Winding Down

Before I get into this blog today, I must tell you of a most interesting sight on our flight from Pucket to Bangkok the other night. As we approached Bangkok, we dropped out of the clouds and the sky turned upside down. We were over the Gulf of Thailand and below us were thousands of fishing boats, each with a single bright light. They were spread out randomly as far as we could see and looked like constellations spread in the night sky below us.

It's Thursday morning; we're sitting in Jen & Bruce's apartment organizing our last two days on the road, deciding which tasks we really need to finish before our return home, flight confirmation, last minute souvenirs, a couple of hours for a ski trip at Ski Dubai. Wow! Home seems like a strange thought. Seems like another life. We really haven't been home since the end of June; just a quick organizing and packing stop between Phoenix and this trip.

We've been getting weather updates from home and, to be honest, I don't really want to be there right now. The snow, rain and floods are not very appealing. We have been swimming, sweating and living outdoors for the last couple of months and that is quite pleasant. Last night we had a beautiful dinner in the garden of a nice restaurant, no jackets or sweaters. Very comfortable. This part of the world is just getting into the outdoor season because it is cool enough to go to the beach without frying. Swim-wear ads, gas barbecues in the store; just like summer at home.

Reflecting on our trip, there are some changes we will make when we do this again. Next time, we bring a laptop with us. Because of weight and security considerations, we chose to do without this trip. Although there are internet connections throughout the world, they are not always easy to find, are not easy to use because of language barriers (with people and with keyboards), can be very slow, so you are tearing out your hair and running up a bill for wait time and may not be available when you want to use them.

There is that end-of-the-day, winding down period when you are journaling in your hotel before bedtime, when it would be so convenient to put it all on the computer and organize all the emails and blogs, so you could just upload everything in a very short time when you did get connected.

We will bring a phone with an international calling plan. One of the most frustrating aspects of our trip is phones. Europe is not so bad. You can buy phone cards that work for many of the EU counties, but you still have to deal with which phones will let you use which cards to call which countries. And which phones use cash only or credit cards only.

Many counties have several different companies providing different levels of service at pay phones and you have to learn which ones work for you. Most of the time, you do your learning while you are trying to make a very critical call which can make the difference of having a hotel room for the night or having transportation in the morning. It's kind of a panicky way of learning.

We also ran into phone economics problems in some of our second world locations. We had hotel personnel who could not (would not) make calls which seemed like normal business practice to us. Calls to tour operators who hadn't shown up or calls to airlines to confirm tickets which couldn't be made because the clerk couldn't use the phone until the manager came in to approve the call. The clerk couldn't call the manager to approve the call because he didn't have the manager there to approve the call to the manager. The clerk couldn't use his own phone because calls were too expensive. The last reason we found to be legitimate because some of these people made very little money compared to the cost of a phone call.

The wardrobe held out OK for me. Gail decided she won't bring jeans next time and would bring different tops that could be washed and dried more easily. I brought all nylon and my clothes would dry overnight even in the most humid conditions. Most EU countries had laundromats, but when we got out of there it seems we could do laundry only in our room at night. We haven't seen a laundromat since Palermo, and that must have been somewhere back in 2004, or so. You can find places that will do your laundry for you, if you are going to be around long enough for them to get it back to you. For a long time I really enjoyed doing the laundry in our room at night. It seemed like such a fun little camping trip. But, it sure was nice doing laundry in a real washing machine last night. I guess the fun little camping trip chores wore out.

All of my shoes were comfortable and held up for the trip. None of Gail's shoes were comfortable. Her expensive walking shoes, podiatrist recommended, turned into a bust. Every pair she picked up along the way were blister factories. There were times I thought it would be less expensive and easier to just buy a wheelchair and go barefoot.

I was going to list some of our highlights, but I'm going to save that for another day. See you soon.

Happy travels!
Dan & Gail

Shallow Tourist's View of Thailand

There is a lot of Thailand we have not seen; so, I can only give a shallow, big resort view of it. Pucket Island is about half way down the country's penninsula on the west coast. It has a variety of spaces, from the very large port-city of Pucket City to water-bound hamlets accessible by only plane or boat. In between are sleepy villages to non-stop rock and roll, girly-bar, red-light districted towns like Patong, where we are staying.

Thankfully, we are in a very expensive (quiet) resort on the edge of Patong Beach. It is a refuge from all the noise and glitter of town. Nightly, in one or another of the restaurants at the resort, there is some soft (read: old-folks) rock till early in the morning. Unlike uptown, where the hard rock goes all night, until the last guy has found his date for the night and the youngsters have drunk themselves into oblivion.

For reasons hinted at but not really clearly expressed, the country's political structure has allowed prostitution to flourish among a people who seem to be so nice, polite and morally uplifted. The whole Buddhist nature of the country directs it towards niceness. As an example, a Japanese tourist was murdered last week at a remote temple site and the government and press followed up with several apologies to her parents from as high as the king and admonishments to the people to keep their faith and do no harm to others.

Patong Beach is a totally tourist based town. Its streets are lined with restaurants (with great food and prices that are good, but high compared to eating in non-touristy places), T-shirt shops, tailor shops, massage shops (mostly real), trinket and souvenir shops, and about every block there is a 7-11. And the street is lined with little Tuk-tuks, the local transportation; small trucks with seating in the back. The drivers and street hawkers are SO polite. They will urge you to come in, to ride, to look or buy: but when you say "No", they say, "Thank you!" and leave you alone.

There is a local T-shirt that says: "NO! I don't want a g*$ #&^m tuk tuk ride, a new suit or a massage!" Kind of rude to my way of thinking. Sure you hear a request about twice a minute, but they are polite.

We visited a Muslim village of the people called "Sea Gypsies" Out on the edge of the sea, picture the mangrove islands which flourish along Thailand's coast. Everything is horizontal, the sea and these long, low islands. Then, these huge limestone mountains (I believe the word is schist?) rise up a thousand feet. They are lone giants, not like a mountain range. You can see several at a time, but they are spread along the horizon.

Behind one of these limestone mountains, we found a village completely on stilts. It is a complete town, with homes, stores, restaurants, schools, children in school uniforms and a mosque. We even heard the call to prayer while we in town. The history is of a couple of fishing families coming into the area from Malaysia and staying to form this community well away from threatening neighbors. No alcohol, dogs or pigs are allowed in the town.

We've done some snorkeling on coral reefs, which is beautiful. We had threatened to get our PADI certification while we were here and do some SCUBA diving, but my asthma kicked in and I'm not sure I want to be underwater and have a coughing spell. I'm not certain how that works with a regulator. Next time. The water is so clear here, and warm, that it really makes you want to be underwater.

All in all- Gail and I think Thailand is wonderful. We are so glad we didn't miss this part of the world and hope we return to see a lot more of it. We leave tomorrow for a couple of days in Dubai, then it's back to Shelton on Dec. 8th. Well, I hate to be repetitive, but it is time to head in to town for a massage. See you soon.

Happy travels,
Dan & Gail