September 24 - Sunday
Karon Beach, Phuket
Our last full day at the beach. I'm at a coffee shop looking out over the Andaman Sea. It looks like we'll be seeing some more of monsoon season today. The horizon is dark with cloads, the horizon starts as a very dark line and as it comes in closer to the shore the water becomes a progressively lighter green. It's a bit sunnier here on the shoreline (for now) and so the water is that beautiful, tropical green that we'll never see in the pacific northwest and the sand is the color of light brown sugar or maybe more the color of a single tall latte made with whole milk. The sunsets here have been amazingly beautiful I haven't taken any pictures of them as this is when Jon and I have been exercising and the only time of the day when it's cool enough to do so while still being able to see on the beach. It's typically dark by the time we head back to our guest house. I think we've been in many sunset pictures taken by tourists on the beach. We try to avoid them but on a nice evening people are going picture crazy and we're bobbing an weaving which makes for a more interesting workout but at the end of the run I'm a little less tolerant. Running on the beach is not nearly as sexy it they make it look on tv or the movies. Unless you're on the hardpan it's friggin' hard. When you are on the hardpan you have to watch out for the incoming waves and the little translucent crabs running every which way under your feet. Then there's the humidity and heat. I'm always glad at the end of the run and am always a little cranky at the beginning. The gal standing in front of the restaurant we pass by on our way back from our run (she's the hostess/person trying to talk you off the sidewalk and into the restaurant) fanned us with her menu the first time she saw us pass by - not even trying to talk us into going into the restaurant. By the time we return, we're both pretty sweaty - like, drenched. The subsequent times we've passed she's always been very nice - knowing we weren't going into her place because we had just finished exercising but always saying hello and commenting on the heat. One of the tailors we pass by told Jon he had a nice body. Another time we passed by another tailor and he was going into he schpiel of telling us to "have a look" and "good deals" and then we really looked at us in our post workout state
"We have cold water"
Jon and I laughed at that but kept on walking. Those tailors are unstoppable.
Tuesday was the day on the Coup and we were clueless. Actually, if we had thought about it I guess we might have thought something was up when we turned on the tv and all of the Thai tv stations had the exact same person broadcasting. Maybe that should have been a red flag for us. I made some passing comment on the fact that maybe that was an important person on tv or that he must have something important to say.
Ignorance was bliss. What better place to be ignorant than on a beach in Thailand.
We do realize that we're lucky that it's been so peaceful and don't plan to linger in Bangkok any longer than necessary and have heeded all warnings about not gathering near government buildings - not that we even know where those buildings are and would two people in one spot be considered a gathering?
We rented a moped on Wednesday from a bar near our guesthouse. It wasn't as nice as the one we had rented a couple times in Kata Beach but it looked like it would do the job. We headed north. The road here is all newly replaced since the tsunami. Karon beach is still recovering and has rebuild some pretty fancy resorts across the street from the beach but there is still a big stretch that has not been developed and looks out of place amidst all the luxury of the surrounding buildings.
We as we road along the road hugging the coastline we passed dozens of alters set up facing out to the sea some had toppled over others had simpley fallen apart from being out in the elements for so long. It was hard not to be effected.
We rode into Patong Beach and I must say that I was really turned off. This beautiful beach is just way too touristy. The traffic, the number of people the stalls, traffic, hotels, guesthouses, etc were just too much. I think it made us both cranky. We stopped briefly and bought a swimsuit for Jon and some gifts for family in Korea. We walked a ways along the sidewalk and I'll admit I had a moment of weakness and talked Jon into going into a Starbuck.
It's almost October and they actually had the Pumpkin Spice latte for sale in Patong. Now, normally I would consider the whole idea of going into a Starbucks at all let alone ordering a seasonal drink - it would go against my entire travel philosophy besides drinking a pumpkin spice latte while on a sunny, tropical beach is just wrong on so many levels.
BUT,
My rationale is that: first of all, I'm a little homesick and season sick (I miss the fall), I am going to pull the PMS card because I can and the pumpkin spice latte is the only flavored coffee drink I like and am willing to spend the ever-rising Starbuck's coffee prices for.
What would have made it perfect is if I would have had it in a to go cup walking around outside in the fall weather proabably to meet my sister for some kind of shopping or walking around the mall, or meeting a friend in the evening. Pam Dodds, our friend we stayed with while in England asked if I liked coffee and I told her that not only did I like coffee. I liked everything about coffee: the taste, the smell, the utensils, the sounds, the whole culture around coffee.
In Europe people would stop for tea (usually) or a coffee. It's something you take a time out for. When we were at Adriennes in Twyinning we had tea or coffee in the afternoon and a nice chat. It makes one stop, slow down a bit and recharge rather than just putting you nose down, blinders up and plow through the rest of the day. Tea is probably even better for this because you have to wait for it to steep. In asia, the power drinks like the Red Bull drinks we have back home have been around a lot longer than Red Bull. It's go, go, go. It's a different culture, I think it has to be. There's just so many people and it just strikes me as being so so (so) hard to break even, let alone get ahead in that culture. When I've visited places like Seoul and now Bangkok I just get this vibe of work, work, work. It's intense. We're really very lucky to be able to live in the US. We have it pretty easy back home.
Anywho, back to our day with the moped. We didn't linger long in Patong but continued north to Kamala beach which was about 5kilometers away. It's closer in size to Kata beach, a little bit rockier but even quieter. This beach community still has a lot of recovery work to do and I imagine it will be at least another year before they're back up to anything close to what they were making before the tsunami. What they've done since then though was put in a beautiful lighted walk along the entire beach the cement equivalent of a boardwalk. What it means for us was that it was really quiet and prices were super good for accomodations. We were thinking of spending our last few nights at another beach. We found a great spot right on the beach with breakfast for 700 baht.
We tooled around town and took a side road and actually saw some ox (water buffalo?) in a field. They were beautiful and looked like a picture from National Geographic with the tropical vegetation and haze of the mid day humidity surrounding the field. There is a tsunami monument in Kamala beach. There was a couple of small signs for the monument but it wasn't heavily advertised. We had seen the sign as we road into town and thought we had missed it until just before leaving town.
What it is exactly is the mass grave site of the tsunami victims. It's an area surrounded by ta cement wall that you can look down into from the road as you drive by. Inside is a few trees and small markers scattered over the undulations of the ground. This wasn't the perfectly manicured, geometrically correctly cemetary we saw at the beaches of Normandy where the graves are a tribute to those who fought so bravely and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
What we saw was the results of the needing to bury the dead after tragedy and completely unexpected loss of life in order to prevent disease and further death. The fact that it isn't perfectly manicured but rather undulating where the dirt was pushed in and filled the mass grave, it is not perfect but rather messy looking compared to what we in the US know as any kind of burial site. The markers which are no more than a foot high are leaning every which way and in no particular order. Nothing is perfectly aligned, in fact nothing is perfect about it at all. I think this mass grave visually captures the events of what happened on December 26, 2004, it's messy, and chaotic, there's no order, rhyme or reason to it. It's a very powerful site. It's imperfection makes it all the more compelling.
It was getting on in the day so we decided to head back to Karon beach. As we got into Patong beach we decided to bypass the beach traffic and head straight through town. We were almost out of town when we got a flat tire. Great.
I couldn't even tell until Jon told me. We pulled over, I got off the bike and it was pretty flat. We had pulled into an area with a bunch of market stalls. There was a security guy watching us from across the market. I looked out to the road in hopes of seeing something resembling a place that could change a tire. The security guard pointed out to the road, I looked again and didn't see anything and then just started walking out to the sidewalk and looked down the road - nothing. Jon joined me and we walked a little bit - what else could we do? Not fifty yards away was a bike rental/garage. Jon went and got the bike and showed the man at the garage what we needed. He said he could fix the tire.
"How much?" - S
That was the big question.
"150 baht"
"ok" - like we had a choice but thank goodness it wasn't crazy expensive.
I went back and thanked the security guy and we sat and waited for the tube to be replaced in the tire. As we road out of town, still about 7 kilometers from Karon beach we both agreed how TOTALLY lucky we were that he had the flat where we did! We were able to enjoy the rest of the ride back. I was ready to get off the bike. My butt was getting sore and the foot rests were not comfortable causing me to want to shift my feet around which Jon didn't like as the driver of the bike. I sat and watched our shadow run over the hillside as we road back into Karon beach. As we reached to the bottom of the hill and entrance into town we were pulled over by the police. They were stopping everyone going into and out of town, checking driver's license's. We had ours but they were tucked away in our waist pouch so it took a while to get them out, I had to get off the bike, Jon had to pull completely off the road while placed under close scrutiny when he finally showed his license. He's due to renew his license so it's not the most recent picture.
We passed muster and made it the last quarter mile to our guesthouse without incident!
We went for a run on the beach before riding into Kata Beach ot the restaurant we frequented while we were staying there. As we road to the restaurant we passed another eatery that had a baby elephant with a handler outside. The elephant looked totally sweet. Jon had pulled over and we looked on from across the street. We didn't go up to it and I was pretty turned off.
"That baby should be with it's mama somewhere in the jungle, not on the sidewalk with a chain around it's neck." - S
As we walked up to the restaurant the hostess recognized us and gave us a warm greeting. We had actually seen her at a bar at Karon beach. Apparently she also tutors a young boy in English once a week and her friend owns the bar. She had waved us down our second day there say that she had seen us the day before and tried to wave to us but we didn't see her - she had recognized Jon. She told us that she tutors and is helping set up another restaurant there on Karon beach not far from where we were staying but it wouldn't be open for a while yet which is why she was still working at the restaurant in Kata Beach. We had a wonderful dinner and on our way out the hostess said that the next time we came to visit we should go to her new place at Karon beach.
We road back to Karon beach without incident and turned in the moped, not telling the owner about the flat tire, and I personally was glad to be rid of it. The rest of the week was spent watching the Ryder Cup starting in the afternoon, exercising in the evening and watching more of the Ryder Cup at night. We've been watching the Thai sports channel so we don't know much about what they're saying during the commentary but are actually quite enjoying it. Jon likes it better than the major stations back home that would be covering the Cup, no commercials and the Ooos and Aahhs of the guys doing the commentary are pretty comical. Saying the phrase Double Dog Leg with a Thai accent is quite the tongue twister! I guess there isn't a Thai translation for that or many other golf terms, according to Jon.
I was able to get some fresh pineapple yesterday. After two days without. One day the stand wasn't open at all, the second day was a Buddhist holiday and they gave all their pineapple to the temple. The second day I had gone wandering around looking for some place selling pineapple - because yes it's just that tastey, or bananas, or any produce and was really having trouble finding any. I passed by the temple and there we a woman helping a customer, she was selling corn on the cob. I looked good but I was on the hunt for pineapple or bananas so I kept on walking. I didn't get farther before deciding that this was silly and started heading back. I came closer to the corn girl and decided to get some. I love corn so I walked up to her cart. The she and the man she was with seemed a little surprised that I had come up to her and when I pointed to her covered pot and indicated that I wanted two she quickly got up and lifted the lid asking which type I wanted (yellow or white). I went with the yellow - I looked prettier. She dipped it in (I think) water to cool it down (I think) before putting them in a plastic bag. I think it was only like 10 baht. I walked back to the guesthouse and happily showed Jon what I found. I was proud of myself for getting the corn knowing that I wouldn't have even known to get it if the woman hadn't been helping someone else and I could see inside the pot.
The corn was really good. I love corn.
That will be one thing I'll miss - the fresh produce.
