Sunday 29th June. Ko Samui to Bangkok
My flight wasn’t until the afternoon so I checked out, put my bags in the lads’ room and went and bought a Slurpee. I am seriously addicted to them, it’s as bad as my watermelon shake problem I’m telling you. At least watermelon shakes are made of proper fruit though. I hate to think what’s in a Slurpee, well actually I presume it’s a lovely concoction of ice, food colouring and enough E-numbers to give a small child ADHD. Actually when I got a Slurpee in Mae Hong Son Mr Wallop (my driver for the day) told me that his son loved them but that they didn’t buy them for him very often as, “they make him do crazy”.
Prior to leaving Ko Samui for Ko Pha Ngan I had a pedicure and “foot scrape” at the beach side massage and treatment place where I was staying. The “foot scrape” basically entailed softening and removing the dead skin from the sole of your foot. It wasn’t painful at all but did tickle in places. Once I had this done I soon realised that my timing was rubbish as I subsequently managed to burn the soles of my feet on hot sand; properly I might add, not just in an “Ow my feet hurt on the sand way”. It’s also amazing how difficult things that seemed simple before like walking on pebbles and stones become without a layer of scummy skin on the bottom of your foot. Anyway, after destroying all the hard work which had previously been put into making my soles feel like a baby’s bottom I decided to get another foot scrape. I then went to meet Julian and Steve for their final suit fitting. On the way to the shop I realised that I had left my Ipod cover on the beach and said my Goodbyes prior to collecting it and getting a taxi to the airport.
The flight passed without incident and when I arrived in Bangkok I instantly got the same good feeling that I had done each time I had arrived and returned there. It’s really strange but it almost feels like coming home. I got my bag, went through customs and decided to get some money out. For some reason my brain fell out when I tried to withdraw money. You used the buttons to put your PIN in and then it became touch-screen which -really- confused me. After standing there banging buttons for some time I realised that there was a queue forming behind me. I then realised it was touchscreen but managed to hit the screen in completely the wrong place. It transpires that my bank has not put any limit on withdrawals and, as the machine made the whirring noise it does before spitting your money out, I wondered why I was so inept and what I was going to do with that amount of money in one night!
When I got into the taxi to go to the hotel, which I had stayed at previously, I was again in awe of the Bangkok evening cityscape. I checked into my hotel, got ready and went out to Gazebo (I still want to call it Placebo) bar to watch the Euro final. I ended up playing a lot of pool, surprisingly well actually. There was a fun group there including two Irish guys, one who was very good but refused to play me. He kept making excuses such as going to the toilet, dancing etc and later in the evening he came and told me that he would lose face if he lost to me. Doofus. He also liked substituting one of his friends in his place who did that thing of measuring shots up with his cue which really annoys me and then laboured for about five minutes over each shot with his tongue poking out between his lips.
It was a great evening and I finally got back to my hotel at around 5AM wondering how bad I would feel when I had to get up for my flight three hours later!