Friday, December 18th:
Today is our frst day with no traveling and nothing we have to do - horay! We're in Ko Phi Phi. Ko means island, so it's like saying Phi Phi Island in English. The "h" is silent... do you need to pee pee? ;-)
We had one 11 hour flight from LAX to Tokyo - I watched a couple of movies and read a bit - maybe got 2 hours of sleep. The next flight was to Bangkok and was about 6 and a half hours. I watched a movie and slept more. Theer was an older woman from Vancouver next to me who was very nice but wouldn't stop talking. She talked while I had headphones on watching a movie, while I read and EVEN while I was sleeping! Not sure how she couldn't find anything else to do. But she was very nice anyway.
In Bangkok, Scott had gotten us a room at a hotel right by the airport. We didn't get there until after midnight and pretty much just slept a few hurs before we had to get back to the airport. They had roses on the bed shaped like a heart and even had water in the bath with roses. Unfortunately, we had no time to enjoy it but it was still nice. The next day, we flew from Bangkok to Phuket. We took a cab to the port - you would not believe how this guy drove - not sure if there are really any traffic laws here, but it was cray. He did get us to the port on time as our boat was about to take off. The drive through the city gave us some ideas of what Phuket was like, but we didn't spend any time there. There were many different styles of buildings from little shacks to Mexican-looking to English to Asian. the coolest ones to me were some Asian (maybe Thai)-styled. I'm sure we'll get to see many more as we travel around.
We took a 2 hour boat from Phuket to Ko Phi Phi. the boat ride was beautiful, but didn't treat me very well. It was crazy hot and crowded and I got quite seasick. Even after landing, I was sick for another good hour. Felt nautious, weak, tired and even a bit numb - it was weird. We decided to have some lunch before taking another boat and I think that plus water helped. We then took a boat ot our hotel - the Ko Phi Phi Island Resort. An amazingly beautiful place - Scott decided to splurge on our first few days here and I'm so glad he did. We immediately took a nap and i had the MOST difficult time getting up after about 2-3 hours as I ever have. We walked over to a bar and had a couple of drinks. It was in an ideallic setting on the beach with a water passageway to our side. I could barely keep my eyes open. Although I felt very ready to sleep, we decided we needed dinner and walked up a hill to a Thai restaurant that was part of the hotel. It was a beautiful building and the setting and food was fabulous. I had Pad Thai and discovered that the Pad Thai we have back home is very similar! Not sure if it's because we're in a resort, but it was great. Scott kept commenting on how tired I looked and again, I could not keep my eyes open. We went back to our bungalow and I immediately fell asleep around 10 PM - Heavenly! I had planned to sleep until noon, but woke up wide awake at 7 AM in a fabulous mood. Everything looked so stunning to me and I keep noticing beautiful plants all over - this place is amazing! We had breakfast and are now sitting on the beach, finally relaxing and taking in the beautiful views.
The people here are so incredibly nice and polite. Everwher we go, people smile and want to help. Right when we get into places, everyone rushes to try and sel you the most expensive ride, hotel, etc, but other than that, they're great. We've been surprised that although many people here speak a tiny bit of English, in general their English is really ppoor. I had planned on getting Thai CDs to try and learn a bit of the language before coming here, but time ran out.Maybe we'll at least learn some basic words while we're here.
Now, I'm on the beach, watching the ocean, sitting in the shade with Sott relaxing in front of me in the su. I love him so much!
