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Trip to Thailand (Bangkok, Sammakorn, Koh Sichang) - February 2005

Thailand 2005: Day Six

Barry Price
2006-02-22 22:39:12

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Last night’s excitement takes it’s toll today - I wake up at 5pm. Perhaps I could have slept for even longer if Martin hadn’t woken me. I feel wonderfully refreshed though, but there’s no time for swimming because we have to return to the tailor’s for my second suit fitting. We check out a couple of shoe shops too – Martin wants some tailor-made shoes. He’s got very oddly-shaped feet, resulting from an undiagnosed broken toe when he was young, and he’s never had a comfortable pair of shoes since. The hand-made shoes aren’t going to be cheap, but they’re preferable to having the bones of his right foot broken and reset!

The final suit fitting is next, and I have to admit I’m impressed – the suit and shirts all look great. A couple of minor alterations are needed, but I can pick up the finished article after the weekend – I’m going to be away over the weekend anyway, so this is fine.

Next up, we’re off to an Indian restaurant for a curry. We take Soi 11 (I think) off Sukhumvit, and sudenly there’s an elephant in the way. No, really. Blocking the pavement completely, there’s an enormous grey mass of pachyderm. I boggle and stare for a while, and then notice the Thai man holding its lead with several plastic bags full of fruit pieces in his hand. I can buy a bag for 20B (about 25p) and feed the fruit to the elephant. I do this, and the elephant greedily plucks the fruit from my hand with its trunk.

This is exactly the sort of thing I love about this city. One minute we’re plodding along a main road on the way to a curry house, then a minute later I’m hand-feeding fresh fruit to a greedy elephant in the street. He soon wolfs the lot down, and Martin and I find the restaurant and stuff ourselves with curry.

Then a taxi ride home and an early night – we need to be up at 6am to get to the bus station for our trip to Koh Sichang. Originally our party was supposed to be Martin and I, Ben and Nang, Ying, Massaya, Fight and A. But Fight and A have cancelled – they have to work over the weekend, so we’re down to six.

Ying is Martin’s now-ex girlfriend who I spectacularly failed to meet last year, and I’ve been accusing Martin of imagining her every since. Tomorrow I will find out whether she really exists.