Last Day in Thailand

Robert and Konrad playing pool
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I was unable to join my Swiss friends for diving on this day, since I needed to wait 24hrs after my last dive before getting on a plane to avoid decompression sicknesss in the reduced preasure at altitude.  They dove a site with some sunken aircraft.  I had an opportunity to sleep in for once, and do some shopping.  The town of Kamala where staying now is much nicer than Patong.

Robert (owner of Merlin Divers) was amazingly able to get my SCUBA mask back from the Siam 4 boat in the Similans I lost there on an earlier excursion.

Fondue in Thailand

Connect 4 - A popular bar game
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We all had a delicious dinner at Konrad's house - of all things for Thailand, we had Fondue!  We enjoyed some drinks and viewed lots of cool underwater photos Konrad took over the last week. Managed a few final beers and billiard games at the bar before I had to head to the airport for my late night (1:50A) flight back home.

The whole trip had felt easy and safe.  Even though I heard many folks complain about mosquitos, I only applied some repelant someone else had once - and I never once saw a single mosquito the entire trip.  At the bar in the evening on the very last evening, while we were playing pool, I felt something on my neck.  I brushed it away with my hand, and then saw a huge ugly spider the size of a silver dollar dropping down from my hand to the floor.  It had a huge bag on it's rear the size of the tip of your finger that looked like a huge brown tick sack.  Yuck, I smashed it into the floor with my foot, and double checked my neck for any bites.  Again I passed unscathed.