LAZY DAYS AT HOME

I managed to escape attending Lek's birthday party Sunday night with a bout of diarrhea.  I stayed in bed much of the day, except for occasional trips to the toilet, and felt better within minutes after Tim left for the party.  She was reluctant to leave me alone but I assured her that I'd be fine and that she should go and have fun with her friends.  I spent much of the evening working on the laptop (it's great to have be online at home) and reading — I finished the Nelson DeMille novel I'd been working on (Night Fall, very good!).  Tim called me a few times during the evening and when I told her I was hungry during our last conversation, she was home within another hour and made me sort of a rice/chicken porridge with an egg on top called joake.  We watched the first half of Kill Bill, Volume 1 before turning in.

Yesterday (Monday) was another similarly lazy day at home.  We did some laundry (well, I started to wash the clothes and Tim shooed me back into the house) and I spent a lot of time reading.  I'm currently plowing through a book about Healthy Living In Thailand published by the Thai Red Cross Society (which happens to run the world's largest snake farm up in Bangkok).  In the late afternoon, Tim went out to buy some fried bananas and something which amounted to mashed potatoes inside a fried coating (not as good as the fried bananas but I managed to eat most of what Tim gave me); I told her about the fried ice cream I used to enjoy as a kid but I'm not sure she believed me that the ice cream didn't melt.

Before retiring to the master bedroom to watch the second half of Kill Bill and the first half of The Princess Bride (what a double-feature!), we spent some time online planning our trip to Bangkok and Chiang Mai/Lamphun later this month.  We decided to fly to the capitol so Tim could experience her first-ever airplane flight and — after researching prices on all the available airlines I booked fares on Bangkok Airways.  I wanted to show Tim a true luxury hotel so I checked the price for Baiyoke Sky Hotel and they were even less than when I stayed there in January.  She's VERY excited about this (although I didn't get a room in the Sky Zone so we'll be somewhere on floors 20 through 54).  After spending a week in Bangkok obtaining Tim's passport, we're going to take the overnight 1st class sleeper train to Chiang Mai where we'll spent a couple of nights (at the Bossotel right next to the Railway Station) before heading down to Pasang, Lamphun, in order for me to meet her parents and other family members.  We're only spending four days in Lamphun Province which I think is a good length of time for a first visit.

In all, the total prices for transportation and accomodations for the two of us will come to somewhat less than a thousand U.S. dollars which is remarkable for a two-week-long trip.  Meal costs will probably be less than a hundred dollars as I'm sure we'll be keeping to the street vendor stalls rather than eating in restaurants.  We actually could have done the trip for a lot less but I wanted to splurge a bit on our first trip together.

The planes with the Gumball Rally cars arrive sometime this afternoon but I don't feel like waiting around forever on the chance that I'll be able to get a good photograph.  If I find that the public is allowed to look at the cars tomorrow at the resort, then I'll ask Tim to take me there.

So, our only concrete plans today are to do a bit of grocery shopping at Big C (and I want to check on the price of printers).  We might go into Patong tonight if we feel up to it.  It's been a couple of weeks since we had a night "on the town."