Well, wasn’t yesterday a momentous day!!!
In hindsight, I probably would have been more poetic if I had got the tattoo on my last day in Thailand instead but, hey, when you do something spontaneous you don’t think about stuff like that.
Today, I had one mission.
An easy one.
Get anti-bacterial, non-scented soap and some ointment to put on my fresh tattoo.
I spent some time reading up on after care of a tattoo online. While there was alot of varying advice, the underlying advice was I needed those two items.
Back home – not a problem.
Here it’s a little more challenging…
First thing I had to figure out was how on earth I was going to get to the pharmacy down the street without getting soaking wet by waterguns out for the third and final day of Songkran.
Seriously… their new years in celebrated over 3 days…
I just headed out onto the street in my swimtrunks expecting to get wet. I had my wallet wrapped in a plastic bag and I was going to try to keep my tattoo hidden from the water coming at me.
While it’s okay to get the tattoo wet, I’m thinking getting it doused with questionable water from buckets probably wasn’t the best thing for it.
I turned the street corner and to my amazement no one was lying in wait to attack me.
Yes!
It was 11am and I guess they were still all sleeping in.
Whatever the reason, I was happy. I reached the pharmacy unscathed and when I told the man I needed some ointment for my new tattoo he knew exactly what to get.
Awesome!
I guess with the amount of tattoo parlors around here it’s a pretty common request for him.
The ointment cost 200 baht ($7) and I have no idea if I got ripped off or not. Oh well.
He didn’t have any soap so I went across the street to the 7-11 to pickup a bar of unscented anti-bacterial soap.
And… Done…
Mission accomplished!
I stopped for another meal of breakfast/lunch on my way back. I had the pad thai I was sorely missing from yesterday.
I came back to the hostel and really had no plans to leave for the rest of the day. I knew the dormant watergun and pail throwing assassins would be coming out of their slumber soon and I really had no desire to get wet anymore.
My desire was so strong that I actually ordered McDonalds delivery in the afternoon. Don’t judge me! I was trapped, dammit!
I spent some time skyping with my brother who I will see in just a weeks’ time when I visit his home in Osaka. He’s been a great help with advice on different cities I visit as he’s already visited most of them.
This time we talked about Singapore as I fly there tomorrow for a couple of days before flying onto Kuala Lumpur over the weekend.
Other than that I spent most of the afternoon by myself.
As the afternoon was coming to a close I met a few more people returning from their day out:
- Mike, a software developer from Boston
- Caroline, from Zurich, on her first day of vacation
- Alex, an outdoor clothing business owner from Moscow
Needless to say, with all the varied backgrounds, we had alot to talk about. It’s always exciting for me when I meet someone at the start of their trip because I know what they have ahead of them.
The four of us chatted for quite a while before we headed out for some thai food.
We went back to the restaurant I went to for my meal earlier in the day as it’s a right turn on the main road and all the craziness is found by turning left.
I ordered a beef and noodle dish and as it arrived it dawned on me that this was my last meal in Thailand.
And it wasn’t pad thai!
Again, no poetic ending to my time here in Thailand. At least when it comes to food.
That’s not to say my time in Thailand wasn’t poetic or didn’t have significance because nothing could be further from the truth.
Thailand will always hold a special place in me as I feel like I really grew while I was here.
I had ups and downs but at the end I came out on top looking brightly into the future…
