Remember to lock your door! And then there were three of us!

Saturday, 27 September; We rolled into Nakhon Sawan in the early afternoon yesterday and booked in for a couple of nights at the Lelawadee Home Hotel. I mentioned in one of the previous posts that Ros was not keen to go back to the hotel we had stayed at last time we were in town so I did a search during a break in the morning yesterday and found this place courtesy of ThaiVisa.com. Ros then got their number through directory enquiries and we did the rest over the phone. It wasn't the easiest of places to find but it's more than adequate for our needs and we got one of the VIP rooms for less than 600 baht thought there was no food included in the price. Not long after checking in however, and after I'd stripped off to have a shower but hadn't actually made it to the bathroom, when having been occupied with making sure that the CAT connector was picking up a signal and checking out my e-mail, the door suddenly opened and a lady, who I assumed was a hotel employee, walked in and said something to Ros about the room and how to work the aircon. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I was sitting at the computer in the buff and that Ros was also half naked having just come out of the shower! Fortunately, I had a t-shirt hanging over the back of the chair so I tried to cover myself up as best I could but why the hell didn't she knock?

Not quite believing what had just just happened, I got cleaned up and we then ordered the hotel tuk-tuk to take us into town where we had a wander around in the early evening and eventually found a roadside place near the big lake in the centre of town that served chilled beer at regular prices (40 baht for a large Chang) and pork, amongst other things, cooked to order. Even though it started to rain while we were out, there were plenty of people rolling up to the place as we left and we headed back to the hotel for an early night, so I assume that it's one of the more popular places to hang out downtown that's not actually a restaurant or bar. On checking-in earlier in the day, the hotel manager told us that they showed English football matches at the weekend so I assumed that I could enjoy the games in the comfort of our own room rather than in the communal area of the lobby which was empty when we got back . Unfortunately, that wasn't to be the case and after some considerable time spent surfing all the channels while Ros slept off the beer and the pork, I eventually gave up and went to bed.

Sunday, 28 September; Unfortunately, Ros inadvertantly left the alarm clock switched on from the day before and we were both rudely awakened at 5am on our rest day! Not what either of us wanted but once awake, I found it hard to get to sleep again. It was freeezing in the room too! I don't know what temperature the hotel management had set the air-con to but it felt like I was lying in a freezer! Even after I'd switched off the air-con it was still cold in the room so I got up, got dressed and had a look at yesterday's football results from the UK. When she did eventually wake up, Ros shared with me her great idea of getting someone to bring Rosie down to Nakhon Sawan for the remainder of the walk. Rosie is only two years old and it's been hard enough at times during the trip with just me and Ros to think about without having a very young child to consider as well. I was not very happy about this and tried to talk Ros out of it but I do understand that she has been away from Rosie for a month now and perhaps I can accept being away from my kids for lengthy periods of time more readily than she can. I personally don't consider a month to be a long time away from home having spent much longer periods away from my first wife and child back in the 80's when I was in the Army. However, I eventually relented, somewhat reluctantly I have to say, and Ros then made arrangements with Yai for one of the older girls to bring Rosie down on the bus. It's been hard work getting to this stage and I, for one, don't want anything to get in the way of us finishing what we have started and I've personally, as the walker, put in a lot of physical effort over 600 km to get this far. I'm not being selfish but I don't plan on doing something like this again in the immediate future and I don't want anything stopping us from reaching our objective which is to complete the walk on time and raise as much money for the Foundation as we can. Once it was confirmed that they were on their way (Yai had assigned May to escort Rosie on the bus), we had to find out what time they were going to arrive and then make arrangements to meet them. We headed into town for some lunch and a wander around Big C of all places until it was time to make our way over to the bus station and meet the bus May and Rosie had taken from Lamphun.

Rosie and May arrived in Nakhorn Sawan safely at around 4.30 this afternoon and we have made arrangements for May to get the bus back to Lamphun tomorrow lunchtime. Unfortunately, there were no earlier buses avalailable so we will be late in leaving here tomorrow to start the next leg of our journey to Kampaeng Phet. Summarizing, we are at the halfway point in our journey, or at least that's how we normally see it when we arrive in Nakhon Sawan either by car or on the night bus to Lamphun from Banglamung. Looking ahead over the next three weeks, there are going to be some very hard days between Thoen and Lampang and then Lampang and Lamphun where there is really no way that we'll get 30 km done in a day given the very steep inclines that we will have to contend with and the very slow moving HGVs that will pose a safety risk for both the walker and the support vehicle. If we are to make our objective of arriving back at the Foundation on 19 October, we'll need all the breaks we can get. Although we'll play it by ear as it were from now on in this is, in all likelihood, our last rest rest day. I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight though because of the late bus departure for May, we can actually have another lie-in tomorrow. The air-con in the room will not be as cold as it was last night though!