The weekend finally began late Saturday afternoon when my grumbling stomach would not be silenced. From the comfort of my room to the steamy heat…

Stepping off the sidewalk heat from the road rises up sharply against your chin – as though to steady you after nearly knocking you off your feet. It is as though the earth has been granted special permission to release copious amounts of heat in return for the punishing deluge of rain it will receive later tonight.

The icy air in the cab is a welcome relief – though a pungent odor often hangs in the air. The first several times I thought the cabby had exceptionally bad breath. The kind of bad that screams right through your nose and gets in under your eyelids. I finally discovered that the smell emanates from a string of flowers – that hang from the rear view mirror of the faithful. What a relief!

From the cool interior of the cab Bangkok slides slowly by…very slowly. We’re in a traffic jam. Not just a slow light, and actual jam. After an hour or so we can’t take it any more so Erynn asks the cabby if we can walk to Central World from our current location…”yes, no problem, 5-10 minutes walk.”

We begin walking, lovely sweltering afternoon, but walk we are! Five to 10 minutes into our walk we pass a girl with a bag from the mall, Erynn asks her how far the mall it. The girl looks down at Erynn’s legs, as if to measure her inseam, and determines it till take…”five to 10 minutes!”

Sure enough, five to 10 minutes later we are in the biggest mall I’ve ever seen! We managed to stay to the far end…so as not to get lost! Found a lovely place for lunch…pasta! My first in nearly a month.

Outside the restaurant was some sort of comic-con. The designs were amazing. Just for fun I asked about prices…thinking my nephew would love one of the “toys” – oh, my. A month’s salary was a bit more than I was prepared to spend!

From there the search was on for the antimalarial medicine, Malarone. Two pharmacies, a hospital and a call to the Tropical Disease Hospital – it was discovered that there was no Malarone to be had in all of Thailand! Apparently it’s too expensive.

The shopping coup of the day was had first in finding the North Face store – it appeared behind us once the words “North Face” came out of my mouth – then Erynn found the PERFECT rain jacket that zips up into its own pocket.

Okay, okay. Simple pleasures I know, but it was still pretty cool!