Washing Day Drying

Day 099 of Our Winter: It is comforting being back at the house in Minuwangoda. It's the consistency needed for the last few weeks in Sri Lanka this winter.  Getting 'home' after a journey is always nice.  This time, we returned with more dirty clothes than could fit in one washer load. 

At this house we always dry in the tropical breeze. Even when it's humid, the clothes dry nearly instantly when the sun is out. In fact, we often turn the shirts inside out so they will not be bleached by the UV rays. It's nice knowing they do get the extra dose that kills bacteria and germs for free.

The clotheslines are mostly ad-hoc.  There's plastic twine kept with the clothespins.  If the load is extra large, Jay's sister just ties the ends to coconut trees and props up the centers with saved dried branches from the same trees.  Because it never takes more than a few hours, even on cloudy days, the string is wrapped back up and kept with the clothespins.  It's so 'earth-friendly' and there's something about the smell and feel from outside drying that cannot be reproduced in manufactured laundry products.

 

This Morning: BKK --> CMB

 

Day 098 of Our Winter:  The pics were live on the plane as we boarded in Bangkok.  I put them on Whatsapp for some Vancouver friends. Three hours and ten minutes later we touched down on the tarmac in Sri Lanka.  

We had to get up early.  We left the hotel in BKK at 6:15 and thusly had just fifteen minutes alone at the Ramada Buffet Breakfast prior to getting in a van.  That was enough time for some good coffee and a plate of fruit and croissants. Sri Lankan Air served pretty decent breakfast choices too.  We took off at 9:00 and landed before 11:00 am because of an hour and a half time zone difference.  Flying seems easy again.

We're not used to flying into CMB at a reasonable hour of the day.  Often flights land and also leave in the early hours of the morning.  Jay and I have just three final weeks in Sri Lanka this winter.  When we leave to fly to Hong Kong to catch the MS Westerdam, we also connect through BKK but leave on Thai Airways #308 at 01:00 am on February 27th.

 

Our Final Evening in Bangkok

 

Day 097 of Our Winter: This was our final evening of our 2026 trip to Thailand. We walked around the Pratunam area one last time. Bangkok was hot today with temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Evening was a little better as it cooled a few degrees after sunset. This city is large, noisy, crowded and polluted.  It was also the most visited city in the world in 2025 for the second year in a row.

 

Big C Supercenter Ratchadamri

Day 096 of Our Winter: After breakfast today, Jay logged onto the Sri Lankan Airlines site. He checked in for Friday's flight back to Colombo. We stayed with the seats we were given on the Airbus 320. It has just three and an aisle and the other three across. Jay's sister's and Jay are in 19A, B, and C and I will sit in the aisle seat in 19D. Perhaps this spurred this my purchasing decision today.

   

We walked to the Big C. It is big. A few things were bought by the sisters and Jay. Most importantly, to me, I got a new supply of Classic Snake Cooling Powder. Last summer, I noticed my New Westminster supply was dwindling. I have a couple more cans and feel confident that I'll have enough for a while.

 

Rather than walking back, we hailed a Grab rideshare from the front entrance.

 

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Bangkok.  We've not visited China Town on this visit and will mostly likely do that tomorrow.  It is a four to six km journey rather closer to the river which makes it perfect for a Grab rideshare rather than transit.  The whole gang is on medication now, so our decision will rest on how we feel tomorrow at breakfast time.

Soi Ratchaprarop 8

 

Day 095 of Our Winter:  I don't know quite how many times we've walked down and back along this street.  I've lost count.  It is the main way for us to get from Ratchaprarop Road to the Ramanda D'MA hotel.  What we see depends a lot on the time of the day.  Some things don't open up until late morning or early afternoon.  While some businesses are primarily open at night.

As with many side streets in Bangkok the sidewalks are taken up the businesses that spill over the sidewalks.  Soi 8 is primarily one-way.  I say primarily as motorcycles short cut just about any place they can.  So it's best to keep an extra eye out when traversing this street.

There is a swimming pool waiting at the hotel as long as it's between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm.  Jay took my picture, but I haven't used it even though it looks inviting enough.

 

Jay's a Wood Horse

Day 094 of Our Winter: Jay's younger sister is still coughing. It's been almost a week and last night she wasn't able to sleep much because of it. So, today we asked the hotel staff and were directed to a little clinic down the street. She met with an old Thai doctor who checked and prescribed some medicines. She's been taking over-the-counter 'everything' that has had little effect. The old doc determined it'd be best if she went on a course of antibiotics as the cough was probably too severe to be only a virus. The sisters stayed around the hotel so Renuka could continue to recuperate.

Jay and I went out several times but stayed mostly in the neighbourhood.  We walked by the following display near a hotel mall.  Chinese New Year is observed in most of SE Asia.  This year it falls on the new moon around February 17th.  It will be the year of the horse in 2026.  Of their 12 symbols, Jay was born under the horse.  He knew that but I just looked it up and found out he's a Wood Horse who are usually less chaotic than the upcoming year of the Fire Horse.  Luckily, they get along well with Earth Pigs and this must account for our quickly upcoming 41 years.

 

The Chatuchak Weekend Market

 

Day 093 of Our Winter: We remembered the Chatuchak Weekend Market from our last time in Bangkok a couple of years ago. The market isn't that far away but we didn't feel like taking the Airport Link Rail one more stop and then connecting to the SkyTrain-type BTS.  We had to wait for about 20 minutes for a Grab rideshare to get to the hotel lobby.  

A car made by BYD arrived to pick us up to get us to the market in around 25 minutes.  It was my first ride in one of the Chinese electric vehicles.  Whereas the US automakers are throwing in their collective towel on the future of automobiles, this company is going to only be held back by tariffs and reminiscing about when the US had an automotive sector.  BYD will supplying EVs to the rest of the world.  It's a shame that the United States no longer has a desire to compete or engage with the rest of the world unless through military misadventures.  I grew up in the shadow of the space race and when the future held promises and science wasn't a swear word.

  

Here were some thoughts on the Market: "Sitting here on the edge of the world's largest open-air maze, ostensibly catching a 'natural breeze' that is really just the filtered exhaust of the Mo Chit transit corridor. Around me, 35 acres and some 15,000 stalls hum with the frantic energy of 200,000 people—half of whom seem to be like Jay's sisters—convinced they’ve discovered a fiscal miracle in a 100-Baht pashmina. It is a grand, chaotic monument to the 'grazing' instinct. While the retail infantry vanishes into the 27 sections of the maze, I am content to audit the logistics from the perimeter, smiling through the smog and realizing that while it truly 'takes all kinds' to make a world, most of them appear to be currently blocked in Soi 3."

 

Everyone Can Fly Now

 

Day 092 of Our Winter:  We didn't fancy a 12-hour overnight train nor an equally long ride on a bus.  So we flew to Chiang Mai and today we returned to BKK the same way. 

Doing the trip in around an hour sounds like magic.  However, the truth of flying is different because one needs to get to and from the airport and spend lots of time checking in and going through security.  We took the low-cost carrier and didn't spring for the extra seat charges.  So, their computers ensured that the gang didn't have a chance to sit close by.  I'll be darned if I can be blackmailed to convenient seating just so the airline can sell 'normal' space for optionally inflated prices. 

 

Air Asia flights into BKK encounter the Bangkok afternoon system crunches.  We would have made it earlier than the estimated 4:00 pm arrival, except the airport was too full to take us on.  Our plane had to do several large loops to stall our arrival time.  We landed only 15 minutes late.

Even though I'm complaining, it was a whole lot easier to fly than going those 700 km either by bus or train.

On the Bangkok end, we got a pubic SUV taxi to get us and our luggage back to the Ramada D'Ma.  We were here for three days when we arrived in Thailand.  Our eight nights in Pattaya and Chiang Mai are finished now, so we're back until we fly back to Colombo.  We will do that on February 6th.

Tonight we went back to the Manel Lanka restaurant as it's right in the neighbhourhood.  We are quite tired considering we spent the majority of the day sitting.