Back to Thailand. We left on vacation 4hours after we got out of school and headed to the new T3 part of the Beijing airport. its nice and new and was quite modern. Come to think of it, compared to dulles, its hard to tell which country is really the developing one! Anyways, after we checked in, we headed to the bus class lounge. Since Cliff is still 1K with United (at least until the end of th e year), we can go to the business class lounge if we've booked international flights. The food was OK...the free beer was nice. We were just excited to get going. Below is a picture of inside the terminal:
And me taking advantage of all the good stuff they had to offer:
We stayed somewhere close to the airport our first night...our flight to Phuket didn't leave until 2pm, so we walked down the street for a quick bite to eat at a street food stall. I gotta tell you, it kills Cliff that I love to eat street food. We are both waiting for the impending gut centipede to strike me down, but it hasn't happened yet.
The food wasn't bad, expect we found out too late that the 'chicken' dish we ordered was actually a bamboo dish. The noodles were pretty good. On a side note, I drank the water out of a pitcher with ice...I didn't really consider the possible source of the water or ice. Again, avoided catastrophe one more time.
Back at our hotel, we sat in the garden while waiting for a ride back to the airport...we saw these cute little garden statues...they look pretty chinese to me!
and below are the various offerings to the gods...these are everywhere--in front of every business and in front of every home. apparently the gods like fanta.
We took a flight to Phuket (pronounce Poo-kut) and checked into the Naiyan Beach resort. We chose this area because it had the best winds at this time of year and also had a kiteboarding school. The beach was small and not too great, but the water was warm and clear, the winds were steady and the weather was pretty nice. Below is a pic of our room...this was the nicest room we've stay in Asia--its was about 45 USD a night, including breakfast.
our first night (and every subsequent night) we had dinner on the beach. We watched a beautiful sunset and got to see a couple of kitesurfers catch the last of the dying evening winds. Phuket was really, really nice--I didn't want to leave.
The next morning we took a stroll on the beach...the sand had thing interesting circular pattern about it...I looked closer and realized these we all balls of sand that crabs make when digging their holes (thank you Discovery Channel).
And here is a close up...kind of cool huh?
We had many great meals in Thailand and below is typical fair...spring rolls served with a tangy sweet sauce, jasmine rice and Chicken with baby corn. The fresh baby corn was soooo damn good. its was crispy and light and tasted like corn on the cob. All the dishes were spicy--it was heaven.
I also tried some street-beach food...here is me eating a whole grilled spanish mackerel. The eyeballs were kinda gross.
Our time kiteboarding was interesting. I took a three day course to get my IKO certification and Cliff took a day course and rented a board the rest of the time. Our instructor was a german guy who had been teaching kiteboarding for 10 years. His name was bob, but Cliff and I called him fritz, hiemlich or franz between ourselves. Mostly, he would just scream "sheet, sheet, sheet, letz go of ze kite!!!!!"...right before I would crash it into the ground. There is something about a german yelling a me that makes me want to wet myself.
AFter much trial and error, I finally got up on the board and was controlling the kite enough to get around. It was alot of fun...I just need some more practice.
Cliff, of course, excelled at this...he was walking up and down the beach, swinging the kite to and fro and boarding like a pro...he really enjoyed his time in Phuket.
On one of the no-wind days, we rented a scooter and rode abotu an hour down the rode to Patong Beach. The ride was quite exciting, as the Thai's drive on the Brit side of the road. Cliff had a couple close calls at first, but then things were fine.
Here is us at an intersection...you can't tell from the picture, but I already wet myself by this point.
Of course, since patong is a larger beach, they actually have larger restaurants...Cliff demanded to eat at Burger King. Boy, was I thrilled to be in Thailand eating American fast food. But, Cliff is pretty patient with all the crap I eat, so I was fine with eating alittle junk food.
Cliff also made a pilgrimage to his mecca. Here he is "Kop Koon Kap-ping" to Ronald (which means he's thanking him). For the amount of money we spend in McDonalds while in China, Ronnie should be thanking us.
We still have photos from Krabi, but still working on those....get them posted soon!
Cheers!
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