Fifty three bottles of soda water on the wall, fifty three bottle of soda....

53.

53 days to go, meaning I've been here for 32 days. 4.57 weeks. 768 hours.
Oh and how it feels like yesterday it felt like only 31 days.

I write to you dear reader from inside of my prison camp.  Because, that's what it is.
Small self contained room, three boring staples a day, and a chance of getting beaten up in the exercise yard by a big Russian guy covered in Tattoos.
<political>It's probably cheaper than keeping someone in prison, eeyyyoooooo</political>

This week has been quite good.  After weighing in for a zero loss last week, this week I'm on track for around four kilo's, but I'm trying hard for five, in order to hit 130 flat.  Which would put me in good stead for the remainder of my time here.

Earlier in the week the power was cut at the camp while someone did some roadworks, so, with the heat rising and the rooms not staying cool, Chris, Gavin and I ventured into town on our motorised scooter contraptions.

Down along Jonthiem beach road, which was clear and green (the good green not the bad green), and then up and over a hill into Pattaya proper.
Parked our bikes in an alleyway and went in search of two things.
A fishing shop that stocked remote control items, and Iranian Buffet.

Luckily both are on the same road, Second Road, which is the second road back from the beach at Pattaya.

We had a poke around the remote control shop and after comparing the prices and thinking "This one is only 300 baht more, oh, and this one is only 400 baht more than that" and so on until I landed on a 3400 baht ($125) quadcopter with attached camera that streams to the phone.
I bought the model that has a useable on/off switch, and Gavin bought the one you need to unplug.
That seems to be the only difference.

They are kinda weird.  You can fly them without a phone, just like a normal quad.  But if you turn on the Quad, it creates a new Wifi network, which you can join without a password.
And then start an app on your phone and you get a stream of what's going on on the Quad.
It can take video and stills but it's not a HD camera, and in low light it's terrible.
But still, it's a cheap entry to the world of QuadCopters.
HT F-805C in case you go Googling.

After our purchase when kept on walking to find this feast of a million animals.
And lo, we found such a find.
For the measly sum of 200 baht ($8) we had an all you can eat Iranian buffet.
I would say it was a mix between Turkish and Indian.
There was curries, rice, lamb, chicken, this kind of chickpea patty, and what I swear was little chicken bites coated in crushed corn flakes.
Oh the tastes were amazing and the texture.... when your used to pan fried chicken breast and cabbage, crunchy chicken tastes amaze-balls.  A few lemon sodas washed it down quite nicely.
And as we are getting ready to go, who should rock up on his bike right out the front, but Moen, the Iranian guy from the camp.  So you know it's quality, and or the only Iranian place in Pattaya.

We took the long walk back, out along "Walking Street" which should be flipped the other way around to instead be "Street Walker Street" as it's the main street for the GoGo bars and Ping Pong Shows.
However, like the Red Light District in Amsterdam, during the harsh light of day, it just feels depressing and sad.

Back on the bikes and back to Jomthien where we found a nice big hotel on the beach, with a detached pool.  So we walked into the pool, I faked the sign-in sheet, picked a name and room number to remember if queried and went for a swim.
Luckily some Chinese tourists took the heat off us when they started the horrendous notion of daring to swim with a shirt on.
Suddenly they were pounced on for doing so and arguments ensued as they were escorted out of the pool area.
Apparently no shirt while swimming, skin cancer is better.

We rocked back to the camp after that and the power was back on early, so I played around with the copter a bit, and then did training.

I skipped a few mornings training this week due to exhaustion and my body just thinking "No, fuck it, stay in bed and ignore the yelling."

The Krav Maga again is the interesting part of training.

Friday evening we did gun disarms using solid plastic molded guns, which turned out to be quite fun and easy.  Granted they only work if the gun is pretty much held to your head, such as a hostage situation.  And it's quite simple, and it starts with ducking your head away.  Gun to your forehead and your dead, flinch a few inches and the gun is no longer at your head and your alive.

And then on Saturday morning we did baseball bat (or baton) attacks.  And they were good.  As you might have guessed, it starts with charging the person in order to get inside their range, locking their attacking arm, and then going at the balls, as per usual.

And we had a round of attacks where two people with bats took it in turns to continually attack the other person.  The very last attack of the session was myself against Chris and I charged him so fast I ended up crash tackling him to the mat.  Except he won, because he got the bat and simulated breaking my ribs with it.  Touche.

That afternoon however I was feeling a tad sore, perhaps from the tackle, so I took my bike into town to find a massage.  Now, stop laughing.  A proper massage... not a Gavin massage.
I had two criteria and in the end had to ditch one.
a) Not a dodgy sounding name.
b) Not "down an alley".

Ended up finding Angel Massage (yeah....) but it was on the main road facing the beach, so I figured it would be more respectable.
Had a one hour Thai massage where she dug her elbow in my calf muscles, drove her knees into my back, all the good stuff.  And then finished with a one hour oil massage to relax.  All that for 500 baht, which was cheaper than the two hour oil massage I got last time at a place closer to the gym.
Going to go back during the week for probably a foot and neck massage.
But it was quality, and I learnt some new Thai words like "pain" and "hurt".

Stopped by a big Tesco shop on the way home and picked up some instant soup and noodles as well as a kettle so that I could stay in on Sunday and not worry, which is what I did.  Until I put the entire chili packet in the minced Pork one and then I worried.

And, that evening an unusual beast was spotted by a few people.  Often hinted at, but never seen before... the wild Toby emerged from his cool sleeping place around ten in the evening and proceeded to "work out" in the gym for a full hour, before retiring to his hovel.

Sunday however was fun as aside from sleeping in until 2pm, I also did a bit of Quad flying around the MMA ring (THE OCTAGON!!!!!!) got it flying in and out the door of the ring (THE OCTAGON!!!!!!) which was neat, but the battery went flat, so I called it quits.  Will buy a spare one when I get back to the shop.

So now I'm watching QI re-runs on YouTube, and relaxing.
Thus ends by 37th day in Captivity.