Wednesday we spent sleeping in, going to Bang Bao fishing village for lunch (here's a photo) - it's essentially a long pier which makes up the village/homestay, located directly across the bay from our resort (about a ten-minute walk). We wandered back to our hotel in the afternoon to lay by the pool, then back to the pier for dinner. Quite lowkey. In an attempt to prep ourselves for returning to normal life, we had a "movie night" and watched Persepolis at the end of the eve.
Dan still can't resist curry for nearly every meal (red or green, with seafood usually), while I'm a little less predictable with papaya/spicy salads, yellow curry, saute mixed vegetables or padthai.
Thursday, I felt antsy, so we rented a scooter (they rent for about $10 a day here, and it's $1 for an extra liter of gas - which can essentially take you all over the island) and drove up the west coast. We got little helmets, which was reassuring given the traffic is much heavier at this busiest island.
Much like our trip to Cozumel over New Year's 2006-07, the island has a resort-filled west coast (gulf-side) and a remote, rural east coast (ocean, ie. wave-ridden -side). We got our first thai massage on the beach of Kai Bae & I realized my first regret of this trip...that I didn't flippin' get one sooner! For $10 per hour, a thai massage with the wind and waves turned us to jello. Dan's first massage ever in his life... his initial comment "that was amazing...my legs...," his second comment, "man, imagine if i could have that available for players during preseason. although it might be cheaper to fly a thai massage therapist in..." - what a coach. anyway, it was great. we lunched on kai bae, then scootered back south (i did have to stop at a tiny thai flea market) and went to bang bao pier again for a late dinner.
today we are spending our last day on the island at our resort poolside (and when i say resort it's a bit of a misnomer as it only has 12 bungalows and can accomodate a max of 35 people - it has 2 pools and an amazing open-air restaurant).
we will fly back to bangkok tonight and to tokyo early tomorrow (sat) morning. from there we will spend an evening in japan - narita to be exact, a suburb of tokyo, where the airport is located. then fly home again on sun morning (which with the time change will put us back in fargo late afternoon sunday).
hard to imagine right now that this is coming to an end... (but we do miss everyone, especially zizou...)
