Saturday, 17th September

Saturday

I’m in Thailand to spend some time alone. As you know, I’ve had an awful year and I wanted some time to sift through my thoughts and feelings and do something positive for myself. The anniversary of Mum’s death is on 7th Oct and I wanted to be somewhere beautiful doing something special on that day.

My general plan for the 6-week trip is to live in the present moment as much as possible and keep the focus on myself. I’ve never been on holiday by myself, and so much of my life is spent responding to other people that having time alone to just look after myself seems the right thing to do. Of course I want to sightsee, but that is not my primary aim. I need downtime to re-find my mojo, rejuvenate my mind and body and just chill. Roughly, the time in Thailand and half in Bali. I am not planning any whistle stops, no checking off must-sees or must-do’s, and focusing on be-time and me-time.

As part of the ‘focus on me’ trip, I booked a thorough medical in Bangkok. Seemed like a good idea when I booked it, I doubted it a bit when I paid for it, but on the morning of the medical, Saturday, I woke up dreading it. I am phobic about blood tests and so that alone is enough to trigger a bad case of morning terrors. Anyway, first thing, after a good nights sleep after an uneventful and largely smooth flight on Friday, I woke up feeling dread. However, I didn’t check the cancellation policy or try to negotiate the appointment away, but sticking to the nil-by-mouth, got in a taxi to the hospital. Everyone knows what a medical is like and in Bangkok it is slick and smooth and thorough. The nurses got an up close look at a phobic person in action but I am sure they’ve seen it before.

Moving on. After the hospital I headed to the Apple store which is inside Bangkok’s largest mall, Centre World. I’m not a massive mall and reluctantly joined the drifting masses before finally escaping.

Met up with friends from Kenya for supper at a club at the top of a mall. It was a great venue, minus the glass bridge across 6 floors of nothing, but it was a ‘back to school’ theme night and for some reason the music was stuck on max. We gave up trying to talk, ate and went to another club, hoping it would make up for what this one lacked. Havana Social - not easy to find and a secret code needed to get in - but once inside absolutely fantastic. The old Havana theme was taken all the way across three floors of the backstreet building. The music was perfect and we had a great time. So one miss and then a hit; a typical Saturday night out the world over!