Jill & Sada: Sport, Fruit & Wildlife

This past weekend was the 15th annual Phuket Triathlon.

http://www.lagunaphukettriathlon.com/

The event takes place at the Laguna Beach Resort which is a ways down the beach from us. It's a huge complex of 5 large hotels built on a series of lagoons that were once tin mines. We went down to check out the place a few days before the triathlon started. We heard that we could just walk in & ride the free ferry all over the complex - so we did!

We got off & walked around the Banyon Tree Inn, a lovely, elegantly simple, serene place.

I thought Sada looked a little wistfully at the fantastic golf course, & we found the spirit house very interesting - I need to find out more about them, you see them all over the place.

Next we stopped at the Canal Village, a small mall of high end shops.

We were happy to find a mini-mart & bought a few things for lunch, including some very expensive cheese & crackers, and Tim-Tams! Hi Natasha!

At the checkout counter we saw this amazing display for cigarettes. Maybe I haven't looked at any of these packs in years, but yuck! can you see those pictures?

OK, back on the ferry tour we saw lots of villa style hotels - all seemed empty, tourist season isn't so good right now. These had their own boat docks.

These have their bathrooms overlooking the lagoon behind a full wall of glass, hmmm...

Here's a bit of a long wandering swimming pool. Man, I wanted to jump in!

And an amazing flower! The middle circle is about 2 inches across. Sorry, no idea what it is!

SPORT

So then on Sunday, we walked down the beach at 6:30 am to watch the start of the triathlon, it was pretty exciting. We were able to mingle with the athletes & that was very cool - there were 500 participants from all over & we heard many different languages. The swim was great - 1.8K in the ocean & the lagoon. 55K bike & 12k run. The mass start was exciting.

The hotel very nicely provided ferries to the spectators, & we jumped on one to cross the lagoon. There we were able to watch the athletes come out of the water, kick their legs into running mode for the dash to the bike area.

The transition to bike racing was interesting. They each had their gear set up just so to make the switch as smooth as possible - every second counts!

At this point we felt we had to leave. We hadn't planned to stay so long & didn't have enough of the essentials - water, sunscreen, hat for the bald guy, coffee or breakfast.

FRUIT

So here's the beach right in front of our hotel! This was taken early, before the sun was really shining on it, but you can see how lovely & empty it is!

This is the view from our current bungalow - the water is just beyond the little palapa building up there.

This rainstorm caught us on our porch, about to have lunch. It was a soaker!

This charming beast is called Dragon Fruit!

This adorable thing told us all about it! Na (for Serena) is the tour desk person & very sweet.

She said the best way to eat is is to scoop it & freeze it - I can't wait to try it that way! It tastes a bit like pear, apple & watermelon - very refreshing!