Thailand- Part 3

Phuket

We landed in Phuket around 1am, just 4 hours later than we were originally supposed to get there. In disbelief, we deplaned, still too nervous to be happy. Once we were at the hotel, we would sigh with relief but after everything we'd gone through, every hoop we'd jumped through the trip from the gate to the hotel could be rife with other obstacles. We were too disillusioned to hope for the best.

It turns out we could have. The line through immigration took a while (especially when the man in charge of our line disappeared for a moment) but we made it through. Our bags were some of the last to come out but none were missing.

As we entered the arrivals lobby our ears were assaulted by the calls of taxi drivers trying to catch the last, possibly stranded, crowd of people emerging from the airport. Fortunately, the hotel had sent someone to pick us up. In a silver BMW. With chilled bottles of water. If we hadn't be so humbled by the events of the day we might have smirked and even laughed at the poor people climbing into taxis. But we didn't dare. We just collapsed with relief and chugged the water.

On the way to the hotel the driver called the front desk so that they could ask Carli's mom if everything was satisfactory. "Beyond satisfactory!" "Soooo great!" "Wonderful!" we all gushed.

As we neared the hotel, we saw candles floating in a pond and the most glorious front desk I've ever seen. The second the car stopped someone opened our doors, had our luggage on a rack and were ushering us to a golf cart as we followed in a daze. We took a round about way to the rooms that probably took as much time as it would have to walk. When the woman opened the door to our room we barely held it together. She took our names and information whil e we gawked at the plush beds with tons of down pillows, the flat screen TV that I don't think we turned on once, the wraparound couch and the coffee table with, oh my! a bowl of fruit! A bowl of fruit with fruit we'd never even seen. And silverware. Nice, heavy, sturdy silverware. Not the cheap silverware from the 100 yen store that the school bought for my apartment. And cloth napkins! With a really high thread count, not the thin, ratty napkins... well, you get the idea.

The green apple was the only fruit I recognized

but those furry little things are the rambutans.

I might have eaten a pound of those over the whole trip...

The woman had her information, wished us a good night and took her leave. As soon as the door we silently screamed, jumped up and down and stamped our feet like kids or like some adults in cheesy rom-com movies. And we hadn't even seen the bathroom! We of course checked that out once we stopped silent screaming. Huge!

Rainfall showerhead!

Biiiig bathtub.

After we both had a shower under the rainfall showerhead we snuggled into our robes and tried the fruit. Some of it was hard to eat (not sure if we knew which parts were edible or not) but we really liked the rambutans. Soon our adrenaline rush had worn off and we decided to head to bed. Literally head to bed. Not head to futon on the floor. I took a running start and launched myself into bed and landed on some of the plushest pillows my head has ever rested on.

My bed was the one on the right. Can you see the indentation

from where I launched myself onto it?

It was an unbelievable day. A real rollercoaster ride but not the thrilling kind. The under construction kind with no visible end, so you're not sure when you'll get off and how high up you'll be when it stops. Unimaginably grateful for having made it to Phuket only 4 hours behind schedule we took some time to sing Aerosmiths' "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" to fully capture our feelings at the moment just before we drifted off to sleep.

***

The next day Carli's mom burst in at 8am. Usually I'm dead to the world at that time but she went on and on about what a beautiful day it was and I was curious to see Thailand in the actual sunlight. Plus she'd opened up our curtains and the sun was kind of hard to block out. I went out on the balcony, camera in hand, to see what kind of view we had. Here it is:

As you can see, my camera lens got fogged up in the humidity.

We then went down to breakfast where I drank out of a coconut,

Yes indeed, that is a coconut.

and had so much delicious food I was practically full for the rest of the day.

Let's see, what do we have here... Dragonfruit smoothie,

eggs benedict, crepe, plate of watermelon and dragon fruit, plate

of bacon and potatoes... Mmmm... Just looking at this

picture is turning me into a drooling Homer Simpson.

Next stop, the pool. Correction, Infinity Pool. Next to the beach. We laid out here the whole day and then went to a place called Kindee's for dinner where they coincidentally (or not?) played Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing."

So beautiful. And look at the color of that ocean!

The next day we had our elephant excursion. We got to see how rice is harvested and learned about the different uses of coconut.

Husking rice.

We snatched up that coconut half. The water/milk was quite refreshing.

I also rode a water buffalo.

Well, he didn't actually go anywhere so I guess

I just sat on a water buffalo. They are big.

The baby elephants had a little show.

Definitely don't look like babies to me!

Then we rode our own elephant. Her name was "Pumpkin" in Thai.

Isn't she sweet?

Later we had a dinner cruise.

We took a bus ride down to the end of the pier

where the boat was waiting. Would have been a long walk.

Another fabulous day complete.

On a different day we went on a sea canoe excursion with John Gray's Sea Canoes. We got to take the canoes through caves into the lagoons that were in the center of islands.

The lagoons were actually very big.

Can't even tell we're INSIDE OF AN ISLAND.

Our guide went by the name of Golf and he snapped

lots of pictures of us. He is also responsible for

the orchid in my hair.

We also saw these fish called "mudfish." They swim in water and kind of waddle on the sand. I thought they were cute.

Later our guide made us a kratong. We floated it in one of the lagoons after nightfall and light candles. You're suppose to make a wish and if the kratong floats out to sea it will come true and if it comes back to you it won't. I think those rules apply if you do it from shore. Not sure what will happen if you do it when you're in a canoe... Anyway it was a great little side trip. The lagoons were so quiet. They reminded me of the Zelda game for GameCube, "Windwaker" where you have to play a song and the wind lifts you up and carries you to the inside of an island. I know nerdy but I totally thought of that inside the lagoon. We even saw a couple of monkeys on the cliffs but they were tiny dots because they were so far away.

You can't see the base but it's made out of banana tree trunk.

I really liked the smell.

Other than the light from our kratongs, it was pitch black.

Although if you splashed the water you could see phosphorescent plankton!

Also, I'm pretty sure I touched the top of a jellyfish ... and almost drowned Carli in the process of trying to get away. Ahem, sorry Carli.

Phuket was absolutely amazing. One of the best, if not the best tropical place I've ever visited. We were sad to leave but next was Bangkok. So we hopped on a flight and headed that way.

Stay tuned for the fourth and final update where we board a different kind of canoe and tackle the water markets of Bangkok. And more!