The first thing I saw as I walked off the plane in Thailand was a sign as long as the walkway between the plane and the terminal that declared "Long live the King". In Thailand it is punishable by law to make any defamatory remarks against the King. Not that these people would anyway. It seems that have a genuine love affair with their King. Every Monday is "King Day". All over Thailand you will see people in the yellow King shirts with the royal emblem on the breast pocket. A far cry from the shirts in the states adorning our leader with sentiments like "President poo-poo head" or "Save the world, kill yourself".
Another thing that stood out from the get go was the Buddhist iconography. Whether one of it's many images are depicted on murals, art, souvenirs or you see an actual Buddhist Monk, you know you are someplace entirely different than home. The predominate religion (90%) of Thailand is Buddhism. One of the main teachings of Buddhism is to walk the middle road. The best place to be is not too poor or too rich; too fat or too thin; have too much or too little. What you get is a feeling of happiness, generosity and peace! Everyone here has been more than helpful. People are always smiling. It is a wonderful culture to explore.
Now, on to a rather funny first impressions. Our first spot was a beach town. I thought it was so nice how they put a small hose with a sprayer in the bathroom to wash your feet. I love clean feet! Hmmm, then at the next place we stayed another sprayer for your feet. Yes, it finally clicked that the toiler paper in the room was really a western amenity. The Thais don't actually use it! It was a funny moment when I came out to tell Jill what I had discovered. Of course it was not news to her! Duh.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
It's All About the Journey
Getting to Thailand was as much an adventure as being in Thailand. In all I logged 29 hours, 3 plane flights, a taxi and a longtail boat, stopping in 5 cities on my journey from San Francisco to Ton Sai, Thailand. I knew it was far but geez!
The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was 14+ hours. I slept most of the way since the flight left at 1am. With nobody sitting next to me it was actually very comfy. After a 2.5hr layover in Hong Kong it was another 3hrs to Bangkok. Finally in Thailand!!! The airport is fairly new with many places to eat. Now, I am used to the American version of Thai food but most of the stuff I saw along the way of snacks were not so familiar. Just to be on the safe side I enjoyed a raspberry, blueberry, banana shake. Here in the airport is where I met my good friend Jill. We caught up during the 5 hr layover we had about her recent trip to Africa. This is certainly on my list of places to travel. The next flight was about 1.5hrs to Krabi. Krabi is on the Andaman Sea side of the Thai peninsula. Our final destination is a small beach town near to Krabi so we hopped in a taxi to Ao Nang. Ao Nang is the beach town just next to where we want to go so we had to wait for a longtail boat to get us the last 20mins.
Funny thing about catching a longtail boat at this time of the night is that is LOW tide. To get to the boat you have to walk through about 50ft of wet sand and 1.5m of water. Yeah, we had all our bags on us or in our hands with water up to our skivvies. Good times! Then we had a rather mystical 20min boat ride to Ton Sai. It was dark out but the moon shed just enough light to drench the limestone massifs in enough shadow that we could get a sense of enormity without the detail as we rode directly underneath. I could not wait for daylight. Of course it was still low tide in the neighboring bay so we were let out this time on to jagged rocks. Sort of a massage, sort of pins and needles. You just have to laugh though...we both laughed hard :o)
FINALLY we arrived in Ton Sai!! Pretty much all we could do was rinse off, eat and have a wonderful beer before sleeping for 10hrs. In this instance I would say it was just as much about the destination :o)
The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was 14+ hours. I slept most of the way since the flight left at 1am. With nobody sitting next to me it was actually very comfy. After a 2.5hr layover in Hong Kong it was another 3hrs to Bangkok. Finally in Thailand!!! The airport is fairly new with many places to eat. Now, I am used to the American version of Thai food but most of the stuff I saw along the way of snacks were not so familiar. Just to be on the safe side I enjoyed a raspberry, blueberry, banana shake. Here in the airport is where I met my good friend Jill. We caught up during the 5 hr layover we had about her recent trip to Africa. This is certainly on my list of places to travel. The next flight was about 1.5hrs to Krabi. Krabi is on the Andaman Sea side of the Thai peninsula. Our final destination is a small beach town near to Krabi so we hopped in a taxi to Ao Nang. Ao Nang is the beach town just next to where we want to go so we had to wait for a longtail boat to get us the last 20mins.
Funny thing about catching a longtail boat at this time of the night is that is LOW tide. To get to the boat you have to walk through about 50ft of wet sand and 1.5m of water. Yeah, we had all our bags on us or in our hands with water up to our skivvies. Good times! Then we had a rather mystical 20min boat ride to Ton Sai. It was dark out but the moon shed just enough light to drench the limestone massifs in enough shadow that we could get a sense of enormity without the detail as we rode directly underneath. I could not wait for daylight. Of course it was still low tide in the neighboring bay so we were let out this time on to jagged rocks. Sort of a massage, sort of pins and needles. You just have to laugh though...we both laughed hard :o)
FINALLY we arrived in Ton Sai!! Pretty much all we could do was rinse off, eat and have a wonderful beer before sleeping for 10hrs. In this instance I would say it was just as much about the destination :o)
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