Thom and Pai in the Land of Thai: Ko Phuket--Busy, but Great Sand

Our rented scooter at the end of a busy day.

It was scary, but Tom is the man. He did awesome. Yes we got lost and yes we wondered if we’d ever find any peace away from carbon dioxide, but it was fun. We visited half of the island and decided our spot here at Surin Beach is the best overall place on Ko Phuket. And although we had hoped our hotel, the Benyada Lodge, the most expensive to date for us was actually on the beach, it is better than the resorts that have a much longer walk or need a taxi for an easy jaunt to this sweet corner of the island. Some resorts do have beach fronts—we found one and swam at it. Kraft was having their executive retreat there…it was outside our price range or vacation goals. Ah, but maybe worth it…there was a beach volleyball court. We actually played a bit—then escaped to their bar before we died of heat exhaustion.

Yesterday, we crashed at ‘our’ beach. It was a nice day of water and sun, but it started out concerning. I ventured out for a morning swim and greeted an older man swimming too in the lush warm bath of water on a bed of seriously perfect sand. He only spoke French. We exchanged “Bon Jours” and then he tries to tell me through a game of charades about a danger in the water. I’m bad at charades. He uses one hand to attack his arm and I say, “SHARK!” “No, no.” Then he does more bite action with his hand then pretends to light a cigarette and then spot burns his arm with the hot end of the invisible thing, and I say, “Someone caught on fire out on the water?” “Is there gas on the water and we should not smoke while we swim?” “No, Medusa,” says the French man making imaginary snakes come out of his head. Seriously. Now we have evil Greek gods to deal with on this trip. Then he calls his son over and we get out of the water (which by now is not so nice for me) and his son draws a picture on the sand of…can you guess? Jellyfish. This trip is so wonderfully multilingual—medusa in French is jellyfish. Apparently, one man was sent to the hospital from the spores of this giant jellyfish. We met a little girl (and her mom) later at dinner who got stung also. She only had a few spores and was lucky to have some very helpful Thai men ease the pain with a local remedy. By the way, I have never seen more precious male (and female) love of children than here—the Thais are so very nurturing. Tom and I survived and swam a lot (really after our train ride I feel constantly on guard, but resolved to be brave.) I was maybe too brave and am now quite pink from the day.

In an hour we are being picked up for our kayaking adventure to caves and secret islands off the coast…very excited. I wake up each day hopeful that the trip we thought we’d have will materialize. I (we) have not yet found the perfect paradise that we had heard so much about, but I do find moments, some hours, some half days of great overwhelming joy. We have spoken to many people about our trip—feeling our travel woos may be due to our expectations. No, it is something more—and some of that too of course. I think the economy abroad is really hurting the Thais along with the leftover of the tsunami damage, and also some severe never ending harm from Western corporations, what the Thais call 'Bangkok money.' They and we by our support of their resorts are raping this place. We have spoken to many people about the situation here…we have learned so much.

Tomorrow we leave for Ko Phi Phi, which is also too popular like Phuket, but they don’t allow cars on the island…our main reason for going. Then off to Krabi, smaller islands and maybe back up the country to some national park adventures before coming home.