Phuket (April 1-4)

If you've been following along, you might remember that I slept through my flight to Phuket, Thailand. Well, I ended up catching the next available flight, and met up with Arvind, Aruni & Mike. That evening was a blur of seedy Thai beaches and Connect 4, but we called it a night because we were off to Phi Phi island early the next day.




Not much to say. It was a smorgasbord of blues and green as far as the eye could see. And looking down, well...




The weather was great, and we ended up snorkeling a few times. I'd never been before, and I was amazed at the world unda da sea. I noticed that the beaches were really clean, and apparently that's a by-product of being hit by a tsunami. All the garbage is washed out with the tide, or further inland. As a result, the locals who depend on the tourist industry are making an effort to keep the beaches clean now that they've had to take a fresh start.

Though I lost a bunch of weight at the beginning of my journey, it's found me again. An interesting side note was that the best satay I had wasn't in Thailand, but in the Hawker's markets near Anita's place. That alone probably contributed to 5 lbs.




That evening upon arriving back at Kata Beach (where we were staying in Phuket), we met the second group of NUS students, led into our room by Kiran! It still remains a shock whenever I see someone that I know from back home. That whole small world analogy which I've heard beaten to death as I travel, is of course, very true. As the brown man reported, it turned out that Kiran and Gaya knew each other from high school and coincidentally met again for the first time in Singapore!

That night we went for "authentic Thai cuisine, cooked by locals," which of course is much better than the authentic Thai cuisine cooked by foreigners.

It was a surreal evening as we were deciding what to do for the night. There was only two channels on in the room, rugby, and the unfortunate CNN Pope death countdown. I'm all for reporting about the Pope's health, but it was really quite morbid, all the anchors just waiting for him to die so they'd have something to report, and get on with all the pre-produced biographical materials.

The next day Arvind & Aruni had to get back to Singapore and finish some school work, so I went with Kiran, Carol & Tim to James Bond Island. Which was the setting of one of the Bond movies, whose name escapes me. Oh yeah, the movie "The Beach" was filmed partially on that first island we went to yesterday. I've never seen "The Beach" but yeah, those are my brushes with celebrities.




Probably the coolest animal I saw was not during my snorkeling, but on a canoe ride along some of the smaller island coasts. This is a mudskipper, a fish that can walk. I've never seen one in person, and it was just incredible; even if you don't like animals it's pretty amazing to see the adaptations that have developed in nature. The more time I spend on or near the water, the more I wonder what it'd be like if I'd stuck with that childhood dream of being a marine biologist. Or better yet, another childhood dream was to be a peregrine falcon. And that would be way cooler than marine biologist.




My flight didn't leave till the next evening, so I bid adieu to Kiran & Co., and just wandered around the town for a few hours. I chilled on the beach (and with the new beach chairs & umbrellas, since the tsunami destroyed all the other ones) and took this shot, which reminds me of a Corona ad. Well, without the Coronas.

about Thailand, from The Netherlands