Chilling Out in Bangkok

When Bangkok airport reopened Jakkrit started sorting out getting the majority of the Thai team home by air rather than repeating their 36 hour+ trip home by road and rail (Pakorn is going on to play in Penang). I asked him to also get me a flight and I am now having two days chilling out at Gerry's before taking my originally planned flight home on Tuesday night (I hope).

Jane has just slaughtered me at pool - the only game I won was when she fouled the black. 

She also keeps trying to feed me - tucking into melon as I type :)

I will cover the highlights and lowlights of the scrabble when I get home. I will, however, say how much I enjoyed the event. 

I feel that I played badly on the first 2 days - I think it was more to do with worrying about how I was to get home rather than jetlag - my focus/concentration was severly lacking. Lack of sleep was suffered by almost everyone. Harshan gave me some earplugs on Tuesday evening so I probably got more sleep than most - I could even keep the air-con on in the room as the sound was sufficiently dulled.

I think the strength of the field meant it was harder than the worlds despite the top U.S. and Canadians not being present and a severely diminished team from Thailand, and at 45 games was the toughest event I have ever played in. Despite playing so many games the scheduling was such that we had the evenings free after eating. Unfortunately I cannot post any photos as I think I have lost my USB cable - I can't find it anywhere in my baggage :(

The U.K. team outperformed their seeding, and we got second place behind an unstoppable team from Australia.

I will be trying my hardest to get in the team for next year. Michael probably wants me to make it too as everytime I tried to pay him he said later - and then as we were preparing to leave for Singapore airport I tried again. 'Pay me when you come next year'.