pardon the interruption...

the night before last as i started my post i was interrupted. it seemed that when we were last at this hotel and we booked our last night someone seemed to think that i was a child and though we thought we were getting a better rate, but three of us in two twin beds would have been a bit too cozy. the misunderstanding was recitifed and somehow we ended up in the penthouse floor in the london suite. (of course standards in naming a suite a suite are all very relative...) after we made it to our room i proceeded to the internet to write what surely was my most eloquent and interesting blog to date. then after an hour of work there were some serious techinical difficulties which led to a bit of frustration on my part and my lovely blog went down in flames. i will attempt to recreate the blog, but note the recreation is never as good as the crafted perfection of the original (in my mind anyway).

some day last week (is that the sign of a good vacation when the designation of days becomes almost irrelevant?) perhaps tuesday we arrived in phuket. the "we so lucky" chant continued in our heads for the duration of our phuket stay.

we began wednesday with the spectacular marriott breakfast buffet. though my favorite standard was an egg white omelette with all the mushrooms i wanted, there was a wide array of temptations to supplement the omelette. suzanne and i became big fans of dim sum for breakfast; i learned freshly made guava juice has the ability to cleanse one thoroughly; coconut yogurt with fresh coconut chunks is to die for; and who could not like japanese crepes with nutella and bananas? if anyone is aware of what makes a crepe a japanese crepe, please share. really i could go on for quite a while about the buffet...it was quite amazing enough and quite free enough for us to lift our previously made "no buffets" rule.

we spent the rest of the day on a trip to phana nga bay. though a long trip the the other side of the island, the bay is spectacular. there are thousands of small islands created by some sort of sediment (from either a swamp or an ocean) that has turned to limestone and has produced these spectacular islands in very interesting shapes that the water has broken down with pretty fantastic results. we rode around the bay on a longboat (unfortunately not to ourselves this time) and stopped at james bond island (it is now officially called that) because it was in some early bond movie that i have not seen...maybe roger moore... james bond island..as with most places that one might hope for serene beauty was crowded with touchy vendors. i'm not sure what it was about that island that made them not only have a difficult time to stop talking but also had to invade one's personal space and quite a bit too touchy for my spatially aware american self. And even more so for jessica. if they touched her they had no chance she would buy anything.

jut a note...though many of the places we have been were highly commercialized i consistently found myself attempting to create an image of solidarity...when you see photos with no one in them it is completely illusory.

we also visted a muslim fishing village, the giant buddha in the cave, fed lucky monkeys bananas (well suzanne at least was sucked in), and canoed, and bamboo rafted in these very cool almost dead caves. once we got off the bamboo rafts they joked with us that we might walk through a little bit of water. when the water got thigh-high we realized the joke--it seems that thais are very into the non-disclosure type of humor. why prepare? it was just lovely that i was wearing a skirt. but don't doubt my skill in keeping myself relatively covered and dry until of course we got back in the canoe and the bottom of it was full of water....so much for my efforts.

thursday jessica and suzanne went scuba diving and i was still at our lovely resort. i had a really amazingly relaxing day. woke up, read scriptures in our lovely pagoda on our patio to the sound of waves crashing, and worked out watching an angels/yankees game live (it was 7am --first time to see johnny damon in the pinstripes. he cut his hair and went to the dark side of course he's going to go 0 for 4). i then leisurely ate my breakfast and read, laid in the sun, relaxed in the water, read, laid in the sun, listened to music and enjoyed the sun a bit more...i just might have found a tan. : )

that night we went to dinner at the resort's seafood market. blue crab and stir fired morning glory (yes the flower) stand out in my mind....oh and the coolest looking prawn appetizers wrapped in waves of crispy rice noodles.

the water is amazing. a perfect temperature and color (my turquoise ring reminds me of it) and though the current was strong once you got out a bit it was very calm. friday morning we took out sea kayaks, and while we got a bit of an arm workout the sway of the ocean continued to relax me.

we really didn't see any remnants of the tsunami in phuket, though we didn't spend too much time on the southern end of the island. we were also cautious to ask, not sure what was appropriate, but it seems that the marriott had very little damage because the beach drops off rather steeply. the southern edge of the island is much more gradual which allowed for much more destruction.