It Is A Strange Thing,

the way that prices go up,

back in the UK if I go into somewhere a month or two later after the first visit, if the price does go up it is normally 2, 3 or maybe 5%, but when I went to the dry cleaners to take my trousers in for cleaning I had my 200 baht ready to pay for both of them, but was told the price had gone up to 270 baht, an increase of over 30%! I know things have gone up locally, electricity and labour costs but a 30% increase in just a few weeks does seem a bit extreme, moving on we popped into the Kodak shop opposite the Friendship Supermarket to have a few pictures printed,

 

 so between the dry cleaners and a pharmacy were not having much luck today, but that was soon to change as we made our way down town,

 we parked in Walking Street and called into the bank opposite the Pattaya Beer Garden,

 so at least we had some money to buy a meal, looking past the water treatment plant by the side of the beer garden there were lots of dark clouds rolling in,

 although there was the rumble of thunder in the distance we decided to order our breakfast,

 but to be on the safe side we chose one of the tables although outside it had a overhanging roof, just in case it did decide to rain,

 it was not looking good,

 in fact before our meal arrived it actually got worse as cloud continued to move towards us,

 looking towards the Hilton, the large hotel on the right-hand side of the picture, the white patches on it seem to stand out so much, for us it almost looks like the building hasn't been completed,

 a speedboat making its way towards the beach with some customers returning from the Coral Island,

 our late breakfast/early lunch arrived,

 'Cheers!',

 egg fried rice for Diana and some bread crumbed chicken for myself,

 although it doesn't look like it in the photograph it really was quite dark and we could see rain falling in the far distance,

 but luckily the rain held off, we made our way past the water feature to Walking Street,

 and on to the fishing tackle shop in Soi Thepprasit to buy some bait as we are going fishing later in the week,

 this is the view from outside the fishing tackle shop looking towards Sumkivitt Road, the MP petrol station is on the same side as the fishing tackle shop 200 meters further along from where we are standing,

 arriving home we noticed one of the cactus had flowered again,

 it seems a pity that they grow so slowly,

 then in the matter of a day the bud produces a small stem,

the flower then opens up in the morning and dies in the evening,

as it was Monday new episodes of the series that we like watching were being aired, this evening Swords, Bering Sea Gold, Gold Rush and Moment of Impact, so after our evening meal that was most of the evening gone but we still did watch a couple more episodes from LA Law, by now it was not so much late evening as early morning, so for us we were off to bed.