A friend and I once agreed to take a holiday in Thailand. I
had once had a few days in Bangkok and was eager to see more of the country.
One snowy winter she visited me in London and got stranded.
To keep from being bored whilst I was at work she read travel brochures. And I
set a limit as to how much I was prepared to pay – that reduced her wish list!
We ended up going to Brazil for two weeks and stayed at a
resort south of Ipanema. Unfortunately her idea of a holiday was to lie on the
beach all day! As I pointed out, it would have been cheaper to go to Benidorm.
We had a holiday flat so had to eat out but my friend had some weird ideas.
First let me point out that the rate of exchange was very
favourable. The only decent meal we had was three courses, wine, aperitif and
coffee - £5 each. We only went once to that restaurant, thereafter it was a
‘cheap’ café or barbecue-type food. (I would have gone to the restaurant every day given the choice.)
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| Corcovado from a distance! |
The holiday included two half-day tours, only one of which I
can remember. In to Rio to visit the Sugar Loaf Mountain. We used local buses
(even though taxis were dirt cheap – she had an aversion to them). We went to
Rio three times: Corcovado, the Carmen Miranda Museum and to take a ferry to a
small island where we took a tour in a donkey cart. On that occasion she didn’t
fancy anything on the lunch menu.
On another occasion we went to visit the hill town of
Petropolis which someone had recommended to her. It is a fabulous town where
the Winter Museum is located. Oh, and this time we took a picnic. She had me up
at the crack of dawn to take the workmen’s bus to Rio and the bus station where
we found that the bus to Petropolis didn’t leave until 1.00 p.m. Time to discover
Rio? Nope. She thought if we moved away from the bus station we would get lost
so we sat in a small garden – and ate our lunch.
I loved Petropolis. We did go into the Winter Palace but
only saw the outside of the Cathedral and missed the Crystal Palace (I lived in
Crystal Palace, South London at the time!). Two reasons for this was lack of
time and she wanted to shop for her friends.
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| Sugar Loaf Mountain |
We caught a bus back to Rio and made an amazing discovery –
two bus depots and our local bus did not use this one.
Having caught a bus at 7.30 a.m. we finally reached ‘home’
at 11.00 p.m. Exhausted. My friend’s comment?
‘We didn’t have lunch with the
gauchos.’
‘We didn’t go on the excursion!’
Before going on holiday with a friend make sure you know
them well and agree on the type of holiday that you want!
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| View from the balcony. Yes, she is lying on the beach but you have to look hard! |
Incidentally, ten days after returning to England she went
to Thailand with another friend.
