst the people on the tour with me I think the only thing any of them bought was a coffee at the cafe. I can’t remember if it was even listed on the tour details.

It was interesting to walk around though, banks of rings in various metals, gem stones of all types, a small train ride through a display describing the supply chain. There was also a section to walk through of multiple craftsmen manually cutting, polishing and grinding a mix of gems and jewellery. The glass partitions were only chest high so it must have been strange for them, a constant flow of tourists passing by and commenting on their work.

Back onto the bus we left the factory/shop and stopped 40 yards later. I guess someone was late returning, the head count coming up short. Even without moving I can count all but one of the people and there’s quite possibly a short lady hiding somewhere to the delay was a cause for confusion. With no further information we did eventually move, only 6 minutes ahead of the time that Alvin had promised we would be back to the ship, but with a chance of getting there by the scheduled return time. That depended on traffic which was heavy, but probably not as bad as it would be on a week day.

I saw an emergency vehicle, blue and red strobes flashing silently in the queue of traffic, nobody letting it pass. I’ve seen a number of red and blue strobes in Thailand but the rest have all been attractors on roadside stalls, their use apparently not considered confusing to road users.

Back to the ship, a quick stop in the terminal to check the cricket score (two drops by the captain? doh) and back on board. A chance to reflect and remember the things I haven’t mentioned. One is the dogs, lots of them around, a mix of pets looking relaxed and happy and strays looking relaxed and happy. Thailand seems to be a good place for dogs.

Yesterday I saw a small pack of them playing in water by the port. I was surprised, that pond had been filled with long legged birds at lunchtime. There are ponds and water catchments across the port but then also throughout the nearby region. Many of them have lily pads on them but generally very little bird life. The multiple hotels and resorts near the road have large ponds, sometimes with fountains, often a short pier to a wooden seating area above the water.

I need to feed back that the day in the countryside tour was a day in the urban conurbation, the countryside occupying half an hour in the 7 hour trip. The ship would claim that the restaurant, museum, temple and buddha-painted-on-a-hill are all in the countryside and they’re probably right but when you get off the bus and everything in sight is built on or over it’s hardly a rural setting.

At the restaurant I did sit in the carpark after photographing the awesome lizard and watch tiny butterflies and moths flutter amongst the daisies and other flowers in the grass.

Dinner was a formal affair and shared with a couple of people I’d previously met. They’d been to Bangkok, one of them enjoying a four hour dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. He’d eaten at one in Hong Kong too, clearly just slumming it in the main dining room on the ship. Surf & Turf was on the menu, a filet mignon and lobster tail combination. He went for the chicken but asked for a lobster tail on the side. I went for the Surf & Turf but asked for no lobster at all. Extra beef was a win.

Woken by my alarm this morning I was too tired for entertainment, even with the singer/dancer doing tonight’s show recommended by a dinner companion. I was close to being too tired to stay awake but 7pm felt too early for bed. I stayed up until gone midnight, perhaps foolish given the ship docks at 8am tomorrow, but added very little to the 7km already walked.