November 28 2006 - Thailand

Nov 21

The kids arrived in Hong Kong late on Saturday, November 18^th. Daniel actually got to our apartment early enough that he could eat dinner with us and relax that evening, but Sarah didn’t get to our apartment until close to midnight. Then we had to get up early to catch our plane to Bangkok on Sunday. All we did on Sunday was fly and wait in airports. I felt sorry for the kids; 2 hard days of travel. Fortunately we all decided that it was better to stay at a hotel Monday night and to wait to get on the boat until Tuesday morning. Tuesday was great. Our boat was nice, a Gipsy 33', with a roomy cabin with two little berths and an okay bathroom. There wasn’t much wind so we mostly motor-sailed. That was the biggest disappointment for Lee; the lack of wind. We’ll have to investigate where there might be better sailing in Southeast Asia. Anyway, the Andaman sea was beautiful. The skies were bright blue; heavenly after the cloudy gloom in Hong Kong this time of year. The sea was a glassy green, & the islands were bumpy little things with beaches. On the first afternoon we anchored at one of the little bumps that turned out to be surrounded by sand & coral & colorful little fish. We hung out there for awhile, snorkeled, swam, and laughed at the situation. Here’s this little island, and I do mean little, covered with concession stands and beach chairs and swarms of tourists, with speed boats zooming in and out, bringing people for the afternoon. When we tired of this entertaining sight we headed for Koh Yao to look for a place to spend the night. The first place we tried was only a ferry dock. Sarah and Lee took the dinghy ashore to scout things out and although the villagers were excited about the chance to fix us dinner we regretfully declined. Sarah said the conversation went something like this. “You like chickens, fish? We cook for you! Ready in 2 hour! You come, okay?” We sailed north of the ferry dock for a bit and found a cute place with blue roofs right before the sun went down. Their little restaurant fed us prawns in soup, curry, garlic, & a steamed fish, plus plenty of beer. We spent the night on our rocking boat. A tropical rainstorm blew through at midnight, bringing cool breezes in its wake.

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Wednesday morning arrived bright and hot. We decided we wanted to explore some of the little island bumps before the heat got too overwhelming, and then find someplace to anchor and swim before we found a place to stay for the night. The first bump we headed for looked like a green mound in the distance, and it wasn’t very different when we got up close, except that it turned out to be inhabited by what appeared to be people living in tree-houses on the edge of cliffs. They must have been fisherman, and we couldn’t imagine that they actually lived there all of the time. We spotted someone in one of the houses and waved, but he didn’t seem to want us to stay; he was waving us away. I guess he figured we might frighten the fish. We motored around the whole island (it really didn’t take long at all) and passed a Windjammer going the other way. They had their sails up, but I think they were dreaming. We just motored.

The second island was even smaller – just two spikes sticking out of the water, with a little space in-between. We took lots of pictures since it was so charming, but there really wasn’t much we could do there. Then we headed back toward Koh Yao to find a place to anchor and swim. Later in the afternoon we started looking for a place to spend the night. This area was apparently pretty remote and off the tourist path. There were lots of pretty beaches, but no restaurants or resorts where we could eat dinner. If we had had charcoal we could have bought some fish from one of the boats that kept passing by, waving their catch at us. Sarah swore that one boat waved an OCTOPUS at us. Maybe, maybe. Calamari anyone? It was too far without wind to try to make it to the next island so we went back to Yau Yai Resort with its blue roofs. Turns out they were VERY glad to see us, since had only paid half of our bill the previous night. They split the bills into drinks and food and we only saw the drink part. So we had another yummy Thai meal, and rode back in the dingy just as it started to pour. This area of the Andaman Sea has really intense tides. Each night when we went into shore for dinner we would haul the dinghy WAY up on the beach, and anchor it as well. Each night without fail, about half way through dinner someone would have to go out to the dinghy and pull it farther up on the beach. There was another sailboat anchored there that night. They were British and had been out for a week. They said their wind wasn’t much better than what we had had for two days. There really weren’t very many sailboats at all; not like the BVI!

The next morning we zipped back across the bay to Sunsail, turned in the boat and got ourselves a taxi to the Marriott Resort on the other side of Phuket. The Marriott was just gorgeous. It’s a big open-air resort with its own beach. There were three pools, 4+ restaurants, a nice health club, tennis courts, and a spa. There were beach massages, hobie cats to rent, swim up bars, you get the picture. After basically camping on the water for two days it was heavenly.

I ended up sampling various fitness classes (yogalates, a combination of Pilates and yoga, and a body toning class). Mostly we lay around the pools, hopping in when it got too hot, ordering snacks and drinks when we got hungry or thirsty. Periodically they came around with scented cold towels. The kids and Lee tried the hobie cats and loved them. I had a beach massage and LOVED it! The swimming pools had little places with bubble beds that you could lay on, and cold Jacuzzi’s. They all had infinite ends that you could dreamily stare at and watch the pool water drift off into the ocean, or palm trees, or flowers. The pools tended to be long and winding, so you could go for swim-walks in the water as well.

We had sushi for thanksgiving dinner; nobody wanted turkey, although I would have gone for it if anyone else had been interested. The next night we had Italian. The Thai food at the resort was SPICY! I’m tough when it comes to spices but this was almost too much. One of my favorite things was the random bowls of oranges, bananas and grapes situated here and there all over the resort, just there for the taking. The oranges were the best…their skins were green but they were SO SWEET.

The nicest thing about Thailand was the people. I’ve heard it a hundred times, but it’s really true. Thai’s are just NICE. They seem to know how to be happy, deeply happy, in a way that just shines through everything they do. They are basically calm and relaxed. Its not just that they are Buddhist, although I guess that might be part of it. After only a few days I found myself more calm and relaxed and happy too. I think it might just be contagious.