T i T - this is Thailand

Well the first 2 days were hard – travel followed by finding that the lock to my condo had quit working – we had to have the maintenance guy take a large hammer to the door handle – fortunately doors here are made of hardy stuff and fitting a new lock only took a short while. Had a cleanup crew come in for a half hour – amazing how much dust and dirt accumulates in 8 months – I think I had a guest colony of ants living there for part of the time – they were gone but they left a mess behind.

Next day was an 11 hours of driving (on the wrong side with lots of overtaking on 2 lane roads – somewhat stressful) – found Da and her brother at the appointed place in the Thai/Cambodian border market.

Yesterday was more restful – food, beach and shopping (I wasn’t the one shopping needless to say).

Much ado about nothing

Nobody in line to check in - one person ahead of me at security - no body scanners - no groping - just the old fashioned walk through metal detector. Dammit now I am unspeakably early fir the flight.

no cold-turkey for me

Off to the airport tonight - with no icy road misgivings - Sound Transit Link light-rail will take me from a block from home to the airport. Then it is running the groping gauntlet of TSA - I will opt for the full body scan machine - hell I dont care who sees my junk - but would prefer not to be fondled by some illiterate ex K-Mart TSA agent - now if he had worked at Target and could read he might be more "eligible" - then we might come to a groping arrangement. 13 hours by EVA to Taipei, a 40 minute layover then a 4 hour flight to Suvarnabhumi Airport Bangkok. Thence a 90 minute bus ride to Jomtien, a 15 minute pickup truck to the end of my Soi and a motorcycle taxi to my condo. Putting it like that it sounnds intimidating but the end justifies the means plus I enjoy the whole travel process. Then its 85-90 for 10 days out of this cold icky Seattle winter. More later... enjoy your Turkey.