Day 21 Surin Beach, Thailand
December 26th – Boxing Day.
We sleep in until 8am. I get up and does some work – we all go down to the breakfast.
The girls hit the internet and work on some school work, Pam inquires about a rental car and makes an arrangement for one tomorrow.
I blog the last 3 days, the internet connection is acting strange not working as expected but I am able to check e-mail. We call Lea to say Merry Christmas. We plan on calling others, Pam leaves a message for Amy but it gets pretty late
Pam was talking to Viki and came up to the room in tears – saying she made him cry. She was inquiring about the Tsunami – today is the 3 year anniversary and he told the story of that day and it made him cry.
As Pam relayed it to me he was working about 9am at one of the tailors shops he owned (I gather he starts them up and sells them) at Bang Tao beach. He heard people talking abut water and assumed there was a sewage or water main break until he noticed water coming up to his shop. They locked up the shop and in front of it he was in knee deep water where he froze – he could not even fathom where the water was coming from and had never heard of a Tsunami. He saw some babies floating by, grabbed them and ran from the ocean – he said his only prayer was that his wife who was 8 months pregnant and was one beach up was safe. He started to tear up and Pam excused herself. He had been helping with finding a rental car and said we could use his except he was heading North for a memorial service. His friend had lost his wife and daughter. The Mai Khao area north of us was the hardest hit – the water came inland 2.5km's and he said afterwards you could not tell when walking that it had once been inhabited. Very sobering and it brought to mind the Tsunami evacuation route signs I had seen during our walk yesterday.
I watched the some of the Test match between India and Australia, blogged and caught up on some work. Pam is on the roof-top and the girls are downstairs. Today we will take it easy, sit on the beach and tonight we have dinner reservations. Tomorrow we will have a rental car – and I get to drive us around. I think we have decided that we would like to surf and snorkel or dive while we are here and definitely are going to visit the Panong beach area.
I am able to get pictures imported and write some blogs. I am about to try to post them – I hope it works and then I will meet Pam upstairs.
I got the pictures uploaded but no luck with the blog's. Not sure what I am going to do.
I went next door to the mini-mart picked up 2 cans of Singha (pronounced sing) beer and I like it very much, headed upstairs to meet Pam on the sun deck. I guess I just missed the Dutch women who were sunbathing topless. I saw a few women on the beach topless but I do remember that it is not really accepted here in Thailand. I hope we are not making too many blatant mistakes – I did remember to hand the Mini-Mart owner the money with my right hand while holding my left to my elbow. I think he was surprised.
We hang out at the beach by the hotel most of the day and then get ready for the FantaSea dinner and show. The driver picks us up and we make it there in just a few minutes. The driver is very cautious – actually makes me a little nervous.
When you enter the Fantasea it is like a miniature theme park. There is a midway and a bunch of shops.
We look around and the girls want to get some photos taken dressed up in traditional Thai costumes so we let them.
There are elephant rides – I am still amazed by the elephant – so large and yet very coordinated and graceful and looking them in the eye is like looking another human being in the eye. I am envious of the relationship the mahout and the elephant have.
We go to our buffet dinner – it is assigned seating as is the show. The banquet hall is huge – probably seats over a thousand people. When I saw the size my hopes of getting a great buffet actually dropped – and I was correct. The meal was ok, nothing too great and if anyone has an option to just see the show I would recommend that.
The show is spectacular and a lot of fun – lots of traditional dancing and some playacting of legendary stories. I wish we had come to an earlier showing – I was so tired I was hoping the show would end – but still wishing it would not.
On the way in you have to check cameras – as soon as you do they walk you through an area where you can get photos with elephants, Thai characters and holding a tiger! Of course we had to hold the tiger – actually Pam and I did never intending to purchase the photo but the girls were ecstatic – it was basically an assembly line but I did get to touch a living breathing tiger cub – something I will never forget.
There was a free show we saw between dinner and the main show – basically a bunch of people dancing and singing Christmas carols. It was funny seeing people dressed in winter coats, stockings and gloves in 90 degree humid weather. There was a lot of lip-synching – actually the whole production was pretty poor – it made me nervous about the main show but these fears were unfounded.
It started raining and I was very glad I did not have to drive in the dark on the wet windy roads.
Back to the room – I watched the cricket highlights and fell asleep.
