Sunday 2 September 2007

Trip 4 - Day 24

2nd September

Not too early a start, so the first thing is to 'phone A to see how she is and see if she knows when she'll be back. The good news is that she'll be finishing at 14:15, so that means the Soi 6 crawl is a non starter for me.

I send a text to Kev 'crying off' and he decides to postpone the event until Monday after he's sorted out everything with Steve at Alan Bolton's

A actually returns home early at just after 14:15 along with a couple of boxes that she's got from Mama. It's really great to see her and we eat the chicken that she's brought in with her; drink Coke & water and just chat whilst sitting on the sofa.

She tells me that she has regularly been doing these long hours and all night shifts. It appears that the chap she works for who owns the shop is also involved in some way with a freight operations company at Sri Racha port, so she tends to do either one job or the other, which is why there isn't a problem when she's not at the shop.

When I ask her why she hadn't told me about this, she simply says that she "I no want you yak yak me too mut". She then proceeds to unpack the boxes that she's brought home. As part of moving, Mama has decided that she doesn't have the time or the space for her 'Buddhas', so thay have been transferred into the custody of A. There is a whole raft of things that are 'necessary' for each figure so now the shopping list will include cigars, whisky, extra fruit, extra garlands and ........ "Red Fanta" In addition, at each prayer session, we now have a total of 27 incense sticks being burnt.

I get a text call from BM Hammer. ("Where is everybody?") It seems that Kevin had sent a text to Casper UK (and I assume Lord Flash), but as he didn't have a current contact number for Hammer, he assumed that one of the rest of us would let him know that the meet had been cancelled.

A says that she'd like to eat 'bufffet' tonight so I ask which one she wants to go to, but it seems that she wants to eat at home and we'll cook and eat with #2. There's no problem with this, so she goes off to the market to buy meat and vegetables.

Drink for the evening is a bottle of 100 Pipers (supplied by Robin) which is heavily diluted with water & ice and is surprisingly refreshing.

We then meet the latest resident of the block who had arrived earlier in the day. He's an Irishman (Northern) called Ryan Conner. It's his 7th visit this year and he's planning to marry in Burriram next Spring. He works in England on Motorway construction and basically works all the hours on offer and doesn't go to the pub or spend anything unccessarily in England. When he has enough money for a two or three week trip, he's away.

He brings a few bottles of Chang to the 'party' and we spend a pleasant couple of hours chatting about the various things that make us so addicted to LoS.

Unfortunately the extended drinking bout has pushed A just a little too far and instead of simply being 'tipsy', she's now 'mau' so I simply escort her upstairs and put her to bed.

Expenditure :

1 month 250 hour GPRS Internet package : 500 + 7% VAT = 535 baht
Food for buffet : 300 baht

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