Missing these ladies...

Warning! The photos contained in this album may not appeal to your senses. Please proceed at your own risk.

All my life I have been surrounded by gorgeous women. These include my grandmothers, my mother and aunts, my only begotten sister and the multitude of girl friends that came into my life at one time or another. So why am I missing some ladies now?

It has been two weeks since the three most loved ladies of my life left me alone in my flat in Bangkok city and I am sorely missing them. They posted these photos in the internet and as of this moment the ladies are still in Davao enjoying their vacation oblivious of my plight.

Please don't worry about me. I'm still sane and coping well. But yes... I really miss them!

The Babysitter

 It’s been 2 weeks now since my charge left me for a three-week vacation to the land of her birth. I’ll admit being most hard-hit by her leaving coupled by the fact that the other two most-loved ladies of my life also left with her.

What could a babysitter do if the baby’s gone? Well the first thing that had some bit of urgency was to clean up the house, which usually is cluttered with her toys. There were also a lot of soiled clothes upstairs which needed the services of the washing machine, and these I dumped in for the cleaning spin.

When the time came to bring in the laundry, folding them became a bit complicated. Complicated in the sense that I’m not used to folding tiny clothes, and also because I started to miss her the more with only her clothes to touch and… smell. I managed to salvage a lot of emotion through the process by reminding myself that only babies cry and that I’m a full over grown macho man now.

Bedtime has been the hardest of times these days… I mean nights. My usual bedtime activity is letting this baby transform me into a horsey while she rides on my back and we gallop on the bed until I’m exhausted. After that she has her final bottle of milk while one leg is propped up on my neck. With her “patchy” – stuffed toy puppy, covering her eyes she would slide into a deep sleep while I contemplate on my luck to see her off to dreamland every night.

What does a babysitter do without the baby? Yeah right! Make a blog entry describing the loneliness while punctuating it with photos of the two of them from albums of the past and start the countdown to her arrival. 

10 . . .  9 . . .

Diving Chumphon Pinnacle @ Koh Tao

I would not be surprised if in my other life I was a sexy merman or an impish shokoi of Philippine folklore, because diving for me is an irresistible passion. This recent dive took me 460 km from Bangkok to Chumphon by train and 75 km by high-speed catamaran to the idyllic island of Tao (Koh = Thai for island). I had prepared some weeks for this, including all the internet research on the island and the shark infested dive sites. The sharks at Chumphon pinnacle - I confess, were the strongest lures that drew me to Koh Tao.

In all the preparations I chose to neglect the details of the travel to the island and let destiny take over for added excitement and adventure. I even didn’t pack my bag until the lunch break on the work-day of my departure. After work that afternoon I got on the bus to the train station, and only then did I remember that it was a Friday.

In Bangkok Fridays are the meanest of days in terms of traffic conditions. A 30-minute standstill is normal on these days and this bus trip to the central train station at Hua Lamphong was no exception and threatened to derail my trip to the island. I decided to get off the bus and take the notorious motosai tag-see or be left by the train.

I don’t want to spoil the mood by being wordy… so click on the first photo to get rest of the story.