Phuket - Ahhh...

Yahoo Phuket weather report: 88°, 55% humidity, 'feels like' 92° (I'll say), expected low 77°.

Sorry about the blogging delay - our hotel has been having problems with their internet provider & we end up going to an internet cafe to do our necessary stuff (& it's either freezing with a/c, or roasting without in there, so we get finished as soon as we can!) I hope when we get to our next destination, we will have a more reliable connection!

I think you all saw the website link for this place - it's even better than it looks.

http://www.phuket-bangtaolagoon.com/index.html

It's simple, but wonderful. The property is huge & all of the rooms are bungalows, some duplexes, all with comfy porches.

Our bungalow is smallish, but plenty big with a king sized bed & the bathroom is about 4' x 12', with the shower in the middle! (no curtain), so to get to the toilet you have to carefully walk thru the slippery-if-wet shower area! I usually walk it with both hands on the walls!

The spacious grounds are landscaped in a very natural way (not to within an inch of their lives!!) and very well maintained. In the middle of the grounds is a big open air palapa restaurant & along side are 3 sparkling pools - all 'infinity' style (where it looks like there's no edge looking towards the ocean - just goes on to infinity.......) hmmm, which one shall we swim in first?

Beyond the pools is a large, wide area of sand under shady trees, & then the beach - very wide & long, curving around a pretty bay. It's quite long - it would be a big hike to walk it end-to-end & back in a day ...and... there is hardly anyone on this beach! It gets a little busier on the weekend, but no crowds at all!! The water is warm & has gentle waves & a sandy bottom (nice for our tender alaskan feet!) The hotel provides sunbeds that usually fill up, but it's nothing like the row upon row of sunbeds you see in pics of resorts & busy beaches. There are about a dozen on our beach & more around the pools. When the tide is out, the beach is very flat, making for easy (level) walking, and the sand is lovely, soft & fine, nearly white. We saw 2 elephants when we walked down the beach the other day! I stepped up & patted the big one on the trunk - it was very coarse with bristly hairs! I believe they were selling rides - they sure are crowd pleasers! Here is the little one.

There are ladies doing massage right on the beach (well, on low tables!) I had a lovely hour long one last week for 300 bhat, about $9. The strange thing was being nearly naked hanging it all out there for all to see... I wore my swimsuit & when I was on my belly, it was pulled down to my hips. I just closed my eyes & listened to the sounds around me... friends coming to gossip with the ladies, a Russian family chatting nearby, the waves & the gentle wind rustling in the large trees overhead. Ahhh...

The staff here is as sweet as can be & there are lots of them! housekeeping, maintenance, grounds & reception folk, not to mention the restaurant staff & the cute girl who runs the tour desk. This week another crew came in to trim the coconut palms (they can be lethal when full of ripe coconuts up there!) It was interesting to watch the job & later on we found 2 opened coconuts w/ straws waiting for us in our room! The maids are so cute & often leave our towels folded in fancy ways with orchids decorating our bed, so far we've had swans, hearts & elephants.

Many people speak at least a little English, so that's no worry & we've learned a few Thai words. 'sawatee kaa' is like 'aloha' - hello, goodbye, good morning, good evening. and 'kup kuhn kaa' is thank you. So far that's all we need! We also know 'kin jaee' which means 'eat vegetables' or vegetarian (we think). Our next one will be 'toilet'! Most signs & menus are in Thai & English - & some are in German, French & Russian too. I find the mis-spellings charming - my favorite so far is a menu item for 'Fried Dish with Basil' (dish-fish)!

Even with the downturn in the global economy & low numbers of tourists, there is a huge amount of construction going on around here, it's pretty amazing! And it seems to happen fast - A new hotel is going in right next door & we watched a huge concrete pour of the patio area - I did a rough count of 75 blue shirted workers swarming around. We heard they want to be open by Christmas! yikes!

The town area here is small & a little funky, but the restaurants are very clean & the food is great. The road is 2 lanes wide with a tiny sidewalk that usually has cars parked on it, so you walk in the street. The traffic consists of mostly small motorcycles & some cars & tuk-tuks. The odd tour bus goes thru looking HUGE, but mostly the traffic just flows like water, around pedestrians, into whichever side of the road works! (traffic is just the opposite of the US here - right-hand drive vehicles, driving on the left side). This is a small market where we buy water, fruit, yogurt & interesting snacks! Notice the beer bottles & glasses in the foreground - you can buy beer by the glass!

The food has been great! There is a nice indian place down the road (we went there for Thanksgiving) & of course the Thai food everywhere is wonderful! The best place we're found is called the 'Organic Cafe'. The service is incredible & the food is amazing! Last night we each had a fresh fruit smoothie, bowl of soup each & split an entree with a plate of rice each & water bottle - for about $12. And, before the check, they give you a large slice of pineapple prettily cut in to bite-sized pieces as a digestive aid after eating! And bug spray (organic, of course) if you need it. Fresh rolls from the OC, presented on a circle cut from banana leaf:

Another new favorite place is Sala Siam. Here we are about to enjoy a wonderful dinner,

and a sort of coconut pudding for dessert - with pieces of fresh, soft coconut, tapioca & beans! Delicious!

We had booked ahead here at Bangtao Lagoon Bungalows for 1 week, but we liked it so much we decided to extend instead of looking for another place on the island as was our plan. We had hoped to leave here for Chiang Mai in the last week, but with the Bangkok airport trouble, we extended our stay here a bit longer. Everyone said the situation would be straightened up by Dec 5th - the King's birthday, and it was. The people revere their King & Queen, & in this land of face saving, all felt is would be very disrespectful to have the demonstrations continue on into the celebration. We just felt thankful that we were able to be flexible with our plans, & sorry for those folks trying to get home - or trying to get here! There's a triathlon happening on Phuket island this weekend & many people struggled to get here for their race. A lot of people changed their plans & are coming thru Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.

We turned on the TV a few times looking for Bangkok airport news, & it's pretty bizarre! Indian musical dance videos (like MTV), weird looking Thai game shows, soaps & sit-coms & Chinese talk shows. Oh yeah, & Fox “news”, US movies dubbed into Russian, the fashion show channel & rugby games in a language I can't recognize, possibly Irish, and cricket. It's all pretty mesmerizing...... luckily there's also BBC World News, and Aljazeera, which is fantastic -way better that Fox or BBC. I think we're hooked.

So, first thing every morning, we swim the Indian Ocean (actually the Andaman Sea - tho I like saying that we're swimming in the Indian ocean, because, how cool is that?), then a quick beach shower & then a dip in a pool before dressing & brekky. Breakfast is included here, as with many hotels & they seem to be trying overly hard to give us a 'typical western meal' ...Well... here's what we get - mini hot-dogs, ham, bacon, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, white bread, watermelon, pineapple, coffee, tea, milk & OJ... everyday the same! We eat lots of fruit, too much bread & some eggs (me), Sada has coffee & I buy a bottle of water. But we eat it overlooking the beach & Indian ocean, so it's not too tough! We have lunch on our porch or the beach & go out for dinner. Lately we've been eating mangos for lunch - tomorrow we have a papaya ready to eat!

Sada has had a few computer lessons (from me) & is involved in a big word processing project. He's doing great! I'm working on beading & doing pencil puzzles of all sorts. We're both reading a lot & trying to not get sunburned. Our fingernails are growing like crazy - mine were so long, I couldn't type, so today I cut them off - mostly to see how fast they re-grow!

And yes - we have lots of books with us! Are you kidding me? Our house is full of books waiting to be read & I keep a bunch of them saved for vacation purposes. We've got a few sci-fis, some Jane Austin, Kingsolver (I'm looking forward to reading 'Poisonwood Bible' again), 'The Raj Quartet' (one or more of the books was made into 'The Jewel in the Crown' from Masterpiece Theater 25-ish years ago). Sada brought a McMurtry quartet (Lonesome Dove guy) but after reading 2, he dumped the set. And there are a bunch of others... When we were in Portland, we went to Powell's books & each bought 1 (ONE) additional book to bring. I bought a used mass market sci-fi novel, & Sada, the crazy guy, bought a new, hard cover copy of War & Peace! It's so big & heavy, he decided to operate on it & remove the cover (a cover-ectomy?), & he cut it into 5 pieces, bound them with tape & used manila files to cover them like a 'plain-brown wrapper'. Also, if we need more books, we're sure we'll be able to pick them up. Many hotels & other places have a shelf of used books to 'leave-one/take-one'!

The hotel is full this weekend as the big triathlon is happening down the beach at a big hotel complex called Laguna - built on old tin mines that are now lagoons. We've met a few of the competitors, they are very focused, working out & acclimating. Phew - it's been hot & the sun is brutal, good thing the event is starting at 7am. We plan to walk down to watch the swimming event anyway (assuming we can get our lazy asses out of bed by then!) They start swimming in the sea & then they have to run across the beach to the lagoon & swim across that to the bike & run start areas... ha! better them than ME!

As you can see in the above pic, ...we've been busy :)

We sat under that tree for hours after brekky yesterday - read, napped, ate yogurt & mangos for lunch, etc. and got a little sunburned! I guess the dappled sunlight packed a bigger punch that we expected!

ouch - the things we have to put up with!

Again, sorry about the blog drought! I'll try to work harder! in fact I already have another one in mind to get to today. We love to read your comments (click the button just below) and emails, of course.

Sawatee-kaa!