UPDATE: I was able to recover the post I thought was deleted, but no time to fix all the crap errors. Sorry, this one will be me at my worst.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. That is not so unusual. Sat down at the the laptop to see what was going on in the rest of the world, and noticed my phone wasn’t on the charger. That’s weird, but I don’t deny going to bed in a state of drunken confusion after my night with the Pattaya Hashers. I plugged the phone in and got the screen that says the port was wet and I needed to disconnect. I tried my best to dry it out through various means but nothing worked. Now what?

The next issue I had to address was that without my phone’s hot spot connection, I couldn’t access the internet. Yes, my hotel room came with WIFI, but I had been unable to connect when I first checked in, so I just relied on my phone. I once again tried the WIFI with the same result: This site can’t be reached. logout.wifi unexpectedly closed the connection.

With nothing better to do, I unplugged the laptop, carried it downstairs to the front desk and asked for assistance. The night attendant attempted to log in and got the same result. She said to come back later when the maintenance staff was available. Alrighty, then. Back upstairs to deal with the reality that I’m an internet junkie. To deal with the pain of withdrawal, I went back to bed and slept until six. Got up, tried the phone again, and still no go. Fuck. So, I showered and packed, then took my laptop with me to breakfast to get a fix with the restaurant WIFI. I researched how to dry a wet charging port, but none of the suggestions worked. I figured I must have done some damage to the innards, so I asked the woman who runs my restaurant hangout where I could get it repaired. She told me, saw I didn’t understand, and offered to call a car to take me. Yes, please! Now that’s service.

The store she had mentioned wasn’t open yet, so I walked around and found another repair shop. They said they could fix it for 1500 baht (about $50). Yeah, I figured there was some skin tax involved but I was desperate. I agreed and they told me to come back in three hours. Went back to my hotel, checked out, stored my bag, and went back across the street to my my friendly restaurant.

I made a point of remembering how to get back to my phone, so was able to navigate using the Baht Bus method of travel. I arrived at the store and my phone was ready to go. Crisis resolved!

Dave and Jo were going to share transport to the airport with me. Since our flight didn’t depart until 10:50 pm, we decided to kill the hours hanging out at a nice place on the water. After leaving from the phone store to meet up with them, I came upon a particularly nice Buddhist Monastery.

Next stop, the Pattaya Beer Garden.

It was a comfortable place to chill and enjoy the ambiance, although I consciously limited my alcohol intake to two beers. I still had a long night ahead of me.

I had made arrangements for a driver to take us to the airport with instructions to meet at my hotel at 5:00 p.m. It was the same guy who had driven my drunk and lost ass home from the Hash. I remembered making the arrangements, but I had failed to get a phone number so I could confirm he’d be there as scheduled. That created a bit of a conundrum–should I book with someone else and possibly disappoint the guy who thought he had an airport gig, or go with the safe bet. I decided to be a man of my word and trust him to show up like we had arranged.

When the time was nigh, we walked back to the restaurant across from my hotel to await the driver’s arrival.

I figured I had a 30 minute window to rebook if my driver didn’t show and still make it to the airport on time. Talk about living dangerously! Well, he didn’t show and I was going to look for a taxi large enough to carry three and their luggage. I asked the restaurant owner if she had any suggestions, and the woman she had been chatting with at the bar volunteered to take us. Talk about getting lucky–she even had an SUV large enough for our needs. Let’s roll! Well, she had to go home and get the car, but promised to be back by 5:30. She was late, but was an excellent driver and got us to our destination with time to spare.

We boarded the plane on time, took off a few minutes early, and I was asleep shortly thereafter on the three-hour flight to Angeles City. I woke up thirty minutes before we landed at 0300 local time. Got through immigration without a hitch, and Dave dropped me off at my front door a little after five.

A long day, but it ended the way it was intended to do.

I took a nap and slept until 11 a.m. and trying to get this post done with the Hash pending has been stressful. Sorry for all the errors, Grammarly not working for some reason and I’m out of time to perform my usual due diligence. *ahem*

Anyway, I’ve still got that post for the island Hash on Saturday in the hopper. Come back tomorrow for the last batch of all that Thailand goodness.