Lost in a black hole in Thailand

Monday was a travel day–a full day of travel. We caught a cab to the airport shortly after seven a.m., checked in with Thai Air, grabbed some breakfast and began the first of many waits. The first hop was from Seoul to Hong Kong where we deplaned but didn’t switch planes. After an hour or so, we took off on the second leg, from Hong Kong to Bangkok. We killed time at Bangkok’s airport until our flight to Phuket with Thai Air Asia. We landed at Phuket about ten-thirty (and two time zones) and Mr. Sam was waiting. He managed to stay awake (barely) for the entire ninety-minute drive to Khao Lak. We schlepped our gear to a third-floor room at the Suwan Palm and fell into bed. We’ll check in tomorrow morning.
As long as the day was and as bad as the waiting was, it could have been much worse. We’ve been fairly lucky this trip. West Jet from Toronto to LA was a good trip (especially when you know you’re on a no-frills airline). American from LA to Tokyo was fine except for the delay in getting off the ground. JAL from Tokyo to Seoul was a step up in quality of service and Thai Airways from Seoul to Bangkok was several additional steps up the service ladder. I can understand why they are regularly listed among the best airlines in the world. Not only were there superb meals on both legs of the flight but there was a constant cabin presence with new attendants seeming to appear continually. Besides, when was the last time you were offered brandy after an airplane meal.
Of course, Air Asia is another no-frills airline so our final flight was a step backward. We had to pay extra for excess baggage (they allow only 15 kg for checked luggage). Fortunately, they didn’t weigh our carry-ons or we would have needed another mortgage to continue our trip. We also paid extra for express seating (otherwise no assigned seats) and were the first to board the plane. We grabbed the front seats so we were first off the plane as well. That earned us the privilege of a longer wait for our luggage. But at least we haven’t lost any bags yet.
The resort is nice enough but nothing special. They do serve an excellent breakfast. This area seems to cater to Europeans and there are lots of Swedish families around. The beach wouldn’t make our list of top one hundred. The weather is very hot and the rainy season seems to have started early. We’ve been able to get some sun in the morning. The plan was to stay out of the sun in mid-day and then get a couple of hours in the afternoon. The morning part has worked reasonably well but the only thing we’ve done in the afternoon is watch the rain. Yesterday was a downpour with thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. We had just headed down to the beach and were caught by surprise. There was no lightning this afternoon (just a steady drizzle and some thunder) so we stripped down to bathing suits and walked the beach in the rain.
It’s funny how expectations and realities sometimes merge and other times clash. In the planning phase for this trip, I had a great number of reservations about our time in Tokyo and Seoul. We don’t usually spend much time in large cities on our travels (more a matter of passing through) and I wasn’t sure how we’d handle it, especially with the language and alphabet/character differences. But, we learned to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in Japanese and Korean and, with the help of many kind strangers, we had a wonderful time in both cities. Both go on the list of possible repeat visits (of course, that list is so long we’d need to win two lotteries to finance the travel).
On the other hand, Thailand has been one of our focal points since we first conceived an Asian trip. Yet, here we are after three days and I don’t have enough pictures to post even a sampling. There’s been nothing remarkable about this segment thus far, other than a few reminders of the tsunami’s devastation. We haven’t done any snorkeling as the water isn’t very clear and the fish population seems to have been re-settled elsewhere. Of course, our live-aboard to the Similan Islands kicks off tomorrow so you may hear an entirely different tone in my next posting. (We sure hope so–the pictures on the Internet were outstanding.) To end on a bright note, it didn’t rain this afternoon so our beach walk was more pleasant than yesterday’s. We’re hoping for a nice sunset tonight as our balcony looks out westward over the Andaman Sea.