Thaisland

[Editor's note: This is the second post in our temporary "Two for Tuesdays" campaign to catch our blog up to near real-time.]

12/16/09 – 12/17/09: Patong Bay, Thailand

Are you tired of my post-title puns yet? Because there’s more coming, don’t you worry. What with all the lying on the beach and drinking fresh fruit shakes and getting massages for $6 – well, there’s a lot of time in all that to think of puns using “Thai.”

I actually have a lot to say about Patong, but I have spent a few minutes trying to organize my thoughts and can’t think of any good way to really do it, so I’m going to have to go with a list (yes, it’s lazy, but it’s late and we have to get up early to go snorkeling – I know, tough life we lead).

• We got here on the first day of “Patong Carnival 2009” which means we have eaten all but one of our meals at the Carnival food stalls along the beach. This is good and bad – good, because it cuts down on our “searching for the good food” time, which usually takes about two hours out of each day, and bad, because we end up eating a bunch of fried things.

Exhibit 1: fried potato on a stick.

• Patong is pretty normal during the day, aside from the topless sunbathers ironically sitting in the shade and the old men walking around with their Thai “girlfriends” and the other old men who are wearing too little and have spent too much time in the sun. You know, the usual stuff you’d see at the Jersey shore. At night – well, at night it’s not exactly PG-rated. While we were walking down Bang-la Road one night, Kevin whispered to me, “When we have kids, let’s not bring them here.” And I can’t lie, that made my heart melt a little. Not because Kevin was concerned about the welfare of any future little Currys, but actually because thinking about babies makes me smile. (Don’t worry Mom and Dad, it’ll be nine months at least before any little Currys!)
• The pad thai we’ve eaten from the food stalls is better than any pad thai I’ve had in the States. What’s the magic? Is it in my head?
• I think Patong Beach might have been really beautiful a few years back, but today with all the jet skis and parasailers and loud people everywhere, it’s not as nice as it could be. We’re now on a quest to find a quiet, tranquil island to stay for a couple of days.
• Bodega, the hotel we’re staying at (~$30/night) is awesome. The staff is super friendly, they have free food around 5pm, and I got a coke for solving their Rubik’s Cube! Guess which of those three things made me happiest?
• I got my first Thai massage today, which was really really good. I tried to convince Kevin to get one too, but he seems to think full-body massages are some strange form of torture. He looked at me askance when I asked him if he wanted one too. That’s right, I just used the word askance.
• Going to the beach is always one of those things that is better in your head than it is in real life. Because I don’t know if you noticed this, but there is a LOT of sand at the beach. And it gets everywhere. I just found some in my eyebrows. The water is nice though.
• Tomorrow we’re going to the Phi Phi Islands (pronounced “pee pee,” haha, which makes me laugh because I am five years old) on a day trip to do some snorkeling and swimming, which I’m really excited about.

See you on Phi Phi! Hehe.
_____________________________________________

Thought of the Day: I always thought tuk-tuks were man-powered. But they’re not. They look like little fire engines.
_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: Me and my monkey friend – he just hopped up on my shoulder.

Read Full Post »

My Thai

12/15/09: Patong Bay, Thailand

Today we spent over ten hours in a bus. Actually, three different buses. In the past several weeks, we had been told by a few different people that Southeast Asia is the easiest place to travel.

Hah. Ha. Ha.

After being woken up at 5:05am by incessant knocking on our door because our 5am bus was waiting for us at the front gate and we were still in bed (me dreaming about mango sticky rice), we realized that our 4:35am alarm had never gone off. This might have been because our alarm, my iPod, had spontaneously switched itself back to Eastern time after being connected to our computer, which we never changed from EST. Because, you know, when we turn on the computer we like to see what time it is at home and imagine what all our friends and family are up to (usually, you’re sleeping).

If that sounded creepy, then the real reason we never change the time when we change time zones is because we’re too lazy.

Of course, when the knocking happened at 5:05am, we still had half of our belongings strewn about the room and so we had to hurriedly jam our things into our packs (which will lead to a future post entitled “The Case of the Missing Floss”). We packed ourselves up in record time and then hopped onto the bus, with Kevin still wearing his mouth guard (he’s a teeth-grinder).

Anyway, nothing much happened on the rest of the journey, except the two bus transfers, one of which happened on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, which was a little unnerving. “Go! Get on other bus!” our crazy Thai bus driver said, as he unceremoniously shoved us and our bags off the bus. “But where is that bus going?” I wanted to ask, but the thing is, it’s hard to argue with a crazy Thai bus driver. Luckily, the coach bus we got onto said in big letters on the front windshield, “HAT YAI — PHUKET,” which reassured me that we would eventually end up in Phuket.

Which we eventually did. And even though we’ve only been in Thailand for a few hours, so far, it does not disappoint. The people have been really friendly and helpful (maybe excepting the crazy Thai bus drivers), the food that we’ve eaten has been excellent, and our room has a refrigerator! Awesome.

I’ll leave you by sharing a little conversation that we had tonight as we walked along Patong Beach.

Z: How’s the water temperature?
K: It’s good. Not too cold.
Pause
K: But not too warm either. It’s no Indian Ocean.
Pause
K: Oh wait, it is the Indian Ocean.

It turns out it’s not, it’s actually the Andaman Sea, but I didn’t know any better at the time either.
_____________________________________________

Thought of the Day: I love Thailand.
_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: Smallest. Orange. In. The. WORLD. Yet another reason to love Thailand.

Read Full Post »