Thailand

We are in Chalong Bay in Phuket (pronounced POO-KET) preparing for the next voyage.  Not quite sure where to yet, the plan was Sri Lanka and then the Maldives, but recent troubles in Sri Lanka may change that plan.  As they say out "we have no set plan, and we're sticking to it!"  After our fast and full four weeks stateside, we have had a couple of great weeks here in Thailand.  The trip home was great but far to busy.  The holidays were great an I even managed to get a week of work in doing a training workshop in sin city.  We saw lots of our close friends and family, although it seemed too short with each group. We were warmed to hear how many people are so supportive of our trip, some even praying for us.  I am not what you would call a very religious type but I am no fool, and with all of our close calls, I'll take all of the help I can get. It was great to see everyone and share our travel stories and hear how life was progressing in Mount Vernon.  We saw a fantastic new addition to one family and shared the tragic loss of another.  Life goes on.  The reentry into Thailand was smooth.  Well, almost.  Bronwen's next semester of books was lost by the airline.  Probably circling the globe, or stuck in some air terminal, as we write.  Just the sort of thing I would have wished for as a student, but not good news for Bronwen.  We spent a few days in Bangkok being tourists.  Took a river trip, and walked around the city.  We saw some fantastic Buddhist temples and found out that S and I, both being born on a Thursday, share the "meditaing Buddha."  That explains all of the late nights listening to music in our younger days. We got back to Margarita in our marina and she was fine.  It was very hot there, so we spent a bit of time at the pool, and massage room, during the first day or so.  Then it was on to cruise Thailand.  We headed North to Phang-Nga bay.  It is very shallow throughout, and absolutely full of fairy tale islands.  They tower over the sea, near vertical cliffs fringed with wild stalactites hanging down around the edges, forming a curtain of an overhang.  Many have interior rooms, called hungs, that you either walk into or take a dinghy.  One of them was accessed via a long (100 m) tunnel through the rock,all natural.  At the end was a low passage under the stalactite curtain to the big hung.  As we hit the tide too late, we couldn't get the dinghy through that last bit, so S and I stripped off (much to the kids embarrassment) and swam in.  We were followed by several kayaks of guided tourists.  Knowing what the Thais think of naked farangs (whites), they call them monkeys, we kept all but our heads under water.  We had another hung all to ourselves early in the morning.  That one was accessed by foot. We all went in and soaked in the scene.  It was eerily calm. Birds made it feel like an aviary.  The walls were hundreds of feet tall and at the tops you could see that there was a strong wind, but down at the bottom it was calm.  A great experience. We took a day trip with a local in his long tail boat.  These are long narrow boats with a standard car engine nicely balanced in the stern so that the operator can swivel it, with a propeller shaft, about 10 feet long or more, extending far behind the boat.  They steer by swiveling the entire engine/shaft in some amazing maneouvers. He took us to a couple of great caves, full of bats.  I wondered, for a minute, why the ground was so nice and soft in there.  He then took us to his village to see his house and family.  When we visited the school, they gathered round as if we were from Mars.  School kids just like anywhere in the world, get set to take a picture of two sweet little girls and suddenly there are 14 boys fighting to ham it up for the photo.  The teachers even seemed to be fascinated with us, stopped their lunch to ask all sorts of questions, very animated lot.  There was never any mention of payment for our guide, and at the end of the 4 hour trip, he seemed surprised when I gave him some gas money.  The next day we gave him some some digital prints that we had taken of his family.  He then said he would go and harvest some fresh crab for us.  When he caught up with us it had been raining hard and he and his buddies were freezing cold.  We had them aboard for some tea, and had a great visit.  He told us he makes about $6 a day fishing, nothing for the bank, he said.  He asked if we would like to live next to him.  He offered to build us a house for about $3,000. It was tempting,  but not sure what the village would have thought.  His last ditch was asking if he could come with us back to the USA.  He didn't seem at all bothered with the news that we would take about 18 months to get home.  He said he could cook and help steer and his wife would understand. We explained that without a passport he would go to jail.  Oh, he also asked if I would like a Thai wife, as an addition to my family.  I said that as nice a gesture as that was, I was content with just one.  We asked if he had more than one wife.  No way. They would fight, he said. We met up with  a boat called "Briar Patch", which is a sister ship to Margarita.  The couple onboard are now great friends.  We traveled with them for a week or so. Spending the evenings together and trading stories on problems and solutions with our Lafittes.  The water in Phang-Nga bay is cloudy from the rivers run-off and we all craved clear water, so we headed South to the Koyao Sea.  The water was better, but we are clear water snobs so in places that the book says the snorkeling is "superb" we found it a bit disappointing.  We spent a couple of days off of a real tourist resort and then headed east towards Phuket.  We stayed in a great little bay, shared it with another boat, but no one else, and no long tails or tourist boats.  We cleaned Margarita's lovely bottom.  Scraping off barnacles attracted loads of beautiful fish.  They formed a column from the boat to the bottom 15 feet below little ones at the top and big ones, spearfishable size, at the bottom. Very nice scene.  Boat maintenance is not always nasty.  So now here we are getting provisioned up, getting the refridgeration repaired, S is repairing sails again, the kids are back into the school thing, and I am working hard.  We are cramming as much of the great food here as possible.  We have yet to be disappointed with the street food or small restaurants.  Our feelings about the upcomming passage have evolved typically, from uncertainty to anxiety to resolve and eager anticipation. We are now all ready to push off and get moving again. 



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