Trip 4 - Day 53

October 1st

I wake up there’s still a feeling of loneliness. It’s my birthday; I’m 47 years old, I’m 6000 miles from my birthplace and I am on my own. I check my e-mails and that cheers me up some as I’ve got several messages wishing me all the best. In addition, there a few text messages on my ‘phone and that helps to cheer me up.

I cannot go out this morning as I have to wait for Sophon cable to turn up and hook us up. They turn up at just gone 11:00 and it only takes them around 30 minutes to get everything completed (We now have 62 channels of crap TV to chose from).

I find that I have to pay 1350 for 3 months rental in advance, so I call A to check and she says that is correct. I tell her that we need to talk about finances, as I thought she’d already paid this the other day and now I don’t know what the1000 baht that I’d given her on Saturday was used for.

For lunch, I decide that I’m going to have a ‘fry up’ as a birthday treat, so I head out to Tesco (for a change) and get a few bits and pieces for ‘me’. I end up buying ham, eggs, chips and beans as well as a baguette and a few doughnuts. Whilst in the store I also top up on items such as cream soda & sala syrup; tiger balm (for the ‘mossie’ bites) and I also get a mouse mat as I find using an external mouse easier than trackpoint devices.

On the way home, I also stop off to get a haircut and by the time I get home I’m feeling considerably better. I eat my ‘farang’ meal and then wash the dishes before settling down to watch “The Bourne Ultimatum”. Just after the film finishes, A returns home and we have a kiss and cuddle (in the bedroom away from Phil), but she breaks off as she has to get food ready early as I am going to be going out tonight.

After eating, it’s time to SSS and get myself off to Soi 8. When I arrive, the whole Soi is quiet. The bars in the Prince Hotel Complex have a total of 4 customers between them and on that basis, the Cherry Bar is ‘busy’ as it has one of them. Kurunda Bagman and LordFlash arrive and they both buy me a ‘birthday drink’ and there’s a ‘surprise’ visitor to the bar much to the amusement of them both.

We discuss the forthcoming Jade & Jomtein bar crawl which LordFlash says he’ll try to make and then the ‘Darkside’ trip for the following week. We discuss the venues on the ‘Darkside’ and I tell them that Hammer is dropping ‘Paradise’ from the list as it hasn’t really been a success in the past and nobody has had a favourable review when they’ve attended ‘alone’ either. We struggle to come up with an alternative until it’s suggested that we simply get a dozen girls together and a couple of crates of beer and make Kev’s place the new venue. (I don’t think that he’ll be too keen on this idea though.)

After a couple of drinks LordFlash leaves and it looks like it’s going to be a quiet night until the ‘larger than life’ character of Andursch arrives at the bar and his first action is to ring the bell and demand that as it’s my birthday I am required to have a tequila ‘chaser’ with my beer. After getting over this, he promptly rang the bell for a second time and not surprisingly the bar (and the girls) sprang to life.

Kurunda Bagman became the main photographer for the evening and should have some good pictures of the attendees (and a cheeky panty shot of one of the girls from Best Bar) A few guys from the GoGo bar crawl last week also turn up as does Geewiz (The little ‘hottie’ from the next door bar that we’d been admiring last Wednesday is also around and looking good again in a purple dress this time).

A third bell ring (and more tequila) did the damage and whilst I know that it was a great laugh, the short term memory took a pounding and as I write up this report, I once again have no recollection of how I got home, but as I woke up in my bed, I must have managed somehow.

How Hammer does this six nights a week is totally beyond me. It would kill me in two weeks let alone the two years that he’s been in operation.

Expenditure :

Drink for Aoy (I don’t know how it happened either) : 100 baht
Scooter Taxi : 150 baht (best estimate)
Toilet : 10 baht
Tesco : 466 baht
Haircut : 50 baht
Mama Allowance : 500 baht