All Good Things . . .

Our last meal in Yangon was at the Monsoon restaurant down by the river. Their menu specialises in dishes from around the South East Asian region but we settled for a selection of Burmese curry dishes; the first proper local grub I'd eaten since my stomach got mugged at the start. It was a leisurely affair as our flight to Bangkok wasn't due until tea time. As it was, it was late leaving, too, so we didn't get back to Chez Cav's until 9 in the evening. Mike muttered about going out but lounging around at airports tends to drain one a tad so we settled for an early night. Now its wind-down time before the long haul back to Blighty.

Friday was a leisurely affair too; Linda and I settling for a local Thai restaurant up on Soi 20 and a couple of drinks at Happy Hour before the polis forced all the bars and restaurants on Sukhumvit to shut down because it was Buddha Day. Saturday, Mike decided it was time we two had a pub crawl so we left the girls at home with a gin bottle and hit the town. Arrived home at three in the morning, relieved of a considerable pile of money, after a kaleidoscopic tour of go go bars, pool bars, sports bars, county & western bars, roadside bars, bars of ill-repute, rock bars, dance bars, you name it! Sunday saw the obligatory lie in 'til around midday. In the evening the five of us (including offspring James) treated ourselves to an open air barbecue: the sort where they put a large metal tray of hot coals on your table and you help yourselves to an endless variety of strange meats, weird fish, slimy seafood, foreign vegetables and unknown random delicacies to put on your grill or moat of do-it-yourself stock. Any thirst you may develop under the radiating heat can be assuaged with the help of a three litre tower of Singha beer (the girls took their own bottle of wine). Great fun! On Monday Linda wanted to see the "largest aquarium in South East Asia", the Ocean World in the basement of Siam Paragon shopping complex. It was certainly the most expensive aquarium I'd ever been to: nearly £20 each. Still, Linda enjoyed it. She's got a thing about penguins which is probably why I own so many T-shirts with pictures of the damn things. They were funny, though, even if she has got this habit of talking to them like Johnny Morris in Animal Magic (if you are old enough to remember that kid's show, that is: mostly we just get stared at by the other tourists). One penguin we dubbed "Vi" ("Village Idiot") had us so amused with its repeated neurotic waddle to peer at the water's edge and back to its house that we clapped when it finally threw itself in. More stares from the other tourists so we moved on to see some cool multi-tonne sharks (you could count the teeth!) in the underwater tunnels. Tuesday saw Linda on the Immodium again, unfortunately, so that was a quiet day. Probably her body telling her that its had enough sun, spicy food and alcohol and its time to take it home, thank you very much! Wednesday's our last day with an early flight on Thursday morning so that, as they say, is very much that!

Many thanks to those who stuck with my ramblings, even more so to those who took the trouble to add comments and encouragements, and especially to the philosophical musings of the Woodlands Caravanserai and friends. I usually write this for posterity, something to aid Linda's and my failing memory cells, so your witticisms add to the fun from this end considerably. See you in the Leap sometime!