Long Time No sleep

Friday morning I was up early to take the cat to the cattery. Ithink this is the signal for me that the holiday is about to start. I had a fair bit of work to finish off but had most of that done by mid afternoon.

I was part way through packing and realised I hadn't got any money organised. Fortunately the bank was still open.

My adult children came over for dinner but left reasonably early. It was still just after midnight by the time I fgot to bed and 12.45 before I finished my book.

I couldn't get to sleep after that because my teeth were hurting. I'd squeezed the oranges from my tree and had quite a few glasses of juice to finish it off and I guess all the acid sensitised them. Despite taking some mild pain killers, in the end I didn't sleep at all that night.

Marie arrived more or less on time to take me to the airport and we met up with most of the guys in the check in area. There were computer problems so there was a bit of a wait before we were all processed. However we were missing one of our group and his phone was switched off and we were worried he'd miss the plane. Turns out he'd got there before anybody else and had already checked in and pssed through customs.

The flight wasn't too bad, and I did try to get some sleep but only had a few catnaps. By the time we got to Phuket I had a headache as well. This and the toothache had eased off by the time we reached Bangkok.

Our baggage, including our clubs, was already on the carousel by the time we'd organised ourselves, got trolleys and located it. Much quicker than last October, so they have sorted out those teething problems.

After changing some money and passing though customs, we all met up with the girl from the travel organisation, paid our money for golf and transport and were ready to go to Pattaya. It was teeming with rain but as one guy said, the rain was warm. We travelled in 2 minibuses which were quite comfortable and had a fairly easy trip. Check in went smoothly and we
headed out for some food. My room is right by the pool.

I'd got the name of a restuarant from and English guest in the lobby and we headed down there. After a bit of walking someone said let's just go to the one we passed back there. We reversed our direction but it turned out all the places in that area were just bars so we headed for our original destination, a 100 m or so from where we turned round.

Most of the guys just ordered an individual meal but Marie and I shared the snapper and a chicken dish. The fish was the most expensive item on the menu but was worth it. With a cocktail and a coke, it was still just 350B each.

From there we walked ( and walked and walked) to the Walking road where a lot of the bars are (although there are bars everywhere). The photo was taking during the day and is not so "glamorous". The Roo bar is owned by the father of one of our members and we have luch organised for Sunday, so we had to find out where it was. By then it was pretty late and most of us left and caught a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. After a quick trip to the 7-11 and a 5 minute visit to the captain's room, I was in bed and 5 minutes later asleep.

Fortuately I slept well and feel much better today. A quick dip in the pool made me realise that I'd bought my older bikinis and as I started to swim I could feel them slipping. Will need my one piece for actual swimming it seems.