Swimming and the Spa

Day 3 of our vacay began relatively low key. We had breakfast, swam in our private pool (because how often do you get to have your own private pool?), had lunch and then hit the spa. This was something George was really not digging. His idea of a good time is not laying still and getting a massage. He’d rather be doing cannon balls out of the bathroom window, over our waterfall and into our 4.5 foot deep pool. Trust me. I know. Because he did that all morning. He also said things like “Put down your book and watch this!” followed by “You weren’t watching!” And “Time me to see how long I can hold my breath!”  He seriously can’t sit still and just “be”. Poor guy. So one of my goals on this vacation was to get him to completely relax, even if it was for just a short amount of time. So we booked a “spa-day” with a package through the resort that included a couple’s massage (which they cleverly disguised as a ‘sports massage’ for men), facials, pedicures, and time in their steam room (aka, sauna). It was great. They served us some local juice, and showed us the showers. I thought it was great. It was certainly the best massage I’d ever had, and the facial was nice too. I even fell asleep for a while, which is a huge plus in my book.

Oh. And did I mention he also did jumps out the bathroom window into our pool? Cause he did. 

When we were done George expressed he thought it was sub-par and boring, but that’s ok. He got to pick manlier activities later on in the trip (and his were much more adventurous!)

We napped when we got back from the spa and then were able to get in touch with our friends Mel and DJ (the same Mel and DJ from our Fuji trip) who were staying on the same island. They were only a handful of resorts down the beach from us so we planned to walk south and they walk north and we’d eventually meet in the middle. The plan worked and it was fun to see some familiar faces in a foreign country! We had dinner with them, exchanged stories and advice about the area, had a few drinks and wound up at bar on the beach that had hookah. I had never smoked hookah and honestly never had much interest in it, but I tried it and actually did enjoy it. It was a neat and unique experience that I’m glad I had on a beach in Thailand but is probably not an activity I’ll make any sort of habit out of!

We also found vendors walking up and down the beach selling “lucky balloons” or “love balloons”. I learned about these from an episode of the Bachelorette when Ashley and her suitors were in Thailand and let a love balloon fly away. We all ooohed and awwwed over how cute and romantic it was. I was delighted to find these on the beach! So we bought a balloon (which is really like a miniature hot air balloon that you light at the bottom and the hot hair expands the cloth material and it eventually flies high in the sky. You can also make a wish when you set it free (I don’t know if that’s something real or if it’s something I made up, but I think I made a wish). It was presh.

This was also where George requested that I stopped comparing our vacation to the Bachelorette. Too bad, so sad George. Our vacation was even better than theirs, because our marriage will actually last. 

Thailand Day 2

We got up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel, hailed a taxi, went to the airport and checked in for our flight. The plan was to fly from Singapore to Krabi, Thailand and then immediately get on a flight from Krabi to Koh Samui, Thailand. However, we had a hard time booking our flight from Krabi to Samui… it’s a bit confusing as to how this all panned out, but we weren’t very confident we even had our seats reserved. So we wanted to go to the counter with the other airline to get it straightened out. However… our flight from Singapore to Krabi was with the “budget terminal” which was a whole taxi ride away from Terminal 1 where that airline was. So we paid $9 for a taxi to the other terminal. What a joke. And then they didn’t even have a single staff member on duty since their only flight of the day wasn’t until that evening. ::sigh::

Long story short, we made our flight in plenty of time and got it all straightened out with no problems. We had lunch at the airport near a group of young European guys. They had on stupid sunglasses with long hair and George and I had a pretty interesting conversation about how I thought it was cool they were all likely backpacking through Thailand and Asia and George thought they were lowlifes who needed to get real jobs and contribute to society. The never ending laughter about my free spirit and George’s sense of logic struck again. Sometimes we both wonder how we ever ended up together. While we are the same person, we are very different… and I think that’s part of what makes us tick.

We landed in Koh Samui airport and we were delighted to see the most precious airport imaginable. They had tiki-hut looking buildings and the airplanes were painted with fish, sunshine and rainbows. (See… free spirit)

Unfortunately since we booked our hotel through a budget website (agoda.com…. awesome by the way) the hotel apparently didn’t get our request for airport transfer so we had to get a taxi. We drove all of 5 minutes to the resort and we couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. The Bhundari Resort Hotel and Spa was beautiful. It was separated by a road into two pieces, one on a hill and one down the hill along the beach. We gave them our info at check in and they escorted us to couches overlooking the ocean and brought us an ice cold drink. The only thing that could have been better was if it had alcohol in it. We were informed we’d been upgraded from the deluxe pool villa to a luxury pool villa. No complaints there! So they took our bags and put us on the back of a golf cart and drove us up the hill to our room. Here’s where the problem was: In our days and days of research we had selected this particular hotel for the “beachfront pool villa” but we were 150 yards up a hill from the beach. Normally I wouldn’t have dared to complain but hey- you want what you paid for. So I sent George back to the reception area to have him straighten it out. They did, no questions asked and we moved down the hill and across the road to the beach. We were still separated by one other villa and the resort’s pool but the view was beautiful. And we had our own pool. And it was a villa. And I could live in that room forever and be happy.

Our room was done all in teak with the prettiest hardwood floors. It had high ceilings, a settee, a king sized bed that was super comfortable and the bathroom was 3 times larger than the one we have at home. It had an outside shower with dual showerheads, a Jacuzzi tub, and dual vanities with the cutest sinks. I loved that bathroom, and have made a mental note to live in a house with a bathroom like that someday. ::sigh::

We splashed around in our own private pool for a little while and then went to the resort pool because they had a swim up bar… and how could you not love one of those? We spent the rest of the afternoon there and then headed into the Chaweng Beach tourist area for dinner. George made me try a Maekong Lippo, which is a Thai whiskey and red bull drink (or something like that)… George goes on trips to Thailand pretty often and he knows all about those sorts of things. So I had one and it was delish. This meal came with the largest shrimp I have ever eaten. They were SO good.

 After dinner we walked around the area and were bombarded with people selling us suits, dresses, tickets to Muay Thai boxing, and massages. We ended up deciding it would be pretty cool to see a boxing match. Our friend Kate won the people’s choice award for her photo at a boxing match in Thailand last year and they had a good time at the match. Plus I divulged in Ashley’s season of the bachelorette… where they traveled to Thailand and participated in a Muay Thai boxing match, so it was on my list of things to do.

We walked to Chaweng stadium and got our seats in the second row. I was slightly terrified for these guys’ lives. This boxing is pretty intense but it also involves a lot of culture. Each boxer prays and hits each corner of the match, does a little dance to the live band and then the fighting began. It seemed like sometimes it would take 10 minutes for a match to start. The guys were all greased up and slippery, and their goons were passionate about their winning. Cheering them on, telling them which moves to use, yelling, screaming, and jumping up and down. Good grief was it entertaining. I think all together there were 7 fights. The smallest guys were in a 104lb weight class and didn’t look like they could be a day past their 15^th birthdays. The largest were in a 165lb weight class but George and I both thought they looked more like 195. There were kicks and punches and slaps and blood and sweat and knockouts. While it was really fun to see I was a bit worried some of those kids were going to have some serious brain damage. My favorite fight was the last one of the night. It was the most advertised too. It was an Australian guy vs. a Thai boxer. It was the Australian’s first fight and the crowd was pumped up. This is where we learned the phrase “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!!! OY, OY, OY!” This is apparently a pretty popular phrase for the Aussie’s, as we heard it a couple more times during our stay in Thailand. The ring leader was funny too and introduced the Thai boxer as a boxing champion who has won over 100 fights… then he declared he was just kidding, and it was only his third fight. Funny.

So homeboy fighter Aussie had a whole brood of goons with him. I made up my own back story for this guy, which I’m sure is probably pretty accurate. Here’s how it goes: Aussie kid (probably early 20’s) went to Thailand on holiday (since they don’t use the word vacation) with some of his buddies and saw a Muay Thai boxing match. They thought it looked easy enough and since he had a few extra weeks to spare he stayed and trained and will probably participate in three fights and then head back to Australia with some sort of scar, lifelong injury or disease for thinking he could be a badass Muay Thai boxer. End story.

By the way, Aussie won.

We negotiated a taxi ride home on what they call a “Baht Bus”. It’s basically an old pickup truck with a cover and benches built up on the side of the bed for passengers. It was terrifying riding in that thing with all of the traffic. And by traffic I mean 100’s of motorcycle scootering tourists who were all leaving the boxing match and had probably been drinking. We made it back to our oasis room though, and slept through to morning.  

I can't believe we didn't have our camera with us for the boxing match but we took a few on George's iPhone.

Thailand- Day 1 (so really... Singapore)

We climbed Fuji on Friday and then George left first thing Sunday morning on a trip to Australia. What a lucky guy! We were supposed to leave Thursday for our vacation to Thailand! We wanted to take a trip when George got home from deployment in June but it took us a few months to find time in our busy lives to make that work. So, August it was! We spent weeks starring at the computer screens learning about the areas we were traveling to, airplane tickets to get there, which hotels to stay at and recommended restaurants in the area. It was exhausting. The only solace I took from this research was that eventually we would get to go there and experience Thailand. Long story short… George didn’t make it home from his trip in time for us to make our scheduled flight and hotel reservations so we had to cancel and reschedule for when he did finally get home. It only delayed our trip by 4 days and was truly a blessing in disguise because airfare dropped because of the different days and he was able to get a few extra days of leave.

The night before we left for our vacation George and I were relatively busy. And when I say busy we had two events to attend. I had my monthly Bunco game and George joined a fantasy football draft here on the base with some of his friends. And so although we had to check in at the terminal at 4:15, I wasn’t home until about 10:30, with several loads of laundry to do, and George didn’t make it home until almost midnight. Then we packed and George ended up getting in about an hour and a half of sleep, and I slept for zero minutes. With coffee and bagels in hand, we were off to the base terminal to sign in for a flight. We made it on the flight!!! (I am behind on a blog or two but when (if) I ever get caught up, I’ll explain why making it on a Space-A flight is such a big deal.)

So we got on one of the nicest planes we could have imagined for a Space-A flight. There were only 7 passengers on a flight with 27 seats. They gave us two different meals, snacks and drinks galore and they played 3 movies during our 6.5 hour flight. My favorite snack choice was the king sized 3 Musketeer’s bar, which I put in my purse for a snack for later. My only complaint was how cold it was. Seeing as how it was August it was hot outside and I knew it would be in Singapore too so I wore some cotton gaucho’s I bought in the PJ section at Target (I’m bringing them back) thinking they would be enough warmth. I ended up with two blankets wrapped around my legs. It almost made it miserable!

We landed safely, got our bags and headed towards our taxi. At one point along the short walk there was one of those metal revolving door turnstile things. (Know what I mean?) George made it successfully through with his two bags and then it was my turn. I’ve been afraid of revolving doors since I was a kid. I couldn’t begin to tell you why, but they make me nervous they’ll scrape my heels as I go through or something if I’m not walking quickly enough. Anyways, as I went through this thing with my two bags, one in front of me, one behind me, I got stuck. It wouldn’t turn. And I was trapped. And I kind of freaked out.  And by freaked out, I mean hyperventilating and screaming. George started yelling at me to stop screaming and then there was a guard who came out of nowhere to help me move my bags and remove myself safely from that awful contraption.  Crisis averted.

We got checked into our room which was small but adequate for what we needed. It was clean enough and since it was only one night, certainly nothing to complain about! We took a walk to an area known as Little India (after a short detour because we got lost) and finally settled on an Indian Restaurant on the corner for dinner. I ordered butter chicken and rice because at our favorite Indian Restaurant in Japan that dish isn’t too spicy. Wrong assumption here. I should have specified. I was literally fighting back tears and coughing and blowing my nose. George’s dish was even spicier so there wasn’t trading either. I guess this was actually a great introduction to spicy food, seeing as how we were headed to Thailand: home of spicy food. We stopped at McDonald’s on the walk home and got me a double cheeseburger. :)