Musings by Grace Chng

4 days spent reading proved a luxury. It’s great to shut down. It’s also a terrific way of doing some thinking. Ideas come to me when I’m not really thinking about thinking. So while I had some “shut down” time, I also had a list of new ideas to think about.

Club Med was a surprise to me. I’ve heard about it of course: food and drinks plenty, lots of activities to keep children and adults occupied and entertainment provided as well. I found all this true with lots of fun thrown in as well.

Drinks - all that you can take in - flow whole day. Beer, wine and liquor are available as long as the bar is opened which means practically from 8 am to past midnight. Every night is party night at Club Med. Guests are entertained to shows put up by the Gentle Officers or GOs (pronounced geos) who are the guest/relationship officers. They are yoga, gym, archery, fitness, tennis, sailing etc GOs and managers by day. But by night, they turn comedians, dancers and even magicians.

I was not bored in the 4 nights I spent there at Club Med Cherating, last week. I did my routine workouts in a gym - sparse but with the right equipment - attended some workout classes like body scuplt and step aerobics and spent the rest of the time reading. The breeze from the sea kept my friends and I cool even though the day temperature was over 32 degrees C. I won third prize in an archery contest - I’ve a medal to prove it - while my friend came out top. Then she hopped over to the tennis court, beat a handful of guys and got the third prize there too.

My other friends meanwhile, were sleeping, doing yoga or water aerobics. I would have gone for the trapeze act- ie learn to be a trapeze artist -  if I hadn’t stepped on a pebble and almost twisted my ankle. While an ice pack helped keep the swelling down, the risk of aggravating the injury was high in the trapeze event. Next time…..

I’ve 12 buffets at Club Med in 4 days. That’s terrible in the sense that I don’t usually eat buffets but it’s also nice because I could choose from Italian to local to Japanese to pizzas, hamburgers and steaks.

I would recommend keeping away from the wine if you’re a connoiseur. Beer is good because it’s fresh. Coffee was great because it had the Nespresso machine which provided us with our caffeine fix throughout the day.

The rooms are comfortable. I would give the housekeeping service 6 out of 10. The tea sachets were not replenished, neither was the tea cup - so obviously used and dirty cos there’s a tea bag in it standing in some drops of tea - washed. But the GOs were friendly and talkative. Be ready to have one or two GO sit at your table to keep you company during meal times. It’s a Club Med thing.

Overall, I would give the experience a 7 out of 10.