This was my one Official tourist thing of the trip. The hotel were really keen on booking stuff for me, because I don’t think they really understood the idea of a “do nothing & wander around’ sort of holiday, but all their offerings were tour packages which … Didn’t really work for me.
I know they were trying to help, but what might actually have helped in my specific case is being able to look at the brochures & get an idea of what appealed. Can’t do that if someone immediately leaps in with helpful suggestions.
Anyway, I looked up the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, found they had a website and a transport+entry option, so I went for that. There was a tour option which included the garden, but it cost twice as much for less time on-site, and included a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t care about.
The system seems almost Southeast Asian in the “it’ll work out” approach. I’d assumed when I booked and specified location and time that they had some sort of bus pick up system going, but instead it was just a car with a driver, who then went to pick up another visitor from another hotel a bit further down the beach by just driving down the beach because it was quicker than going around the roads.
I got a little bit suspicious when he asked how much I was paying for the whole trip, and then asked that I pay him that money, so I delayed things until we were in the Gardens themselves, just in case this was the scam that it really really sounded like. Turn down it wasn’t; I have no idea how the money side of it works.
