Page 11 - MN

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find mine in the right rough, not even close to where I thought it would be, and can't find Jeff's at all. I'm guessing it wasn't down the middle.
On this first hole, a par five, (don't worry, I'm not going to give a boring play-by-play of the round) I've been hitting two decent shots and then chunking my approach shot. Today I varied it by chunking my second shot. Oh well. We're off.
By the second hole we can see, and Jeff and I play a wonderful round. We have the course to ourselves, we have cool (okay, maybe cold) weather, and both of us love to play fast. North Hill has lots of water, and we both dunk some balls, but we also hit some good shots. The greens are lightning fast so there are some three-putts involved. We play our 18 holes in under 2 1/2 hours, head to the car, tip the caddies, and I drive us to the Bagel House for breakfast. Yes, Chiangmai has a Bagel House where you have a choice of different bagels and good breakfasts. Oh sure, maybe not traditional Thai food but the city now has restaurants of all kinds.
By 10:30 I'm back home, in bed, zonked out for my morning nap. Again I realize I now sleep better in the daytime than I do at night. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
The coronavirus is sweeping through China and there are cases reported in Chiangmai. Not surprising, as we have many Chinese tourists here. I plan to stay out of downtown as much as possible. Everyone is wearing masks, but I doubt if they do very much to protect people. The masks are simple and normally used to protect from massive pollution during rice field burning season, which is just beginning. I wear the mask sometimes because my wife wants me to, but I feel smothered and don't like it.
It's later in the day and I just got back from taking my passport into the visa service, where they will take care of the 90-day address notification at Thai immigration. We foreigners have to get this done every three months and then renew our visas once a year. I used to do it myself, but each visit took a day out of my life and that seemed silly. So now I pay a visa service to do it for me.
Thai immigration is now making some foreigners get health insurance, but luckily my visa isn't included. Can you imagine an 80-year-old guy with residual prostate cancer walking into a health insurance company? They would fall down laughing. The words, "pre-existing condition" would ring through the halls. The good news is health care here is quite good (I have a fine oncologist who has kept me alive long past my sell date) and inexpensive.
Jeff told me today that if you drive to Vancouver, B.C., and register at a downtown hotel, you get charged 70 dollars per night to park your car. For the price of parking your car you can get a two-night's stay at a quite good hotel in Chiangmai with free parking. I choose Thailand.