Trip 4 - Day 6

15th August

07:40 and A gets up. She showers and starts cooking, so I just assume that she eats before she leaves in the morning, but I am wrong and she's cooked for me. Fried chicken in a sweet oyster sauce with carrots and brocolli (At 08:00?!). At 08:30, she's off and I'm alone. I reflect on the discussion of last night and know that things really can't work if I am cheating on A, so that's one resolution that I shall have to remember when I am out 'alone'.

Another discussion from last night was about guys that had 'cocked up' when doing visa runs or getting new visas arranged; such as doing a visa run after the current visa has already expired or trying to obtain a 1 year visa renewal when there's less than 1 year remaining on the life of the current passport, so I decide to check that my papers are all in order and it's just as well I do, because immigration at the airport have made a mistake. My 'valid until' date is stamped as 8 September which is just 30 days and it should be for 90 days, yet in the 'Visa Class' entry the entry is correctly written as 'Non O'.

From what was said last night, I should be able to get this sorted out at the Immigration Office in Jomtein, however I was told that their English skills are not great, so I'll may need to go with A in attendance to get this matter resolved. If all else fails, it will simply mean having to do a 'visa run' at 30 days instead of 90 days.

The task for today is to obtain details for Kevin on prices and finance terms from the Toyota dealership on a new Vigo. Kevin has told me on Messenger that I need to turn left on Sukhumvit and it's somewhere around Tesco Lotus. It's a fairly long trek, but the exercise will do me good and I'm going to need to start walking a lot more rather than using scooter taxis as 110 baht return for a trip into town is going to start mounting up.

I decide that as I'm going past Big C and near to Tesco, I'll also investigate the prices of pushbikes in each store, as this may be more practical albeit more dangerous.

When I enter Big C, I meet BM Whitespider who's just heading into KFC for a spot of lunch. I decline the offer to join him, but agree to pop round and see him later in the week. As well as lunching, he's also been out hat buying in readiness for the Ska party at The Rockhouse http://www.rockhousepattaya.com tonight. He asks if I'll be going along and I let him know that it's one I'll be missing.

Both stores have a selection of 24" wheeled bikes for aroiund 2000 baht, but I'll need to check the length of the seatpost as I'll need it extended more than the average Thai I'd guess.

As for the Toyota dealer, I simply cannot find it even after continuing a further 200 yards or so past the Tesco store, so I reluctantly make the return journey and log on to Messenger to let Kevin know that I've not had any success. It turns out that the information I'd been provided was not correct and the dealer is actually located North of me (turn right on Sukhumvit) and it's a fair distance into the bargain. A few kilometres north of Naklua, so there is no way that I'm going to walk that.

In the evening, A returns from work and she's bought me a 1Gb USB Flash drive as I need a simple way to transfer files between machines. She's been given a good deal at work and has a 1Gb Transcend device which she has been charged 'staff rate' for of only 250 baht.

After eating, we simply settle down for a quiet night of watching TV and me reading for a couple of hours before turning in at a time that most Pattaya Addicts would be ashamed to admit to.