8:40 am – Wednesday 23rd March 2005

Morning has broken.

Well, Bonnie arrived at just before 4 am on Sunday morning. I was on my way down to the lobby when the door of the lift opened and there she was. :) She had a shower to wash away the grime of so many hours in the air, and then we crashed.

Suffice to say, we didn't make it to breakfast the next morning. When we finally did arise, it was to shower and make ready to check out the local area. The noise, humidity and smog which I had slowly become accustomed to was as much of a shock to Bonnie as it initially had been to me. We walked over to the nearby Phoenix Mall, also known as the Forum. It is the usually Thai mall with shops around the outside, and endless market stalls in the middle. I was doing lots of walking, so I didn't have much strength or endurance, so after a little while I sat in a coffee shop nursing our drinks while Bonnie checked out the shops. Being much closer to the size of an average Thai woman, she was able to buy a pair of pants and a pair of shorts very cheaply.

After lots more walking I had to head back to the hotel about 3 pm as I was in a fair bit of pain and very tired. Bonnie kept on shopping and came back a bit later. We rested for a while before we headed down to the lobby to meet Jamie, Jackie, Lee and Kate for dinner. Kate and Lee had met two girls who had just arrived, but one of them was very out, so I felt somewhat uncomfortable, and I think that feeling was shared. Afterwards we all walked back to the hotel and most of us had to dilate. After a nice long shower Bonnie and I made love and it was wonderful. I also had to start packing as we were scheduled to move to a condominium in Jomtien the next day. I was up late trying to get everything back into my suitcase.

10:15 pm – It's been a long day.

On Monday Bonnie and I woke up early to snuggle before I had to start dilating. After that onerous chore was done with, we made it down to breakfast and chatted with Sophie and Marcie. Afterwards I finished packing and we left our bags at the front desk after checking out. We walked down to the clinic to make sure everything was under control, and there we chatted for a bit with Jackie. As it was only 11:30 am, we decided to finally take advantage of the masseuse and beauty shop which is just near the clinic. I opted for the foot massage, and Bonnie decided to go for the traditional Thai massage. The foot massage was wonderful, and Bonnie had a nice time with her traditional massage, despite nearly falling on top of the masseuse. That took about an hour and cost us 150 Baht (about US$4) for each of us.

At 12:30 pm we headed back to the hotel to catch the bus. Kate and Lee were coming down to Pattaya with us to spend some time at the tourist resort. It was a long trip down with a lot of traffic, there must be a nearby chemical plant, because we passed many trucks transporting a diverse array of chemicals. We finally made it to Pattaya where we dropped off Kate and Lee, and then the driver kept going to the condo. We were met there by Nattta, one of the girls who helps patients if they decide to travel to Pattaya. She brought us up to the condominium and showed us around about 3 pm. It was on the 15th floor and the hallways smelt of old garbage because there were some rubbish containers out in the hallway. The rest of the building was quite clean with a series of shops and restaurants in the ground floor. We cranked up the air conditioning and then went down to get something to eat. It was quite warm outside, so we didn't stay in the restaurant for very long, instead we went up to the room to crash and chill out. I was quite exhausted and swollen because of the long drive, so I did nothing much except lay on the bed with an ice pack between my legs. After about an hour I felt somewhat more normal although the swelling would take much longer to go down.

That evening Bonnie and I decided to walk into Jomtien to have a look about and find something to eat. The heat and humidity were still both quite high and hence it wasn't particularly pleasant. It was early on a Monday night, so thankfully the place was fairly quiet. There were lots of bars with quite a number of young Thai women hanging out the front. We bypassed these and eventually found a place which did pizza. Interestingly, the area we were in had a few bars with rainbow flags, and some quick scouting indicated that what a rainbow flag means in the US, it also means the same in Thailand too. After dinner I was feeling quite hot, and so we headed home, I rushed Bonnie through the supermarket where we picked up some drinks, so I could get back to the coolness and quiet of the apartment.

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