This place is actually about 20kms past Chantaburi on the way to Trat, anyway as we had to goto yet another funeral yesterday and this one was in Chantaburi I decided to treat the family, it is about 6kms down tiny little country lanes so I don't think they will be getting coach loads of tourists going down there.
The place obviously has double pricing for us farangs, 180baht for us and 90baht for them, I really couldn't be bothered abusing them about their double pricing so just smiled and handed over the dosh.
They defineately didn't have a 4 oclock show so we were told we would have to wait till 5oclock.
These could be a bit large
Dolphins wearing spectacles, yes absolutely hilarious, I do that to my dog sometimes, he don't think it is funny either.
This place you can actually swim with the dolphins if you so wish, although the water looked a bit murky to me, plus they got razor sharp teeth that easily can bite a fish in half.
Basically the place consists of 2 big pools, the biggest one has seperated areas, this I assume is where they keep the not so clever dolphins, each section has 2 or 3 staff in the water playing with the dolphins, I should imagine it would be quite a good job for an hour or two, they even have some Pink Dolphins, they looked a bit weird, you know when you come off your bike and get a nice road rash, well that's what they looked like.
Here are the rules if you want to swim with the dolphins.
The show is for 30 minutes, but if you have ever been to Florida or California then expect to be disappointed, there are no aquariums, no information for kids to learn anything about dolphins, basically after wandering round the big pool you can either goto the gems store or goto the restaurant, obviously we chose the restaurant to kill off half hour till the show, the whole place must have had at least 60 staff and about 40 paying customers.
The restaurant is seperated into 3 differant areas that seat about 60 people in each, as there was only 3 of us it wasn't difficult to find a seat, due to nobody else eating there, they have about 5 people in the kitchen and about 8 waitressess so obviously we expected quick service, although our waitress found it a bit hard to comprehend getting our drinks first while we peruse the menu.
What did suprise me was this being Thailand that Dolphin was not on the menu, I mean it is only Tuna anyway, aint it?
This video may upset animal rights groups but I thought it was funny, how to surf using 2 dolphins as your surf board.
In the distance there you will see a floating house, they have 4 of these that you can rent, looks like it is made out of traditional materials doesn't it, well it is apart from the polystyrene underneath it to keep it afloat
Onto the food, when the waitress eventually realised we wernt gonna order food till we got our drinks she eventually went and got them, I realise that waiters and waitersses aint the high flyers from their schools, but is it really that difficult to understand? She probably spat in all our food I suppose.
Within a few minutes the rice was delivered, piping hot aswell it was, shame we had to wait another 10 minutes for the stuff to go with it, it all seems a bit pointless really, I just cannot understand why these places are so unprofessional, I only gave her a tip cos she was pretty, I suppose that counts for a lot here really.
My son ordered, yawn yawn yawn, Tom Yam Krung, actually this looked like dishwater with lumps of old stuff in that would normally block up your sink after doing the washing up, so maybe his Tom Yam Krung addiction will be cured.
I ordered the Pad Priar Wan Talay, sweet and sour sea food, with this being mainly a sea food restaurant I was quite suprised that my sea food consisted of 2 small pieces of squid and some chopped up fish balls, I mean ok fishballs are made out of stuff that comes from the sea, but it's the stuff you normally would discard from a sea animal and put to the side of the plate.
My galfriend had this dish, I am not sure what it is but it involves eating fried small crabs with the shell aswell, she seemed to like it, but they are a weird lot the Thais.
This is the walkway from the restaurant to the 4 floating houses, the middle bit is just free floating and tied to each end so that is good fun jumping on either side of it trying to get people to fall off into the water![]()
Nearly across the bridge.
It is quite nice and quaint how they try to keep it olde worlde, electric cables strung where ever they want and all that.
They have a small garden area which would be great for picnics if it weren't 100 degrees here all the time or they had some shade, in this garden area they have the normal lovely Thai ornaments that every house owner would wish to own, I mean you must dream about having ornaments like this in your garden, such class, such style, got to admit I didn't see a concrete chicken though.
I sometimes wonder how their minds work, then I try not to think about it to much.
Here is a nice video of a Dolphin playing volleyball, well sort of.