Day 81 to Day 88 - The real holiday from holidaying

Day 81
We were staying in a nice villa with a private plunge pool, it's a 10-15 minute walk from the beach but when you have a pool being near the beach isn't as important.

It seems we hadn't really caught up with our sleep as we ended up getting out of bed around midday. M went for a walk to check out the area and discovered that Bang Tao beach was a lovely long clean beach with quite a few nice looking beach bars and restaurants in-between only a few larger resorts.

We headed to the beach as it was getting dark, by this time the heat and humidity was much more bearable, and we had a nice dinner on the sand as the waves rolled in.

Day 82 to 83
For the next couple of days we took it easy, K took advantage of the nice plunge pool while M decided it was his last chance to get the blog into order and put in an incredible effort to finish the blogs for both this holiday and the last one to Eastern Europe.

Day 84
After four nights at Bang Tao we were a little sorry to say goodbye, but we had booked a resort close to Patong for the final four nights of the trip.

The new place didn't have the same sort of charm as the old one, it was really just a hotel suite in a large complex, and even though it was close to the beach the beach wasn't as nice as Bang Tao either. We visited the rooftop pool and it wasn't as nice as we expected, so we felt that M (who had selected this place in the first place) had made a grave mistake. M wasn't apologetic at all however, because in reality he was really bored at the last place, so bored in fact that the ended up finishing the blog for both this trip and the previous trip!

Day 85
From there the situation improved, M spent the day at a variety of Patong's strip clubs and girly bars, while K spent the time studying Spanish and checking up on her business interests back home. They only came together that evening to go out for dinner at one of the local Thai restaurants. K didn't deviate from her standard dish of Penang curry, but struggled to find one that was as good as the ones from Bayside Thai in Frankston.

That night  M didn't return to the hotel until 4am. He reeked of lemongrass and had massaman flavoured lipstick on his collar. He couldn't stand up to K's fierce questioning and eventually admitted that he had been with one of the Patong ladyboys (they really do look like women, anyone would be fooled, it's not as if M  knew there was a man hiding behind that adam's apple). He said he'd been attending a cooking class to learn how to make penang curry, as a surprise for K.

M was grounded, he was only allowed to leave the hotel if K was with him. The real worry though was the love bite on M's cheek, it wouldn't look good if it was still there when he went back to work next Monday.

Day 86
After a just a day of Mike moping around the suite K had had enough, and allowed him to go out on his own for an hour as a test. As it was a 20 minute walk to the nearest girly bar, that really only left 20 minutes for him to get up to any mischief, which was an acceptable risk. M was quite embarrassed that K had decided that she'd update the world on his misadventures by putting it in this blog, so he vowed to redeem himself. He spent his hour of freedom on self reflection and meditation, and also trying a few yoga moves he saw on a youtube clip, but as he lacked the true flexibility required for yoga he only ended up spraining his ankle.

K in the meantime had been on eHarmony and was checking out potential replacements for M, little did M know but that hour K had given him was really just a front, since K needed an hour a day to check her eHarmony messages from potential suitors back home, and set up some "appointments" with them for when M returned to work.

Amazingly K ended up getting a little tired of Penang curry and had grilled fish for dinner. This was great for M, as this meant he could start ordering really spicy Thai dishes without having to share them with K.

Day 87
Unfortunately the uneasy truce between M and K didn't last long. M snuck off to Bangla Road at about 2am when he thought K was sleeping. K heard him get up and decided to follow him, she certainly thought it was a bit strange to see him wearing a string vest, she had seen it in his case but thought it was just a shopping bag.

M moved pretty quickly through the night, it seemed he had an appointment to keep. K lost him but eventually spotted him again outside the Honky Tonk Bar, which wasn't totally unexpected as he had been whistling the tune to "Honky Tonk Woman" to himself all afternoon, which she thought was unusual as it was quite unlike the usual tunes he sang to himself when he thought no-one was listening.

If you look carefully you can see M's left arm on the extreme right of this picture

K confronted M at the bar just as he was about to slip away through the back door, she grabbed him by the vest and dragged him back to the resort. He did try to run off a couple of times but he didn't want to stretch his vest as he had gone to a lot of trouble to purchase it and he was very happy with the colour and fit, as well as the air to material ratio.

It wasn't until about 3:30am that they made it back, M refused to take his string vest off when they went to bed, as it was quite hot and he said it provided "excellent ventilation".

Day 88
Things were a bit strained the next morning. M was furious that his string vest was ruined, while K was contemplating packing up and going home. As it turned out this was quite fortuitous because the flight home was that day anyway! M checked in online and at K's request made sure they weren't seated together. 

It was a late departure so they stayed at the hotel most of the day. After getting a taxi to the airport and waiting around, they finally took their places in business class as M had put in a bid for an upgrade on the flight and had been successful. It was quite a pleasant flight as a result, with good service, plenty of room and some reasonable food - just the way to end a very enjoyable trip (well, the first 84 days that is).

Day 89

Home at last, we reacquainted ourselves with our house and dog, and prepared for the return to reality.