My Kind of Thai

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Thai Massage...eight bucks. Mani/Pedi...six bucks. Phuket Thailand...the poor girl's paradise. A Thai massage for the uninitiated (I'm referring to myself here) involves the masseuse being on the table with you--that was a new one for me--contortions and massage of the legs and ends with the masseuse standing on your back, holding your arms behind you and raising your body off the table several times...the best massage ever...I was ready to give her the contents of my wallet when it was over. Throw in a komodo dragon and thirty foot waves on the Andaman Sea and you've got Phuket, Thailand...a pleasant assault on the senses. Less than 3 hours by air and under US$200 for a three day getaway, this is my idea of decadence. Hideko and I stayed at the Siam Phuket Resort on less-commercialized Rawai Beach, on the southeastern tip of Phuket. The Thai people we met were gentle, generous and gracious. We met William from the UK at Nikita's Bar overlooking the Andaman Sea. Living in Phuket now for several years, he wowed me with his comparison of the economics of living here for US$600/month. Teresa from Canada has lived here for 20 years and when I shared my amazement at the uncommercialized appeal of the area with families setting up food stalls along the beach road in front of their homes, she amazed me with the story of what the beach was 20 years earlier with no roads, only small huts and zero commercial enterprises, Thai or otherwise. She says "it's five times more commercial now than then...so I'm moving to India"!

Hideko and I spent a day on Coral Island. It is a thirty minute longboat ride from Phuket popular for snorkelling, diving and other water fun. I enjoyed a snorkel in the Andaman Sea with several varieties of tropical fish and when I emerged, on the black rocks of the beach to greet me was a very large water monitor--we exchanged wide-eyed stares and you can guess who blinked first--I backed slowly away from the lizard and gave him lots of room. On the ride home, the sun and wind had whipped the waves much higher and bigger than earlier that morning--think of that painting of Mount Fuji with the huge wave and the tiny boat...I was holding onto the boat with both my hands and my toes! I hugged the captain when we landed.

We visited the Buddhist Temple, Wat Chalong, one of the most popular of many in Phuket on our ride back to the airport. A beautiful temple made of pink granite, marble and covered in gold leaf. A Buddhist funeral procession was arriving at the temple--the white coffin carried on a truck bed covered with a canopy and mounds of flowers and mourners riding on the truck bed with the coffin. Adjacent to the temple is a smaller temple with 20 or 30 orange-cloaked Buddhist monks sitting meditation in an open air room with people and dogs milling around--a very peaceful Thai time.

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