Friday (23 September 2016) to Thursday (29 September 2016)
Well I woke up Sunday mornin’, with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt… Now you may think I stole that line from Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down but you would be wrong, he was hung-over, I had the flu. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The strangest thing happened to me on the way to breakfast this morning. We bought a cluster of bananas the other day from which Adri made banana pancakes this morning. She took one bite and threw it out. I tried one and threw it out. This was the strangest thing. As that pancake entered ones mouth your whole mouth goes completely dry as if you just stuck a towel in there. A “normal” breakfast was quickly prepared which took away that dry bitter taste that was left in ones mouth.

There was a shrill shriek from above, then another and by the third I took note. “There’s a snake in the bed”, Adri yelled. She could not have referred to me as I was not up there. As I rushed up the stairs a correction came, “It’s one of those wormy things” which we eventually identified a few days later as a type of an earwig. Not dangerous at all but a hellishly ugly looking thing. My new plakkas that I bought in Chiang Mai, which are heavier than the old ones, were put to good use and I required just one whack for that earwig to leave its earthly existence.

With all the traveling and settling in during the past week I did not have much time for blogging so Friday we stayed mostly indoors to catch up. I was all done by late afternoon so it was time for fun.

As I was putting my helmet on I felt that the strap had twisted and without taking it off I tried to twist it back but had no success. Annoyed I took the helmet off and would you believe, there was a twist of another kind, a snail was stuck in there, a rather large little mother as well.

This was not our only run-in with a snail this week though. We had just completed our Sunday shopping when we got back onto the bike and there was yet another snail, perched on the seat of the bike, hoping to hitch a ride back home. Picking it up, the store owner next door, thinking that I was going to crush its life offered to take it in. I would never do that, it’s only creepy crawlies, like earwigs, whose lives I tend to end. I gave the snail its very own seat for the ride back home and the store owner gave me a knowing smile. When we arrived home that snail was placed on a leafy leaf to continue its snail trail at its own snail’s pace, the bike was much too fast for him.

Anyway, it was Friday night and we had a date to keep with Tommee Balukea who was going to perform live at the Mountain Bar. As we entered the bar the barman greeted us with a “same same?”, I nodded, and a Sangsom and big Chang appeared. And soon Tommee appeared and put on a spirited performance, we had a front row seat. Man, this guy sure knows how to make that guitar of his talk. There were reggae sounds, African and Spanish inspired sounds, this guy is really good. I managed to get a short video clip of one of his songs, it’s too large in size so I could unfortunately not upload it to this blog post. I will try and upload it to YouTube and then make it available next week.

Adri commented on the artwork on his guitar. Turns out that it was done by an artist in Indonesia and what made it so special to him was the fact that the artist made a brush from Tommee’s hair which was used to paint that artwork.

Saturday was a quiet day as we binge watched the fourth season of House Of Cards and finally finished it off late in the afternoon. We quite enjoyed it and the way it ended I assume there’s probably room for another infinite number of seasons.

In the evening we had a burger at a local joint called Burger Queen (told you I’ll never eat a burger at Burger King again) and the queen’s burger was definitely better than the king’s. It was also better than the one we had at the walking street stall the other night, but still never close to Oi’s burger at the Cheunjai Resort. What actually drew us to this place though were their chips, they were 100% homemade, huge and crispy, just perfect.

… Well I woke up Sunday mornin’, with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt… I had a fitful sleep interrupted seemingly continuously throughout the night. Man, I have not felt this crap for the longest time. Thinking back on the week this flu must have taken root on Tuesday when we arrived at our accommodation with the rain pouring its heart out, drenching me from head to toe and then some.

Just as we were ready to leave for the pharmacy to try and still my pain the rain came down. Bummer. After the rain finally stopped early afternoon we went to a pharmacy in town with me at the handle bars, Adri at the back, me donning my leather jacket. Seriously, I could not afford even the slightest breeze on that radiator of mine.

After getting home I took my ridiculously cheap locally manufactured antibiotics and what not and tried to sleep, but that never came. And just when I thought I could not feel any worse, I did… I had a fever of a hundred and high, it felt like I was knocking on death’s door. And as that door was slowly creaking open the Ibuprofen I took earlier thankfully kicked in and kicked the door shut, to the chagrin of whoever was on the other side.

Our apartment is a double volume studio with the bedroom situated above the lounge area in a loft arrangement. There is no air-conditioning but there are two fans, one upstairs and one downstairs, and quite frankly, sometimes I prefer them to air-con. But not in this case though. As you know, hot air rises and thus the hottest of the hot air converges right up there in the loft, exactly where this hot body was lying – if you know what I mean – right there where I was trying to orchestrate my recovery. I was holed up there in my hot little hellhole in the loft day and night and I did not dare have the fan’s air directly on me for obvious reasons. It was uncomfortable and it definitely did not aid in my recovery.

There was no way we were going out for supper this evening so Adri rode back into town and bought some ingredients at the fresh produce market and at a minimart simply called 97. Don’t ask, don’t know, weird.

At least I did not lose my appetite and ripped my way through the spaghetti Bolognese, or rather penne Bolognese that Adri prepared. This was accompanied by a proper whole-wheat bread that Adri found at 97 which we had not seen in a while. This store is apparently nothing fancy but have some farang type stuff that 7/11 does not keep. After supper I took my second set of medication at around 21:00 and slept mostly okay.

Monday found me feeling ever so slightly better, but at this point any improvement was okay in my book. I had a mild cough but by now my ribcage felt like there were a million sadists with machetes cutting away at my insides every time I did cough. My body was aching the ache of a thousand aches. I was miserable…

But the Dalai Lama cheered me up when I saw a short video clip of him doing an impersonation of Donald Trump making mention of his small round little mouth that just talks, talks, talks… How did we all miss commenting on that small round little mouth of his? Maybe because it talks so big. And Trump already has a physiological complex about his small hands which has been the butt of many jokes over the last few years. Now he has another small thing to add to his small mind.

Adri got supper stuff from the walking street and there was a plastic fork in there with one tine missing, did not know where it went so I got worried. Later on Adri found the tiny tine and was I relieved, imagine I swallowed it having to pass it in the morning, sideways, if you know what I mean?

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling yet another tad better than yesterday. It was 08:00 on Tuesday in Pai and 21:00 on Monday in New York as we started watching the first US presidential debate. I don’t think anyone learned anything new from this debate; it was the rehashing of already rehashed stories from the past number of years. Now I am not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but… she looked presidential, Trump looked like, well, Trump. She spoke eloquently; Trump squandered the full extent of his vocabulary of five words of “huge, disaster, amazing, tremendous, very”, within the first minute and kept on repeating them ad nauseam.  She articulated her policies; Trump articulated that he had no policy.  She actually answered the moderator’s questions; Trump just went blah blah blah…

Not feeling well enough to rise from the dead, I mean bed, I stayed in my hot little hellhole in the loft for yet another day. I tried to sleep, did not succeed, tried to read, did not succeed.

Adri again went into town to gather supper for us and came back with pork ribs which she prepared in our small but very functional kitchen. Man, 10 out of 10 for those spare ribs, better than, dare I say, most steakhouses, she sure will give them a run for their money. The ribs were accompanied by a perfect partner of mashed potato, just great.

By Wednesday I think cabin fever had started to set in, “I just had to get out of zees place”, so we rode into town for a breakfast at Café ‘d’ tist in Pai town. The food was great, the coffee better, but the best thing was that I was amongst the living.

There we met a lovely young couple from Germany who have just finished school and were taking a gap year to travel. They only started a few weeks ago and will travel across the Southeast Asia region, then head on to Australia for Christmas and New Year after which the lass will continue on to South Africa for a volunteer assignment she signed up for. She will be stationed in Plettenberg Bay, one of the most beautiful regions in the country, for about four months.

Anyway, on the way to breakfast we stopped off at the t-junction that leads into town and there we found two guys on their bikes staring at the street. As we approached we also saw the large crab crossing the street sideways. Did his mother not teach him it is quicker and safer to take the shortest route across the road? Be as it may, the one guy said “Holy crap, that guy was just missed by a few centimeters by two passing cars!” I thought “Holy crab” would have been a better choice of words.

After our breakfast we got home and a slight weakness set in so I had to return to my hot little hellhole upstairs.

Supper tonight consisted of a lovely pea soup that also contained some carrots and potato, and was accompanied by the last of that fresh whole-wheat bread, laden with a thick layer of butter.

Every day is a step closer to getting rid of the flu and any improvement is accepted and appreciated. I again had to “get out of zees place” so late Thursday morning we left for town and stopped off at Boomelicious Restaurant for a late breakfast. ”That was nice” I heard myself lie when the waiter removed the empty plates. My brekkie burger was not bad but a rather tasteless affair, Adri seemed to have enjoyed her omelette with mushroom, tamato (sic), English spinach and feta with toasted sourdough bread. Maybe it was just me. Oh, and at least they had a sense of humour, their wifi password was “itsnotworking”. It did work very well though.

With my having been sick and all and thus not having seen all that needed to be seen, we decided to spend another week in Pa and started looking for alternative accommodation. There are much to choose from but most of the places cater to the backpacker trade, not terribly suitable to old fogies like us. Via bookings.com we identified a small establishment called LiLu Hotel, checked out the rooms which were nice and clean and the price included an American breakfast. After checking out a few more places we returned to LiLu Hotel and paid our deposit, we’ll be checking in next Monday morning for a week.

We were on our way to check out the other places but dark clouds were swirling and sprinting in our direction far too quickly, we needed to find refuge. We stopped off at the Madame Ju restaurant as the first specs of rain started to fall. Having just had breakfast we were still stuffed but I was thirsty. I was leaning towards a beer but still being on antibiotics I was not gonna take that chance. I settled for a blueberry soda and man, was that good and refreshing. Adri had a cappuccino and we whiled away nearly two hours there while the storm raged outside.

I was sitting on my makeshift verandah at home relaxing and reading when a black masked scary creepy crawly rushed past me at a dizzying speed and just… disappeared. I needed to know what that was but further investigation amongst the rocks outside revealed nothing. It was a few minutes later that this same creature of the night re-appeared and disappeared at that same dizzying speed. It was a pitch black butterfly that just happened to be flying around at ground zero.

We were planning to go out for supper but by the time we needed to leave I was feeling really tired after being on my feet for most of the day. Adri rode into town and brought home a wonderful array of foods for supper. I got a chicken shawarma, Adri had a fried vegetable dish and that bag also produced another three kebabs, two chicken and one pork. Wow, I could never have selected a better meal myself.

I was not yet 100% but feeling a whole lot better than earlier in the week. I even felt good enough to watch a movie tonight which turned out to be The State Of Play that IMDb describes as “When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the congressman, his old college friend.” With a cast of Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren it was bound to be pretty good, and it was.

Tonight I took the last of my medication so we’ll see how that works out for me…

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