A brief word on where we are living for the next few days. Since Mike did the honourable thing and quit working as a corporate stooge for the government he discovered a downside: the Cavs had to find somewhere else to live. So here we are at the end of a truncated Soi 59 off Sukhumvit, midway between the pre-mentioned Soi 63 (Ekkamai) and Soi 55 (Thonglor) arterial roads. Although technically "downsized" from their apartment on Soi 39, it still features a huge living/kitchen/diner area, three bedrooms and, most importantly to parasitical house guests, a modest swimming pool on the roof. The latter featuring in our post-hangover afternoon recovery plans. There is also a very loud Mynah Bird somehwere that I have never seen that likes to wish me Happy Birthday at innappropriate moments.
Having recovered from our "jet lag" (and Carolyn still stuck in the South of England) it fell to Mike to further entertain us on Saturday night. Dinner was on a street across Sukhumvit Road on Soi 38. There's a grouping of mobile street food vendors that share a communal table-and-chair area behind their industrial-sized woks. We ordered deep fried seafood starters from one, a variety of soft and crispy noodle dishes from another, and four extremely large bottles of Singha from presumably whoever runs the seating area. All for around £10 for the three of us. AND the food was delicious, so who's gonna argue with that!
Mike, in his usual inimitable style, suggested touring a few of the more interesting bars. Linda, having been there before, demurred. We, quite properly, escorted her home in return for which she gave me a highly valued Free Pass. (It needs to be mentioned, I suppose, that said Free Pass was unilaterally revoked when we both came home slightly before 4 the next morning!) The pub crawl was as interesting as ever in Bangkok. We clutched a couple of Beer Laos in a bar on the corner of the entrance to Nana Plaza watching a varying assortment of people going to work the night shift (this, my friends, is Diversity In Action!), follwed by a tour of some wierd and wonderful establishments (I'm not going to spell them all out here -- use your imaginations!). We did drop into Mike's local where the waitresses claimed to remember me from two years ago and told me how great I was looking. Of course, I had to buy them all a drink (it's a dirty trick, stroking the masculine ego, even at my age, but when has it ever failed? Foolish Old fart!).
It's been unkindly commented that I'm not up to this sort of lifestyle. Okay, I didn't surface 'til one in the afternoon and admit I didn't look quite as "great" as I imagined I did ten hours earlier but, hey, no head down the toilet yet! In any case, Mike has left for Kuala Lumpur this afternoon so that's one degree of temptation removed. Last night, Linda and I revisited an old haunt -- the Robin Hood pub -- for happy hour Tiger Beer and G&Ts and a green curry and Ceasar salad (and chips). Still as we remebered except the girls were wearing functional trousers and aprons instead of bright green Heinekin miniskirts. Hope the place is not going downhill. Well, this place is seven hours ahead of England so it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Somewhere, there's a happy hour just starting(y'know, sometime we've got to get some cultural stuff in, methinks . . .).
2 comments:
Glad to hear that like the rest of the male population you have just got wider in your old age not wiser.
Only a bloke could kick the arse out of a Free pass on the first night, you old teenager you.
Do you detect a hint of jealousy?
PS
Are you talking about those types of establishments or THOSE types?? Although I can't remember getting my ego stroked.Still memory not so good these days.
Dammit! Should have known you'd pick up on the unwise use of that verb. As for the other question, I don't know what you mean!
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