A slow morning ends with the car being ready to take us to the airport. We leave Ubud after a week and have yet to go into the swimming pool. Rain has been the common theme in addition to yoga. Well be back here in July-August and hopefully it’ll be better then.

On the way to the airport we get the driver to stop by a Makasan Padang and buy some rendang. He takes us to a good one and we get the waxed paper with a palm leaf inside. A little pocket of joy.

Not much to tell about the airport. We slide through check in, immigration and security. Even with our packs of rendang. At the gate we eat and just kill time before the plane takes us to Kuala Lumpur.

We have a short stop over and just walk to the gate. No immigration, just from one gate to the other. We both think it, but don’t say it out loud yet; will the bags be on the next plane?

They’re not. For all of us coming from Bali the bags are left in Kuala Lumpur and we just have to wait to get them delivered tomorrow. Damn!

We had planned a yoga session tomorrow morning and then registering at Tiger Muay Thai camp. (I will write ’em up as TMT or Tiger from here.) We struggle with getting the address to the hotel.

There’s a driver picking us up but when I go outside through several big “NO EXIT” signs he’s useless in English. I try to go back inside but are denied by a police officer. I’m just to walk to the next door when Katja calls out. She and the baggage man are both coming outside. Turns out the baggage man lives next to TMT. We arrange for the bags to be delivered there in the morning and drive to the hotel.

It’s about an hours drive and we even get to see the King of Thailand. Not up close and personal but they had closed the other lanes and his highness was transported in a sea of blue lights of bikes and cars. He’s just spent three days here in Phuket. The Thai king is held in extremely high regard and are revered almost as a God. Making jokes about the King will see you in jail for a long time. Don’t do that.

The hotel turns out to be magnificent! Thank you Eirik for setting us onto this. We booked the room in September and got a good price. It’s very spacious, on the second floor, with a balcony overseeing the pool. It really don’t get much better than this. We’re about to spend the next five to six weeks here practicing martial arts and it’s great to have a room that’s OK to come back to and relax and cool down.

We get dinner right next door and turn in. It’s hotter here, but less humid. Gonna be great feeling the sun again tomorrow.

I used to think that nails-down-a-chalkboard was the worst sound in the world. Then I moved on to people-eating-cereal-on-the-phone. But only this week did I stumble across the rightful winner: it’s the sound of a baggage carousel coming to a grinding halt, having reunited every passenger on your flight with their luggage, except for you.

– Sloane Crosley