Thailand Tales

Well I don't have any wild or crazy stories from my trip, mostly due to my sickness, but I managed to see a few things in the short time I had there.

Tuesday morning I was awake bright and early for a tour of the "must see sights" of Phuket. We started out at a lookout point for a view of the Adaman sea and Kata and Karon beaches. Next up was a Sea Shell museum which had shells from all over the world that some guy has been collecting his entire life. It was alright but sea shells don't hold much interest for me and that was precious tanning time wasted! From there we went to a temple, which I wasn't allowed into because apparently my bare shoulders would offend Buddha, which is just as well cause I have almost the same level of interest in religion as in sea shells. After that we were off to the cashew nut factory, as Thailand is one of the world's largest producers of the nut, it was alright, it gave me a chance to grab a few souveneirs and try cashew juice, which was interesting. Lastly we ended up at a big souveneir shop which was just another opportunity for them to sell us stuff, but I didn't find anything of interest. After I arrived back at my hotel I decided to get some tanning done and went out to the pool side for a few hours. Deciding I was feeling much better I then headed to the gym for a short workout. After getting off the elliptical I realized I actually was not better and now on the verge of over heating. I finished off the day with a movie and room service trying to get back some of my energy.


Wednesday I was up bright and early for a boat trip out to Phi Phi island, which is actually divided into two islands, one was the place where 'The Island' was filmed and the other, which was where I ended up, was the place that the Tsunami hit. It was amazing the devastation that was still done, but also partly interesting because I was there for the anniversary of it and had an opportunity to see some of the memorials that were being done in honour of it. I had four hours to spend on the island before taking the boat back so I rented out one of the chairs on the beach and stretched out. By this time I was a little worried about the sun because it was super hot and I had decided that I could handle being sick, or I could handle being burnt, but there was no way I could deal with the two together, so I camped out under an umbrella and slept most of the morning away. With an hour or so left to kill I wandered around the shops and grabbed some lunch before making it back to the boat. After getting back I went to the markets and decided to try my hand at bartering. I may be many things, but a barterer is not one of them. I feel so guilty like I am trying to rip them off, meanwhile it is the other way around, but everything is so cheap to begin with it just seems wrong to be talking them down from somethign that is already way below what I would pay anywhere else in the world. I finished off my night by getting a hair cut because I had nothing else to do and my hair was in desperate need. The lady took off a little more than I wanted because I said just a trim, but I guess when I wait 8 months between hair cuts I lose the right to say where the dead ends end and the healthy hair starts.

Before I knew it, it was Thursday and my last day of vacation. I was up around 6ish and walked from Karon beach to Kata beach and explored some more shops. I was back at the hotel around noon and headed back out to the pool for some tanning and swimming. At 4:30 I had one final spa treatment which was an "Asian hair treatment" promising me hair like the Asians. It was a massage and mask concocted of avocado, coconut and who knows what else but my hair came out surprisingly soft and manageable and the massage almost put me to sleep. Afterwards I headed out to the streets and back to the market prepared to barter for some souveneirs, which I didn't do too bad at but I'm sure if I had paid more attention in Negotiating skills while at Seneca, I could have saved a few Baht. To end my night I found a spot to eat dinner and ended up having fresh crab, over rice with sweet chili sauce. It was alright, although my biggest regret about being sick was that I had almost no appetite the entire time I was there and therefore didn't get to try so many of the amazing things that Thailand had to offer.

Friday morning I had a wake up call at 3:45 and was off to the airport, from Phuket I went to Bangkok where I had an hour and a half to explore the airport, which was amazing. I could have spent a fortune in duty free, but ended up with a few books, a bottle of rum for my friend Tom, and a couple bags of Jasmine rice and Thai spices.

Alright, that is Thailand in a nutshell, I have a few other short stories to go off on but they can wait for another time. I will work on getting pictures up either tonight or tomorrow, depending how the night goes!

Happy New Year!