Why am I ranting about all this? Well, when things back home in San Francisco started to fall into place for my current sojourn in Thailand I embarked upon a binge of sorts, for things I knew I wouldn’t find in Thailand. My Ritter Sport consumption spiked to one a day with the usual addicts’ hollow justification – in my case – there is no chocolate in Thailand. Admittedly one can see familiar names here but most of these are made under license in Singapore, Malaysia or Australia. If you have ever wondered what it is about chocolate that makes it so pleasing to the palette it is the fact that its melting point is just below body temperature – it literally melts in your mouth. However, when its intended market is tropical steps are taken to prevent the chocolate melting at room temperature, hence I find these chocolates to be sub standard. So, like America, Asia is also chocolate detox and I looked forward to shedding a few pounds once I arrived due to the cessation of rittering.

Imagine my chagrin whilst visiting the local 7-11 to find a Ritter Sport (milk chocolate hazelnut), staring up at me hopefully.  My plans for a new leaf dashed. So far the ripples around my mid-drift persist and at the ripe old age of thirty something my metabolism looks up from his newspaper, shrugs his shoulders in a very French way and goes back to the crossword; 11 down, 6 letters, ‘Curved yellow fruit’. It had to happen sooner or later. My metabolism looks around at the rest of the field, sees for the first time it is a one horse race, he being the only horse and slows to canter in my thirties, a trot in my forties and eventually will be put out to pasture in my fifties.

So far I have only had three bars since I’ve been here but just in case I go crazy again I’ve started taking an inordinate number of photos of my feet!

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