There is nothing for it but to traipse back to Club Med, find someone in charge and try to get a cab home. Wet, half naked and without any money. What follows is a long, chilly, barefoot walk through the backwoods of the resort, until we reach a sewage works, confusingly adjacent to some chalets.
The polo instructor to which we explain our predicament is perhaps the least authoritarian person we could have found, but he seems bemused rather than affronted by our circumstances. And the trespassing. We are weary, dejected and ashamed. He leads us through the gilded marble halls, all executive lounges and gyms and gift shops. Finally, we hit the pool area, and I'm relieved to be dressed appropriately for the first time in about 3 hours.
En route to reception, PoloMan notices Mark's eyes flitting over a stray cocktail menu.
"Why not stay for a drink before you leave?" he suggests with gay abandon. I remind him of our crippling lack of funds, but PoloMan will not accept this as an excuse. It's an open bar, and we can just tell the staff we're staying here, should they ask. Not that they will.
PoloMan disappears to defile a rich, aging heiress, or whatever it is they do in Jilly Cooper novels and I turn my newly sparkling eyes on my companion.
"Jenny, do you really think it's a good idea to have a drink before we've sorted this out? We've still got to explain all this again to reception and try to blag a cab," says Mark, with uncharacteristic, and to be honest, quite unattractive, caution.
"Open Bar" is the magic password to all my secrets, and Mark is totally ruining my Club Tropicana fantasy. I may pretend to be a gritty, hardcore, authentic backpacker, but at the end of the day, my dream is to lie in a hammock and drink a Blue Hawaiian out of a hollowed out pineapple (umbrella/flamingo/sparkler mandatory), served by a pre-Hampstead Heath era George Michael.
I order two pina coladas, which seem to fit the ridiculousness of the situation, and soon we're lying poolside, marvelling at this reversal of fortune.
"One more for the road?" says Mark, finally getting into the swing of things.
Six cocktails later, we are sprawled in the bar, heckling the lounge singer (who claims not to know any Chris Isaak - he is lying), inventing malicious gossip about the guests (by this time in black tie evening wear) and testing the patience of the waiting staff, who clearly know what we're up to. We are those obnoxious drunken British people I usually try so hard to avoid on holiday, and the reason I will never visit Thailand.
There are supermodel types and over tired children who should be in bed and burly shouldered Dagenham-born managers with necks thicker than they are long. A horrid Essex fishwife screams at an exotic-looking European couple: "Are you taking pictures of my kids?"
I am in love with everyone and everything. I have ceased to worry about all my worldly goods, by now stolen or else washed out to sea. My primary concern is that I have allowed 27 years to elapse without ever having tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of a Brandy Alexander.
The lounge singer surveys all from the lofty height of his stall, probably thinking about that meeting he once had with Celine Dion's management, and regretting not taking the post on that cruise ship. He breaks into the Paul Anka version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, in a pathetic yet melodic act of defiance. It's time to leave, and I suspect the bar staff agree.
The next problem is how to find Reception. If we ask for directions, our cover is blown. Our cover at the moment is a large Club Med-embossed beach towel, really not made for two. There is some argument about which of us is the most naked, and who is more deserving of the lion's share. We snaffle some sandwiches from the buffet, in an endearingly naive attempt to clear our heads, and approach the counter.
Mark admirably avoids acting in that terrible way that all drunk people do, when they're trying to convince someone of their sobriety, and just end up seeming even more off their tits, and soon Reception Man has a cab for us at the other end of the phone line.
"And if I could just have your room number, Sir?"
Busted.
"Ahhhh, well, you see, we're not actually staying here in the literal sense..."
The receiver is replaced in its cradle. A business card is offered, with the number of some disreputable cab company, and a back door, the one reserved for thieves, charlatans and freeloaders, is indicated.
We race out into the night. Outside, a thousand palm trees are silhouetted against a brilliant purple sunset, and we decide it would be churlish not to engage in a melodramatic snog under the moonlight, but this is not one of those salacious blogs that deals in cheap thrills and titillation.
Escape seems almost within our grasp, until the cold hard flashlight of Security accosts us. We spin a so-incredulous-it-must-be-true tale about visiting friends, and now we must be getting back to our quiet sleepy village, now where did we leave our clothes again?
"Is that a Club Med towel, you're wearing, Sir?"
Mark is suitably appalled: "Do you know, I do believe it is!"
SecurityMan is not buying it, nor our chances of flagging down an unsolicited cab in this area at this time of night. Walking back through our quiet, respectable Muslim town in the throes of Ramadan, sporting the H&M Summer '11 Swimwear line lacks appeal, so when he offers to drive us back himself for the sum of Not Too Many Ringett, we do not complain.
Once more unto the beach, where I'm overjoyed to be reunited with my clothes and my keys and my very proper, very British, sense of shame and propriety.
I'm very glad to return to the dirt-cheap little treehouse. I have tasted George's man-made paradise and, while superficially delicious, it was bitter.
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