Recovery

Friday February 22nd

After yesterdays exertions I expected to have to do nothing but recover, but in fact I didn't really feel too much in my legs. I think as much of the exhaustion was due to the fact that we were going up at 2pm, which is probably the wrong time to go up. But I had drunk enough water and I guess that stopped me from having any cramps.

Still, all I did all day was just hung around the town, and went to a few bars. As it was my last night in Thailand, and I still had some Baht to spend, I splurged and went for a fairly decent meal, cost me just over 8 euro for a main course, a beer, and (I think for the first time on the trip) a dessert.

I was still trying to find a happening centre of town. There were a few lively bars, but as they had the names Lucky Bar and 69 Bar (and others like them) I was avoiding them as I guessed I'd be hassled in there (they looked pretty dodgy). So I went to the Long Bar, and wasn't 30 seconds in there before I had this Thai girl hassling me. I eventually drank up, made it clear to her that she wasn't leaving with me, and legged it to the relative safety of the Irish Bar.

The Irish bar was interesting because it truely was an Irish bar, they wouldn't allow some people to smoke in there. Which brings me to the subject of smoking (I promised a rant).

Over here about 80% of the backpackers appear to smoke. It really puts me off (girls, I don't care about the blokes who smoke). An English girl I was speaking to the previous night smoked about 5 in the time it took to drink one drink. To be honest I wasn't too disappointed when she left at that point. I can't understand it. Back in Europe smoking levels are not that high, so is it that only smokers come away backpacking, or is it that once out here, people start smoking. I have to think it is the latter, and if that is the case then it is a great ad for the effectiveness of high cigarette prices (I think 20 cost about 1.50 over here) and not allowing people smoke in bars. Although as a lot of the bars are outdoors a smoking ban like ours wouldn't really make much of a difference. The interesting thing will be to see how many of these people can give up the smoking when they go back, or are they hooked.

Anyway rant over, with the smokers banished the Irish pub was empty, and as I had a 6 am start the next day, I thought is best to leave at about 10.30. Still can't figure out where the nightlife is in this town (other than in the bars that I'm avoiding).