Well, the vacation’s over. After spending the weekend relaxing by the pool and recovering from jetlag, it’s time to get down to work with the team here in Thailand. Lots of material to cover and not enough time to cover it all means that we’re working long days.

I slept well the first night we arrived, but woke up yesterday at 3:45am. I finally gave up on getting back to sleep around 4:30am, and took the rest of the morning to put the final touches on my presentations before heading out to the first meeting.

When we broke for lunch, all of my Thai colleagues had a good laugh as I turned bright red – feeling bold, I had ordered adventurously from the Thai menu, and very quickly regretted it when I discovered I’d ordered the hottest thing on the menu. I soldiered on, aided by lots of water and lots of laughter.

We finally wrapped up at 5:30pm, and I snuck back to my room to catch a few minutes sleep before we headed out to dinner. I’d just fallen asleep when I was awoken by a knock on the door – the manager had worked out that it was my birthday based on the passport I handed over when I checked in, and had sent up a cake to celebrate – decorated with my full legal name and title (also copied from the passport, I guess!).

We headed out to dinner in the pouring rain, a big group meal organized by my hosts. This time I put local knowledge to work – I planted myself next to one of my Thai colleagues and let him order for me. Much safer.

More workshops for the rest of the week, then headed home on Friday. No more time for sightseeing, but not all is lost – I will be back in Bangkok in November for another set of meetings.