Dinner at Cha Chas and Golf in the Red light district

After returning from our massages we retired to our separate rooms. At about 6 we met again at the club for the happy hour. Tonight my choice was a Bloody Mary but after 3 or 4 I just had tomato juice. About 7-30 we headed out to an Indian restaurant called Cha Cha’s and son. Jeff and Kellie went there when they lived here in the 80’s and the original founder has since passed away but the son runs it in the same tradition. Again the food was superb although we had trouble finishing it. The boys had a big lunch and I’d had a number of serves of the finger foods at the club earlier. I’d skipped lunch and only had some fruit since breakfast, so it was hard to wait.

Speaking of fruit, with bananas at $12 or more per kg in Australia at the time, my friends back home may be interest to know they are less than $1 per kg.

After we’d finished eating, we took a taxi to Patpong, where one of the group filled a wish list for DVDs from her kids. I looked at CDs but didn’t see anything I really wanted. We walked back to the hotel – not that far – and then 4 of us had a few drinks in my room before finishing about 11pm.

Monday

I slept much better last night although I woke with a sore neck. I arrived for breakfast as the last of the others were leaving and when I got back to my room I found 2 of the girls had headed to Chinatown already. I met Jeff in the lobby and we wandered down the street, stopping at Robinson’s department store for a bit before heading for the Asiabooks shop in Patpong, which at night is the red light district.

The building it is in is a golf ghetto, with over 30 golf shops there. We met up with the rest of our group there as well. We looked but didn’t actually buy anything (other than some socks – how exciting) and then got back to the hotel. We then took taxis to the Shangrila Restaurant in China Town, where we met the other 2 and one of their friends who is a Buddhist monk, for a dim sim lunch. Food again was great, although it was a bit soon after breakfast for me.

The other 3 girls went shopping again after lunch but I went with the 3 boys to the massage place the girls had visited yesterday. The boys had foot massages but I opted for the full Thai massage of 2 hours. The masseur was only a slight woman, under 5 foot and slim but she certainly knew how to put pressure on a muscle. She massaged (almost) every muscle in my body right down to the finger tips. There was a bit of pain and she kept saying “hard” and pointing to my calf, quads or whatever. My experience with sport massage at home left me with an expectation of a painful experience that leaves you better than you started and this was no exception. I feel fine now, some 7 hours later.

We had another happy hour at the club, this time I opted for Bacardi and cokes. I had enough finger food, combined with the lunch, to not want to eat an actual meal for dinner. The others had a meal at the Banana House, a Thai home cooked style place, which cost them about $6 each. Rick and I have plans to play golf later in the holiday so I headed to the golf building to try and buy some shoes and balls, while they were eating. As you can see, the street looks different night and day. A lot of the golfshops were already closed, including the one with the cheap shoes, but I did manage to get us 10 balls each for about $11. I joined the others back at the restaurant and resisted offers to try this or that. While I was sitting there one of the waitresses came over with a plastic bag, which she gave to me. It contained another 7 golf balls. What an unexpected gift!

We had a brief visited to the shopping area for more DVDs and then headed back for a few drinks before bed. I'm hoping that the pillow I bought earlier will help with the sore neck problem.

I had a reply to my email to the place I bought my camera from. The suggestion of a reset seems to have fixed the sync problem, so I am able to get some night shots again.