The previous day Nikhil and I had discussed going to a roof-top water park in the city.\u00a0 When we left each other to go back to our respective guesthouses he still seemed very optimistic about our early morning start.\u00a0 I was slightly less optimistic about the likelihood of me getting up the same side of midday when going to sleep at 6AM and needless to say, when he came to get me the next morning he wasn’t too successful.\u00a0 It wasn’t helped byt he fact I had set my alarm and then did that thing of hitting sleep for about three hours without actually getting any.\u00a0 Another thing which made me want the World to die was the staff at my hotel.\u00a0 Every morning at around ten thirty they came round, hammered (and I -do- mean hammered, not knocked) on every door and said, "Guest number 305 (or whatever your room number was) you stay another night".\u00a0 If you said, "yes", they would lkeave you alone and if you said, "No", they would tell you you needed to check-out in a loud, patronising tone.\u00a0 Not only did this remind me of being woken up for school, it was almost institution like with the added insult of being referred to as a number.\u00a0 Of course it was okay when you weren’t in your room, as I hadn’t been previously, as they then just came in and cleaned it.\u00a0 Well I say cleaned, generally when I had been out and came back they had moved a few things around and shut the window!\u00a0 So, if there was no answer they presumed you were out and went in.\u00a0 This is what happened to a poor unsuspecting couple in a room across the hall-way from me.\u00a0 Having got no answer to her screeching request, the staff member went into the room.\u00a0 I’m not sure who was more shocked, her or the couple inside, but the shrieks and expletives which came out of that room when she burst in on them were the one thing which brought a smile to my face that morning!<\/p>\n
Anyway, so I evenually left at about half eleven and went to look for Nikhil.\u00a0 This was a somewhat arduous (and in hindsight pointless) exercise as, following on from our informative emails, I had no idea where he was actually staying.\u00a0 Actually, I tell a lie, I knew the road it was on and that he was staying in a dorm.\u00a0 After several visits to guesthouses proved fruitless I spent a good few hours wandering about and sitting in various cafes hoping he would walk past.\u00a0 He didn’t.<\/p>\n
After my routine getting my clothes re-fitted, I went and chilled out by the roof-top pool and eventually Nikhil asked for me in my room.\u00a0 We decided to go to a different shopping mall which, as well as a roof-top water park, had an "amusement park", well according t’ tinternet.\u00a0 We got a metered taxi and both wondered why we had been getting tuk-tuks which now seemed very expensive in comparison.\u00a0 Although the rides at the park were all closed the place was amazing.\u00a0 I always think there’s something rather cool about amusement parks when they’re closed at night.\u00a0 There was one area which was designed like a town and the way it was lit made it look so magical.\u00a0 An area further on had some games machines which were on (much to Nikhil’s excitement) and there was a bowling alley with locals in some kind of tournament.\u00a0 One of the reasons I thought it was such a good idea to go to the shopping centre was that I had been craving (much of it vocally) a hot dog for the vast majority of the latter part of the day.\u00a0 Now you can call me a sad muppet here but my excitement when I saw that hot dog stand was nearly as great as the initial glowing M moment in Pattaya!<\/p>\n
When we got back to the Khao San Road area we went for a couple of drinks.\u00a0 There was an artist painting in the street and I went over to have a look.\u00a0 He was painting but really fine so that the resultant pictures looked more like they were done in ink.\u00a0 One of them was particulalrly cool.\u00a0 There was almost a 30s-esque woman reeclining with only one shoe.\u00a0 Then, to her right, the shoe was hanging down from the top of the picture by a piece of string with a dog, wearing a skirt, standing on top of a television, trying to reach the shoe.\u00a0 Nikhil sweetly, seeing how much I liked it, bought it for me.\u00a0 He also got me a book called, "This champagne mojito is the last thing I own" (by Ross O’Connell).\u00a0 The protagonist is a superficial, happy-go-lucky dog in heat type character who breaks loads of hearts before losing everything.\u00a0 Nikhil assured me that he just thought I’d like it and, when I thought about my other current read (S21!) the thought of something light-heaerthed and amusing appealed so I thanked him.\u00a0 I think one of the reasons for the choice was a conversation we had previously when choosing cocktails.\u00a0 We discussed favourtie drinks and then I asked him what he thought the "After Sex" cocktail was on the menu.\u00a0 A very funny, relatively disgusting, conversation followed about the consistency of the liquid involved, whether they would salt-line the rim like a margarita or whether there would just be a fag stuck in the middle!\u00a0 Imagine my upset when the drink arrived and it was actually a very palatable cocktail!<\/p>\n
The book, which I have since finished in record time, was absolutely brilliant and I would whole-heartedly recommend it.\u00a0 The main character was a dick, but a very likeable one and the comedy superficiality was interspersed with truly poignant moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The previous day Nikhil and I had discussed going to a roof-top water park in the city.\u00a0 When we left each other to go back to our respective guesthouses he still seemed very optimistic about our early morning start.\u00a0 I was slightly less optimistic about the likelihood of me getting up the same side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}