UMTravels

I love group travel. I hate group travel.

Shit – I organized this mess, so it’s mine.

Morning fire drill – get Javier awake (dynamite required), get Dan and Lisa to the rental car center – get lost leaving town, lose 20 minutes.

Fast food lunch in Boulder City… Hoover Dam next stop… new highway, security stops, big dam fun….

And during the long ($30) tour, where we were in on of the inspection tunnels – the tour guide suggested we stick our cameras out the ventilation shaft and shoot UP. Stunning.

I rafted down the Colorado through Grand Canyon a couple of years ago – from Glenn Canyon Dam to almost Lake Mead (which was formed by the Hoover Dam). Massive beast this dam… this will be the third tour, always learning or seeing something new.

And then there is the new bridge….

Longest of its kind in the US… stunningly beautiful, and still under construction when I was last here… now, you can go across the dam, but not reconnect with the highway. Sad.

Dinner tonight was in the condo – yesterday’s chili sauce cut 50% with chicken stock and nice hunks of pork baked in the oven… by my estimate, everyone had at least half a pound of pork in that sauce… Yummy.

Me – on the Murphy bed tonight… alone.

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I don’t know what’s up with this getting up early without an alarm… it my body still on Thailand time?

As promised, here is the video of the 3-bedroom penthouse:

Not bad, just not as nice as I’d like.

Used the leftovers of steak and potato in this mornings egg scramble that followed the traditional bloody maries.

Off to the airport at 11:30 to pick up Dan and Lisa, Javier coming in at one, but going directly to the strip to have lunch with friends before I pick him up at 4. And his mother’s best friend, and more….

Travelling geeks, this photo should be called:

Note the 4-port router/switch from Boeing, complete with cords running to all the chairs.

Dinner tonight was venison cube steaks in this spicy chili sauce that Javier brought the chilis from Mexico, combined with garlic, tomatillos, onions… seriously spicy, but nice and fresh. Fresh aspargus, steamed, salad, wine, conversation.

All is good.

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Up at 6 for some unknown reason… at least that means some billable hours before MoonSong comes to clean and take a look at my kitchen sink drain which has been dripping water. With me being out of town, it should be fixed by the time I return. Yahoo!

Mick arrived a little after 10 for the run to the airport – MasterPark here we come – he ride having fallen through. I have coupons so no worry.

Boardroom for breakfast for Mick and snacks for me… nice to be sitting up front on the flight courtesy of the $99 companion fare which works best if you book one in First Class, then add the other for $99 and split the cost between the two people. End result = $400 each round-trip in First Class.

Thank you Honda for sponsoring free wi-fi on Alaska flights until December 9^th – may you extend it! I never get my laptop out during the flights – that’s my reading time. But if it’s free, I’m all over it. I actually got a little more billable time in (yes, that old drumbeat of $$$ for this deadbeat)

And since I had the laptop out, we have a picture for today:

That would be from the camera on the laptop. High-tech fun at 37,000 feet. Mick was even using www.FlightTracker.com to track our progress during the flight.

Arrived in Vegas to the hell of the “Rental Car Center” and the wretched shuttle. The Thrifty deal I signed up for was what they call the “Wild Card” deal – same price as a compact and they give you whatever mid-size and above they have on the lot. We ended up with a light blue Gran Marquis (leather seating for 6 medium-sized people)… apparently yesterday they were giving out mini-vans, which would have worked for us just as well since we have 15 showing up for dinner on Saturday, and around 10 people the rest of the time.

Got to the condo at 3:45pm – the 3-bedroom “penthouse” was ready and waiting for us. “Penthouse” is in quotes because it’s not exactly what I would call “penthouse” quality… maybe it’s just that it’s Vegas and everything is cheap and tacky.

Speaking of cheap and tacky – shopping for groceries at the Food4Less down the road was a truly cheap and tacky experience. Luckily all the stock boys were young and pimply emo types (for those not in the know….EMO, short for emotional – dyed black hair, not quite goth, but usually twig skinny nerdie boys)

Settled in for the news and a steak/baked potato/salad dinner with a lovely Pinot Noir. I’ll have to shoot a quick video of the condo for tomorrow’s posting so you can see the “odd” furniture choice/placement.

Off to bed.

[231.0]

I love a day that is jam packed with even some things that pay the bills. Meeting prep in the morning then two meetings in the early afternoon – guess what, added another title to my hat for one of my projects – prototype fabricator. Who knew that being familiar with sewing elastic would come in handy in the business world.

After the eastside meetings it was off to by supplies, pack all the Christmas presents for shipping to New Mexico, then off to the apartment to pick up what is supposed to be the new living room computer.

I guess I didn’t read the SIZE specs on this beast.

The box – compare to water heater in utility room — you should have seen me getting it in the Miata for the trip home:

The machine itself – yes, that is a monitor sitting on top of it:

The damn thing is 28″ long! Not to mention 18″ wide and less than 2″ thick. Gonna be interesting finding a place to mount it short of a rack.

The specs on the machine:

IBM eServer xSeries 336 Dual Xeon 3.0 GHz 1U Server

• General Features:
  
• No Operating System!
  
• 1U form factor
  
• Two (2) Xeon 3.0 GHz single-core processors
  
• 800 MHz FSB speed, 1 MB L2 cache per CPU
  
• Intel E7520 chipset 
  
• 5 GB DDR2 ECC RAM (16 GB max)
  
• Two (2) 73.4 GB 15,000 RPM U320 SCSI hard drives
  
• Slim DVD-ROM drive
  
• No floppy drive
  
• Integrated ATI Radeon 7000 graphics chipset
  
• Integrated dual 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
  
• Diagnostic LEDs
  
• Integrated RAID 1 support 
  
• One (1) 585-Watt power supply w/redundancy option
  

Drive bays:

• Two (2) 3.5-inch drive days (both occupied)
  
• Slim drive bay for DVD drive (one occupied)
  

Expansions Slots:

• One (1) PCI-X slot
  
• Eight (8) 240-pin DIMM slots (six occupied)
  
• Two (2) SATA ports
  

Front I/O Ports:

• One (1) USB port
  

Rear I/O Ports:

• Two (2) PS/2 ports
  
• Two (2) USB ports
  
• One (1) 9-pin Serial port
  
• One (1) 15-pin VGA port
  
• One (1) System management port
  
• Two (2) RJ-45 Ethernet ports
  

Power Specifications:

• 585-Watt power supply (100-240V ~ 50/60HZ 8.3A/4.0A)
  

But really — $159.99 which included shipping a 43 pound box. Dual processors, 5GB RAM – this thing in lightning fast with Windows 7 Ultimate installed on it. Added Office 2010 and the Adobe Creative Suite 4 which Photoshop loads in record time, might have to move this into the office and turn it into the graphics machine. Guess I’ll have to get Graf over to figure out why the second 80GB drive isn’t being recognized by Windows – shows on boot.

A burrito from the truck at the Shell station for dinner while I configured the new beast and packed for Vegas – would love to see the TSA expression if they open my second checked (both free as MVP Gold) bag… 25# of meat and a full-length beaded gown and shoes.

[229.4]

Cyber Monday and what did I buy:

1. A replacement phone for the sorta-BF

   

2. A half case of wine mailed to the parents for the holidays, $89, free shipping.

   

3. A new pair of shoes – FINALLY they offered 20% off on custom shoes, might have to buy another pair.
   
   but I missed the window, so I didn’t get this pair:
   

Glo for dinner tonight – wasn’t my best effort. It was what was thawed when I realized I was scheduled for dinner. Chicken Coron Blue, salad, rye bread, good wine, good conversation…..

[231.0]

Up early, well, for me. Although I wanted to leave really early, the bed was warm, my will weak.

Here is a great snowy video from yesterday of a walk around the exterior of the suite at the Crystal Lodge:

What a great view from the balcony.

The return drive I’m piloting Janet’s car because she is nervous about driving in the snow. For me it’s nice to have some leg room, even if one of the leg’s is attached to a throttle peddle.

Wait times at the border (45 minutes at Truck Crossing, 15 minutes Peach Arch) pushed us to the Peace Arch and the remodelled crossing that is still under construction. My first visit here in over a year. It might be nice when it’s done.

Duty-free before the crossing yielded a couple of gifts…. Janet bought the bottle of Plymouth Gin ($19.85 ltr) and they were giving out insulated Cadbury shoulder bags. Nice treat.

Did a little shopping at Uwayjamaya after off-loading my luggage into the truck — need salad, eggs, bread at a minimum.

Exhausted by the time I got home, took a two hour nap that tempted me to just stay in bed and wake up in the morning… I barely resisted the temptation, got up, plugged in the computer, poured a cocktail, sparked up the TV for the nightly news and started on a dinner of Kobe Steak and salad.

Rest of the evening was spent finishing the last inch of several bottles of booze to make way for the new acquisitions.

Rough life.

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Snow on and off today… and the shovels start going at 5am to clean the pedestrian streets of the village.

French toast was the “hot breakfast” this morning. Really nice since it used that Canadian grocery store oddities of the double thick bread.

My after breakfast dip in the tub:

Hot water with chunks of snow from the roof dumping into the tub periodically.

Lunch was the leftovers from yesterday’s breakfast… still good. The afternoon spent hanging around the suite looking out at the snow – with a shopping trip for dinner supplies for tonight. It looks like I’m cooking for eight. Got some odd things in addition to the groceries:

Yes, I bought a souvenir Whistler snow plow. The shot was taken on the balcony. And when Aprèz Ski rolled around, two of the club members managed to Hoover an entire tray of Jello® shots left over from the party yesterday…

It’s blurry, but so were they after 32 shots by the guy on the left, and 27 by the guy on the right. The non-blurry photo is in the photo gallery link from yesterday. Or at least it will be soon.

Dinner was grilled wild salmon steaks (with Cod for Jodie), asparagus with hollandaise, salad, Texas toast and a couple of bottle of wine from Rob and members.

What a wonderful time – for tomorrow we leave.

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Grab and Go breakfast (coffee, yogurt, bagels, etc) starts at 6:30am

Hot breakfast starts at 7:30am – egg casseroles this morning, along with oatmeal and all the other grab and go stuff. And bloody maries for the chosen few.

What a lazy day – I didn’t leave the room except to get more ice from the machine. Lunch was leftovers from breakfast, and the Aprez Ski (after ski cocktails[byob] and appetizers runs from 3:30-6:30pm… today’s theme, white-trash cooking. Think spam and velvetta squares, mini hot dogs crockpotted with grape jelly, ritz crackers, kool-aid as mixer, you get the idea.

Here is a great shot from the balcony this morning showing the 8in of new snow we got last night.

And if you want to see all the pictures so far, here is the “WonderBar” from Twango:

The plan for dinner tonight was at Barefoot Bistro – where I’d eaten before with Curt and others. That was the plan – until I lay down for a nap at 7pm and didn’t get back up. On the bright side, I saved at least $100 (turns our more like $135 with the wine), which I can now spend on cooking dinner for the gang tomorrow night.

But apparently burning the candle at both ends for weeks on end has taken its toll.

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My apologies for the quality of the video — it doesn’t do the room and the view justice:

A total fluke. Thank Rob for asking the group sales manager for a tour of the top floor 3-bedroom unit. Thank the rest of us for gushing over it. It convinced the sales manager to call the owner of the hotel who had booked the top floor unit for himself this weekend – he traded us. I’m guessing he also locked in the group coming back next year to this hotel.

Lunch across the street at some Italian place where I had the Eggs Benedict — oh so Italian. Then off to the store for a toothbrush, which somehow didn’t manage to get packed, some postcards, some off Canadian chips (Ketchup, Dill Pickle, etc).

Had a lovely nap – like two hours, must be as a result of getting up at 7am when I didn’t really need to.

Dinner was downstairs at Ric’s Bar and Grill. Set menu, included in the package, would have worked better as buffet and to have had all the wait staff running drink orders. Next year. Food was good, I went for the feast, which was turkey AND ham and all the fixings (after a Caesar salad starter). The service was a cluster-fuck — should have been a buffet and they should have had all the staff running and ringing up drink orders — they could have sold three times as much.

I brought Natasha back to the suite after dinner for a nightcap, and conversation with the rest of the suite-mates and friends… what a lovely way to end the evening. The plan for tomorrow is hot tub and/or sauna with Natasha before/after her $48 sightseeing ride up and across the mountains.

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Why was I up so early? Really, 6am… the alarm was set for 7. Just couldn’t sleep with the excitement of a road trip.

At Swanda’s by 7 (half an hour early) and out the door an hour later in Rob’s honkin’ Suburban which should be named Big Blue.

A stop at duty free where I got my punch card filled (meaning that my 1.14ltr of Alberta Springs was $5) and then onto Squamish for lunch at the White Spot.

The digs in Whistler are a 3-bedroom suite – tonight it’s 5 of us in here: I’m sharing a room with Swanda tonight), Rob and Jodie in one of the queens, and Swanda’s sister in the other. Tomorrow she moves to a private room, Swanda moves to the queen and I have two beds to myself.

After we got settled, it was off to the IGA for a grocery run. FYI – 5pm is the wrong time to go to the store if you are in a hurry. If you are there to look at the snowboarders… well, then you are in luck. Many bags of groceries we are out the door.

I’m doing tonight’s meal (and breakfast tomorrow) which is a standing rib roast – damned expensive up here in Canadaland — $49 for a four pounder, ouch. Add some roasted vegetables in the bottom of the pan and a salad on the side and you have a meal. Thanks Rob for the two bottles of wine. Yummy.

The main event for the night is watching Jodie make the Jello shots for Black Friday.

Nice to have the view of the village at night. I’m staying in, but Rob and Jodie head out for after dinner drinks. Just can’t imagine it.

[230.5]

Up at 7 with the hope of an 8am quickie…. cancelled for the second day in a row by snow… and I even shovelled the front walk!

For those interested in the photo stream from the last trip (before I begin the next):

As for the next trip….I’m off to Whistler in the morning. Let’s see, that’s a different set of clothes from Thailand.

• Long sleeve shirts
• Serving platters
• WorldMark spice kit
• Hotspot kit
• Cameras
• Computer
• Brain cells
• Speedo for the pool
• Booze from duty free

OK — now I have my list. Crappy dinner tonight. Chicken spinach soup from the fridge to get my veggies, and a bunch of honey shrimp. Might have to hit the taco wagon.

[232.?]

I didn’t’ leave the house today… luckily there were a few things in the fridge since it decided to snow today. Last night when I went to the dinner party I had to put the top up. Do I now put on the chains? I even had a “nooner” reschedule for tomorrow morning (we will see if THAT happens).

Or maybe I should make a Christmas card for this year….note the slight sunburn.

Or not… no salad to go with dinner tonight, I didn’t leave the house today, so I was forced to defrost a t-bone, bake a potato and open a bottle of wine (and do two loads of laundry, pay the bills, deal with the stuff of life).

[231.2]

Didn’t sleep much on the plane… not surprising. Luckily I did get that four + hours of sleep in the transit hotel in Seoul, and I did update the post from yesterday with the video of it.

Swanda was at the airport to pick me up – wish it had been quicker getting my bag. Global Traveler was like 60 seconds, getting bags was like 30 minutes. Next time, carry on. But I do love being able to put my passport in the reader, then place my four fingers on the glass, and they have ALL of the information they need other than me checking a couple of onscreen boxes.

Came home, started a load of laundry, went to bed, Swanda called with info on Whistler cooking facilities, went back to bed, Curt knocked on the front door, forgot to give him his present, went back to bed….woke up at 5pm, just in time for cocktails and the nightly news.

Dinner tonight with the boys in the hood —- Shokti Bakti, Gnarlene, Wonderfu. Vegetarian, yes, me. Shepards pie, roasted root vegetables, chocolate mousse from scratch. My contribution to dinner was a bottle of Claret and changing the direction of how his refrigerator opens.

After dinner it was off to Gnarlene’s to test out his new sauna – NICE – the door I built for it looks great! Sorry, no pictures, forgot my phone at the house.

Then back to my house for a chat with Wonderful.

Off to bed with pill in hand – to reset my body clock back to this time zone.

[234.5]

Greetings from the Transit Hotel in the Seoul Airport — I opted for 6 hours of relaxation, peace and quiet in the hotel over:

• 18-holes of golf INSIDE the airport perimeter
• a tour of the city
• laying on a bench in the airport
• getting a massage and a shower

Three airports, three shirts. Two showers. Nothing makes travel  feel more undignified than it already is as sweating and feeling grungy. Pitted out one shirt on the Koh Samui to Bangkok and city run, then next on the Bangkok to Seoul run, and changed into my third shirt here in the hotel in the airport. Basically it’s like $45 for the 6 hours of sleep, showers, brushing teeth, getting free newspapers and hopefully snacks on the way out. Worth every penny.

I have a little video of the room, but no time to upload it — maybe if there is free wi-fi in the airport I’ll have time before my 12 hour flight that boards at 5:50pm (and arrives noonish in Seattle).

One thing I noticed — hell of a lot colder here in Seoul (disembarking this morning) than in Bangkok — and I fear I’ll freeze in Seattle as well as I wasn’t about to schelp a coat half way around the world.

Oh — and FYI, my new suitcase has been “christened”… the rum and tonic in the water bottle exploded mid-flight… at least the Jameson and Ginger Ale made it. It was handy for the long immigration line.

Duty free so far? A carton of Chinese cigarettes called Double Happiness — $235 Baht, about $8. Dunhills, Marlboro, etc. going for three times that, but that’s what I had left in Baht in my pocket.

Off to lunch and duty-free (for the booze).

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Just a short post as I still have a few minutes on my internet connection.

Up at 7, breafast at 8:30, BOB (butt on bus) scheduled for 10:30.

Today’s schedule:

• Koh Samui to Bangkok
• 10 hour layover
• Bangkok to Seoul
• 10 hour layover
• Seould to Seattle
• 12 hour flight

Ouch.

Was planning on staying at the airport in Bangkok, but now I need to go into town and get Fluffernutter set up with a free apartment for two nights courtesty of Beat and Habibi. Thanks guys!

Don’t expect much updating for the next day or so unless I get lucky.

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What a luxury to wake up at ones own pace… today that was 8ish for me, not unlike at home. And a wonderful sleep it was, one where you are worry free about missing a flight, a breakfast, whatever.

Today’s funny story… I’m at the salad bar (which also holds the cheese and cold cuts) and this German tourist says to me… “The Americans, they have not learned to speak quietly”… and we all know who he was talking about. My response, “Yes, I know, she’s in my group… imagine that all day.” That made him chuckle — probably in pity. Amazing to be able to annoy German tourists, who have the world’s worst travel reputation as being loud and pushy.

And speaking of tourists — Americans are in the minority. Aussies and Germans make up the largest contingent.

Spent part of the day walking the main drag with Fluffernutter looking for suitcases for us. After a lunch at Burger King (yes, I was with Fluffernutter) I had to have my picture taken in front of the McDonalds across the street.

Even Ronald is culturally sensitive.

The afternoon was spent hanging out in the air-conditioning. The morning rains had turned to sweltering afternoon humidity. Time to catch up on the blog, upload photos to the netbook, and start the packing process now that I have a new suitcase.

A couple of cocktails with the girls while they were getting ready to go out for the evening — and I got last nights orders totally wrong. Fluffer had the lasagna, Natasha the calamari and pizza and salad for the other.

Tonight’s dinner was at the restaurant downstairs. Avoid the oysters — they were the size of softballs and bland. The filet mignon was actually medium rare (order rare in this country) and looked much better than Fluffers T-bone so I gave him half of mine.

A little more packing, but it will really won’t happen until the morning. Guess I’d better start figuing out what I spent on trinkets for the customs declaration.

Travel day tomorrow.

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Really BIB at 6:40am… They had to have the hotel open the restaurant a day early to make this happen.

And to add insult to injury… guess who was seated across from me on the bus and screeched the entire way to the pier? At least I am not alone in my dislike. In conversations with others, we were talking about the percentage of people on any given tour that we didn’t really want to be around… I threw out the 10% figure, but on further consideration of this group, the consensus seemed to be 5% of any given group are the folks you don’t want to hang out with — the screechers, the Debbier Downers, the smelly and the obnoxious (not necessarily  in that order).

Our planned visit to the Angthong National Marine Park was replace with a snorkelling trip in the morning, followed by lunch on one of the islands and a couple of hours of beach time for more snokeling, or if you are me, laying in the shade reading (which is what I also did on the boat while the rest were bobbing in the water.

Needless to say, after a day in the sun, many of our crew were looking like lobsters, even with 60spf sunscreen on. I got red in some places, but nothing that I think will peel, but will turn to tan over the next couple of days even though I didn’t use any protection otre than monitoring the time I spent in the sun and searching out shade. Others were not so lucky and really are looking like lobsters.

The island we had lunch at looked like a nice place to make a destination…

Lots of wooden walkways around all the major rocks. Kinda cool.

And crabs in the buff….

Got back to the hotel around 6pm in serious need of a drink. First Fluffernutter joined, then Natasha and her roommate (who brought Jameson, Limoncello, mixers and snacks), then by Erik, the guide. Some would ponder partying in the guest room rather than on the beach or by the pool, but we’d been in the sun and heat all day, and air-conditioning is a wonderful thing — and you control (hopefully) the guest list — no screechers allowed.

Dinner was basically across the street with a menu typical of a tourist town, a little something for everyone. squid ink pasta for me, Fluffer had the calamari, and I forgot what the girls had (mysoginistic pig that I am).

A nice evening — even with monsoon rains coming down on the way back to the hotel.

Nice to have an evening where you can go to bed and not have to wake up at any given time — now THAT is a vacation.

And even nicer to get an email  asking you to be a Product Manager for the client that you were previously just doing logo and website design for.

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I quote from the original trip description…
“Morning at leisure with breakfast provided we return to Chaing Mail for our flight south that afternoon as we transfer to Koh Samui.”
Wow — BIB (butts in bus) at 7am… leisure.

Much herding cats to get us all and our luggage to the airport. Flights on time, and a bonus treat of time in the airline lounge between flights — free wi-fi, computers, snacks — I wish they had made an announcement that this was an “extra” provided for the tour, and not standard for budget travel in Southeast Asia. I appreciated it, others were grumbling about flaky internet access… hello, free.

By 4pm we were at the hotel….

Had a Long Island Ice Tea during happy hour, Went for a dip in the ocean, went shopping across the street at the most fun Kwikie Mart I’ve seen in a long time. First trip was for ice, rum, mixer… the second for smoker’s toothpaste and more dominos, and might have to get some things from the electrical section.

Dinner with Curtis — pasta Alfredo with chicken for him — I wanted the “Rip Eye” steak, but they were out, had to settle for the T-Bone — at least one portion had a little pink left in it.

Luggage shopping on the way home. Curtis and I both need new bags.

And tomorrow’s BOB… 6:40am — god help me.

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Man, this butt on bus at 7am has to stop. And it was even worse this morning — trying to get yesterdays post up, even without pictures, get packed, find a cash machine, stock the pack with snacks incase it’s another day of “odd” meal schedules.

Our next stop — the Lisu Lodge, a truly wonderful place — you could just leave me here… but no, we are off for:

• mountain bike ride (I declined)
• elephant camp tour (I accepted)

• box lunch by the river (duh — and HUGE, both full Thai and American lunches — lots of leftovers to stock the pack with) before heading back to the lodge for a couple of hours of free time (finally) before dinner at 7pm.

And what a lodge it was….

After a shower, it was time to set up the bar. We have a mission tonight… finish the bottles of booze so I’m not over the size/weight limit for tomorrow intra-Thailand flight.

Got to dinner late — yes, which means a bunch of the booze was gone, and was joined at the table by one of the most manipulative, coniving tour members that I have ever met. That put my appetite off — which was good since we were late and the food hoovered. Not a problem… we washed what was left down with a Thai Chenin Blanc — which was better than I was expecting, and nice to support a new industry in Thailand.

The rest of the evening was spent trying to drain all the booze so that it doesn’t have to be packed and take up valuable intra-Thailand weight allowance. Big fun hanging out on the deck wiht the girls drinking and telling stories.

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Well — can’t say I slept the best last night. Should have taken an Ambian. Nothing like a rocking dormitory.

And then there is the luggage crashing down through the night and then the early risers.

Still glad we did the try over flying or a motorcoach, but the expected arrival time of 9am moved to 11am because of the schedule change, and then to1pm because of the delay leaving Bangkok, and then finally to 3:30pm after delays through the day…. my favorite being the guy having to walk in front of the train applying something to the tracks to we would have the traction to make it up the grade.

What did our lovely group do to handle the situation… they broke out the tequila at 10:30 in the morning, and then the vodka, the beer, the scotch, the snacks, the board games and cards, then started ordering food from the dining car which was probably the best “train food” I’ve ever had.

What did the tour staff do about the delay — lemons into lemonade. After our tardy arrival in Chang Mai they gave us an hour to shower, and then arrange truck transportation and a walking tour of three wats (temples) followed by a trip to the night market. Other than the latest of getting food in my system, Wat a grand plan — the the night market was so much less crowded than the Bangkok market so I actually got some shopping done. Very little —  set of nines for Salamander (that’s domino talk).

Back to the hotel for a quick nightcap with Curtis and a little blog time before bed. Will have to finish this post down the road… sorry, no pictures, not enough time left in the day.

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