Monday
My eyes open, it’s light outside. I look at the time. 7.30am. I firmly close my eyes. By the time 8.15 rolls around, I concede defeat and get up - I’m wide awake, there’s no way I’m going to be able to get back to sleep! This is rather earlier than I usually like to rise, but I sit out on the balcony with a coffee and a cigarette, and actually enjoy taking in the Bangkok skyline, the distant hum of traffic, and the crazy sights that I’ve become so accustomed to on my trips over here.
Today, a man in abseiling gear is slowly and methodically cleaning his windows - from the outside of his 13th floor apartment. Satisfied with his work, he hauls himself back in through the window, unclips his safety cord from the frame, and waves with a friendly smile when he spots me staring agog at him.
I take a couple of photos of the view, and then take some more coffee back to the bedroom to catch up on writing and emails. Martin’s out at his gemology class, but Tik soon rises and we’re off shopping.
The nearest shopping centre is Central Rama 3, a very western-style mall full of the usual shops. First port of call is the cellphone store, where we buy a Thai SIM card for my spare phone - cheaper than the £1.50 a minute that O2 want to charge me for making calls on my UK phone while I’m here. Then to the food court for a pad thai breakfast, and on to the main department store to pick up some jeans. I’m a 34″/30″ size, the shortness of my legs is legendary. They have some nice Levi 501s and 523s in the right waist size, but the legs are about 6″ too long, and envelope my feet when I try them on. It’s okay though, the shop will trim them to my length so I buy both pairs and we’ll pick them up later when they’ve been adjusted. Tik manages to persuade the assistant to throw me in a free pair of Levi’s boxers too - bonus!
Back to the apartment, and Martin’s soon home for the afternoon. I want to check out the prices at the shoe shop where he bought his hand-made shoes, so I get a taxi out to Sukhumvit. They’re more expensive than I thought, so I decide to just get some regular shoes instead. I wander on to Gulliver’s for a mid-afternoon beer and flick through a copy of the Sunday Times - or rather, a stapled together photocopy of the whole newspaper, produced specially for the bar. Weird. As usual, there are various sports showing on the TVs dotted about the place, as well as the various “odd couples” - the 60yr old white men grinning like Cheshire cats with their 18yr old Thai girlfriends on their arms.
I wander around for a little longer, buy some tat from the street stalls, and eventually get a cab back to the apartment. It only took me half an hour or so (and 85B) to get here earlier, but this is Bangkok traffic - so two hours (and 185B) later, I’m back at the apartment with just enough time for a shower before we leave again to meet Massaya, A, Ben and Nang for dinner at Whole Earth - a vegetarian-friendly restaurant in Chit Lom. Fortunately for my bloodthirst, meat is still very much on the menu, so I get a shrimp salad starter followed by a superb lamb tikka jalfrezi.
It’s great to catch up with everyone - Ben is exhausted from a twelve hour day teaching, and Nang is quieter than I’ve come to expect from her! But Massaya is friendly and enthusiastic as ever, and we chatter away about work and life. A’s chatty too, much more so than I remember!
We arrange to all hook up on Friday night, and once the excellent food’s been eaten we drift off on our separate ways - Martin, Tik and I head back to the apartment. Some more writing and emails, a flick through my RSS feeds, and it’s time for bed.