TonyT's 9th Thailand blog:
18 days in and around the country:
Christmas 2025 to January 2026.

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Page 6

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BANGKOK and back home

(to a big freeze)

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SATURDAY 3rd JANUARY
Not a late night last night as everyone weary after the long trek from Surin through bad traffic.
Breakfast at 08:30 and ordered a taxi to take us to huge MBK Shopping Centre. The gang wanted various items; Aom a small handbag, Dan some T-shirts, Jack some shorts and YT, T-shirts and swim shorts; the former on offer at 200THB.
This used up several hours including a coffee stop at a Starbucks. Caught a taxi back but Aom laid into the driver for attempting to overcharge us; they can be greedy bas***ds. The guy drove off with a proverbial flea in his ear.
Out in the evening mainly in Soi 8. Dinner here too with quite a few drinks into near midnight.

SUNDAY 4th JANUARY.
Last day for myself and my two sons. My wife, Aom, was staying on for a further 3 weeks. She'd booked in for a minor operation (much cheaper and VERY much quicker than the sad NHS back in UK) and also to help her mum back in Surin to help get the farm back up to speed after the recent evacuations due to the border fighting with Cambodia. She'll join us in late February
Aom & Dan went of to Terminal 21 to do some "shopping". Aom, as usual, bought huge quantities of Thai produce to take back to UK. This was distributed between the cases.
Aom, is actually staying in our apartment tonight which means the rest of us have almost the whole day to retain the apartment. She will check into another hotel across town for a while longer. In fact I taxied with her to drop her case off at the new place.
Back at Nana, we had a late lunch at the Vivo restaurant. It was a case of relaxing until our taxi to the airport at 17:15.
Both flights, long, tedious, and tiring as usual. However, they were on time and uneventful.

MONDAY JANUARY 5th
OMG!! What a homecoming. MINUS 5°C at Manchester Airport with a hefty dusting of snow.; 34°C difference in temperature from Bangkok. And, yes, I DO want to go back ASAP!
Friend, Pete struggled through bad road conditions to pick us up.
The homecoming was made even worse as the house central heating had developed a fault and had not been heating the house. Luckily, nothing had frozen-up although the house plants looked a little worse for wear. I did manage to fix the fault.

All in all it has been a fantastic trip back to LOS. We did so much and covered so much ground in such a short time; albeit very expensive. Having my eldest son along was a huge bonus and it had been a real eye-opener for him. He particularly loved the islands but seeing the real Thailand off the beaten track and finally meeting the Thai side of the family was a good move.

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