Well, I finally made it. The delayed flight set off around 20 minutes later than the re-advertised time, but I landed in Bangkok at around 15:00.

There were the usual Stansted-esque queues at immigration and then I had to wait over half an hour for my baggage. Despite having a load of empty carousels, the staff had decided to mix our stuff up with a packed EVA flight from Heathrow.

The first piece of luck was the Airport Express bus I needed turning up within a minute of me buying my ticket from the surly clerk who kept trying to get me onto the Khaosan Road bus, presumably as I was carrying a backpack. Finally I convinced her I wanted off at Lumpini so needed the Silom one and she begrudgingly sold me the right ticket.

It’s definitely wet season here, with the skies a near-permanent grey. Still hot, though. And muggy. The skies opened up and rain deluged down as we progressed off the freeway and into the city proper. Annoyingly, the bus took a different route to the last time I caught it so it didn’t actually go past TRSC. This meant a short stroll in the pouring rain to get to my delayed appointment.

Not to worry. With the high humidity I’m not sure if I was wet from the rain or my sweat by the time I got there, but the staff recognised me as soon as I walked in and let me deposit my bags while I went through some standard 3-months-after-the-op tests. As I may have mentioned, my right eye doesn’t seem up to spec compared to the left. Far better than it was before the op, but not as good as I’d expected.

The tests showed a slight astigmatism in that eye as well as measurable short-sightedness. This can be fixed, by operating again. So I’ll be heading back in January for another few days stay, this time with only the one eye being lasered. There’s no cost to me as the surgery is guaranteed, just the hostel fees and however much I spend at the cinema. I can kick back in Bangkok again for a week – I kinda like it here.

I walked around to the hostel from there and had fun trying to pay my rent. Due to the drops they’d popped in my eyes over at TRSC, my pupils were still dilated. I could focus on notes to see how much they were, but coins foiled me completely. Colour, shape, size… no problems. I just couldn’t read the digits to find out how much they were worth.

By this time it was way after 18:00 and I’d had one small sandwich to eat all day. I caved and went to KFC for some food simply as I couldn’t think of anything else and it was nearby. I’m now back at the hostel, updating my Ubuntu installation and savouring the thought of my first hot shower in over three weeks.

Oh, bonus photo is me doing the mapping for my Divemaster certification. Putu emailed me it earlier and I like it.