Who's silly idea was that then.....

Erm....that would have been mine!!!

Tuesday was Queen Sirikit's birthday and as part of the celebrations there was a special Charity 1.8km 'fun run-walk' event being held in Benhakiti Park next to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre. It only cost 250 baht to enter (£3) and all the money raised was going towards The Queen Sirikit Centre for Breast Cancer to assist the early detection screening programme of the centre. Fantastic....thought I.....let's do that. It wasn't till later that I realised that registration for the event was at 6am....6AM....and by that time it was too late....I'd already sent an e-mail out to a few friends asking who fancied doing it (Note to self: Read EVERYTHING before asking people if they want to join you!!).

So on Tuesday Chris and I were up at 5am (inhumane time to be up in the morning!!) to be ready in time to meet up with Moon, Georgie and Debbie and be at the registration on time. Well, I had to laugh...we had no clue what was going on or where we needed to be and we discovered that having a Thai with you didn't necessarily make things any clearer!! What a giggle....after some time crowd watching and figuring out where to get numbers and pins to put said numbers on shirts...we finally worked out that there were three separate events that you could do. There was the proper run, the fun run and, if you didn't fancy either of them, you could spend the time it would take to do the run engaging in Community aerobics!!! We did the 'fun run-walk'...we even have a medal to prove it (although I think calling it a mini marathon was a bit of an imagination stretch!!)

We had a lovely relaxing afternoon recovering from our mornings activity and then the lovely Susan jetted in from Deli (She's staying with us for a couple of days). We had a blether and then we went out for Tapas. It was rather funny when this lot pitched up and started serenading us (They must have been bloody hot in that get up!!)

Cheap Charlies, Tapas and ACDC singing Thai's

We decided to try somewhere new last night so headed down to Soi 11 to have a drink at a bar called Cheap Charlie’s which we had been told was really good. I think that the term 'bar' was a rather generous description of the place - I saw it and laughed my head off.

It's actually a small wooden shack on the corner of a sub soi......actually it's not even a shack.....it's more of an outside bar that looks like it grew from the side of a building - there is enough space in it for a Thai barman (Thai's of course are not huge people), beer, vodka (I had one so I know that they have it), gin and not hellish much else. You have to bend down to order your drink (my vodka and tonic cost a grand total of 60 baht.....less than a pound.....ahhh.....that's why it's called Cheap Charlie’s) then you perch on stools or sit at the table (I'll come back to the table in a minute) inside a white circle which is drawn on the road. 'Why the white circle' I hear you ask because if your seat is not inside the white circle you run the risk of being run over by passing cars.....of course!! (We're back to the 'Only In Thailand' shrug of the shoulders).

The table.......ah yes......can't forget about that. There is no easy way to describe this so I’m just going to come right out and say it - the table is a big wooden penis!! I've found a picture (Does that make me really sad??). The other thing that had me roaring with laughter was the sign that stated 'Now - open lady toilet here pee do not shit' they had even underlined the shit!! Chris and I loved the place (not sure if that is a good or bad thing) - everyone was really friendly and believe it or not we met a Canadian woman who's family are from Ardrossan....her mum went to Ardrossan High School and her Aunt still lives there (Sadie I wouldn't be surprised if you knew her)....Chris was actually lost for words - I should have taken a photo!! It is easily the weirdest place we have ever sat and had a drink.

After Chris had recovered we went round the corner to try out Charlie Browns (I think perhaps the Thai's have a thing about the name Charlie) which apparently does really good Mexican food but it was shut so we decided to walk a bit further down the soi and came across a Spanish restaurant called Tapas Cafe. There were about three people in it (It had only been open a few days and we actually ended up being invited to their Grand Opening the next evening) but the food was fantastic - we had Albondigas (Spanish Meatballs), patatas bravas and proper spicy chorizo. Chris was in seventh heaven....cheap booze....chorizo....life just doesn't get any better......

Then we heard the band......
Not far from us is a small (Well.....small for a Thai shopping mall) mall called Time Square and during December they put out tables and chairs in the evening and have bands that come and play. We were on our way home when we heard Pink Floyd being played (and being played well.....which is not something you can say about Thai cover bands very often!!) so we headed over, sat down and were delivered a pitcher of beer. The band played for about an hour and a half and were very good - it was strange watching a small Thai man jump up and down whilst singing ACDC but not nearly as confusing as when they changed from singing rock songs in English to something very odd in Spanish. Baffling but hey.....it kept the Spanish theme of the evening....