Up Early And Off To Breakfast,

we went down to Jomtien beach, but as we approached the police box we turned right instead of left to take us to what is called locally Dong Tang beach, or similar, I never seem to get this type of spelling correct, behind Diana is where we ate, the Bondi Beach, it is a restaurant/guest house,

in the car park looking towards the police box,

and looking towards the sea,

it is quite a busy place lots of bikes and cars, 10 baht to park for bikes, I forgot to look how much for cars but I would guess 40 baht,

inside the restaurant it was nice and clean, I enjoyed reading a paper from the UK, I noticed that it was printed or copied over here, 240 baht, the paper in the UK was 80 pence so roughly 45 baht,

the menu on the table was for lite-bites as they put it, so I had a egg mayonnaise sandwich and Diana a ham one, both 80 baht,

but it was 2 sandwiches, plus a good helping of crisps, also a few slices of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion rings and hard boiled eggs, very filling!

and two ice coffees as well,

I do not know if it was me but this end of the beach definitely seemed cleaner than the main Jomtien beach, perhaps the tides carry plastic etc further down the beach?

then out shopping at the Tepprisit night market, lots of sunglasses, we normally go there on a Friday, and a bit earlier, but more than a few friends called round in the day time so we were a bit late, but to say it was crowded was an understatement, it was packed,

lots of hair products, well one thing I do not need!

I always find this strange, I used to collect rocks and minerals as a boy, I do not know why but I never thought I would see a stall selling them in the market,

this stall is selling a little bit of everything,

as I said before, packed with people,

especially the food stalls,

after a little while Diana returned, but apart from our evening meal she had bought nothing in the market, instead she went next door to the Outlet Mall and visited the Bossini brand shop, evidently they were having a sale, so everything was half price, so that's all right then and think of the money I saved, 50% off!

we had called Mike and Riza, but their phone was off, we did not realize they had gone to the cinema, so they called when they came out and popped round for a beer and a chat, in the background we watched Casino, based on a true story about "Lefty" Rothstein in Las Vegas, gripping but ruthless, a look at what things were really like there back in the 70's, then on to Shackleton, this DVD was in the great adventurers series, Ernest Shackleton - To the End of the Earth (1999) as an aside the boat Shackleton sailed, a 23 foot whaler called the 'James Caird', which he sailed over 800 miles in to get help to rescue his men can be seen today at Dulwich College, Shackleton's old school in south London,

the boat is named after Sir James Key Caird, a Dundee jute manufacturer and philanthropist, whose generous gift financed the Endurance expedition, the James Caird Society was established in 1994 and is a registered charity, it is the only institution that exists to preserve the memory, honour the remarkable feats of discovery in the Antarctic and commend the outstanding qualities of leadership associated with the name of Sir Ernest Shackleton. (1874-1922), it is usually possible to view the James Caird during term time, but first report to reception to obtain a visitor's pass.