I blame it either on the proximity of the beach, or that we are nearing the end of our trip, but we have really slowed the pace down even further – I think we may actually be going in reverse now, as it seems like the plants are growing faster than we are actually moving 🙂

Our standard routine here in Kata has mostly been: wake up late and go for breakfast, hang out at/in the pool reading and lounging about, have a small discussion about whether we should do something, draw no conclusion, walk to the Red Chair for dinner, walk home, go to bed – repeat.

We have encountered a small bit of weather here, and it has rained a bit on a couple of days that we can try and blame our lack of activity on (but really that is even a stretch) but by and large we have once again seemed to fair well against the ‘rainy season’.

I guess it will be back to reality too soon, so we are just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

My grandfather used to say ‘Nothing stranger than people’ – it was kind of a whimsical comment when he said it, but if you ponder it a bit it is true on so many levels.

Coming to an international destination like Thailand and spending some time just watching people on the beach provides such a wide view of various people and cultures, and can provide hours of entertainment.  I’m sure we provide some chuckle value to others, and certainly American tourists have lots of their own flaws in the international travel arena – like talking louder and slower to people that don’t speak English, in the hopes that that may help them understand.

I have to give some of these people at the beach full credit for being bold enough to do and wear the things they do, but it really ends there with the notion of of the credit.  There should be some sort of law or restriction about who can wear what out in public – that goes for both men and ladies, and the rule needs to include a scale that changes with age.  I have seen things on the beach that brought a smile to my face, and things that made me want to rinse my eyes with bleach.

Mrs. Columbus and I went down to the beach last night to watch the sunset and had to watch some girl probably in her late 20s of some sort of eastern European heritage prance in the waves.  This in itself is not noteworthy as there are 100s of people at the beach doing the same.  What made this like a train wreck that you could not look away from, was that her and her choice of bikini was really like 5 pounds of Jello stuffed into a 3 pound bag.  In addition to the garment being waaaay too small, the bottom bit was somehow loose, so every time she frolicked in the waves, said garment moved farther down her backside – and I had to wonder if perhaps she was a plumber in her home country.

Fortunately for us the train wreck moved on, and we were still able to enjoy our sunset, but it was just one more experience of the sort of things you can see when people are being – well, people.

We moved from Bang Tao to Kata a couple of days ago, and there is definitely a different pace going on here.  Bang Tao was very quiet, part of that is the layout – as I mentioned before it is not really a town, mostly just a strip of hotels, and not necessarily all that close together, so walking around there can be quite quiet and peaceful.  Kata is one of the 3 main beach towns on Phuket, and the difference is obvious, there is a lot more going on here even tho it is the low season, and the town and beach are quite busy – it feels like they are even busier than perhaps when we were here last year (even though everyone says tourism is down because of the protests earlier in the year) – shrug, go figure!?

We have not really done much since we got here except hang out by the pool 🙂  We did walk down to the beach for about an hour or so when we got here, and did do a bit of exploring today, but Mrs Columbus was drawn back in by the cool refreshing pool so we spent the afternoon lazing about.  We did walk down to the Red Chair for dinner as it was a favorite of ours from last year (someone recommended it to my parents on their first trip here).  The food is fantastic, and like last year we ordered a ton of food – Spring Rolls, Phad Thai, Chicken with Cashew nut, a Thai omelet, rice and 3 drinks all for just under $9US!! When it is good and cheap you just can’t do anything but walk away stuffed and happy.

We are thinking about walking down to Karon Beach tomorrow (it is about 8km) so that will be a nice long walk along the coast (unless the sun is beating down) but we will have to see how we feel in the morning – it really adds to the relaxation to feel no need to maintain any sort of fixed agenda.  I will enjoy it while it lasts 🙂

Well Mrs Columbus has bounced back from whatever was keeping her under the weather today, and so we have been able to venture out a little more and see some of the Bang Tao area.  This part of Phuket gets a little less traffic than the main beaches a little farther south (Patong, Karon, Kata) – I suspect part of that is because there is not really any sort of village or town here, mostly just hotels and resorts so I think that the people that come here probably are not as interested in any night life and/or just want to hang out on the property of where they are staying.  Certainly if you were staying at one of the big resorts like the Sheraton or Le Meridien they would have so much to offer in terms of amenities that you could just relax there and while the days away.

We like the slow pace here and the fact that there are not drunken partiers all about, but we also like to explore around a bit, so this afternoon we set off for a walk to Surin beach.  Surin is the next beach south of where we are, and is separated from Bang Tao by a headland that juts out into the sea, but a short 20 minute or so walk via the road and we are there.  The beach is a lot busier here than at Bang Tao, and there are a lot of little bars and restaurants all along the beach.  It is easy to see that while much smaller (Bang Tao is 8km long vs Surin at about 1km) this beach seems to attract more people.

It is a nice spot to people watch for a bit, and point out people who maybe should take a more honest friend along next time they are buying a bathing suit 😉  A little light lunch on the beach and then we decide to walk back to our hotel and soak in the pool a little.  We round the day out by stopping in at the River-side restaurant for a great meal – this is a place my parents recommended, and we had thought it was closed as we went by it yesterday and it looked like it was all rolled up for the season.  It turns out that they have indeed been closed for the last month, but tonight was their first night back, so we lucked out.  It was very good as advertised, so it was cool that we were able to try it out before we moved.

We are moving tomorrow morning to Kata Beach and back to the Kata Palm where we stayed last year.  We will likely stay there until it is time to come home, but we have a short list of things we want to do around there so I am sure the time will be gone before we know it.

We arrived in Phuket a couple of days ago, and decided to try out the beach at Bang Tao – this Beach is about 1/2 way up Phuket Island and just south of the airport. We have never stayed here before, but at the north end of the beach is where most of the high-end resorts are. Also, my parents put in a few weeks here on each of their last 2 trips, so we figure it must be worth checking out.

We are staying at The Kris Resort towards the south end of the beach, it is more of a boutique hotel than a ‘resort’ and Mrs Columbus is far too adventurous to go in for one of those frilly high-end resorts. The Kris is also where my parents stay when they are here, and they quite like the friendly staff and the location. This area is very quiet and peaceful and it sort of reminds us of our stay in Khao Lak last year. Certainly part of that is due to the low season we are traveling in, as I suspect it is quite a bit busier here in the high season, although even in high season I assume it is a lot more low-key than the more renowned tourist beaches towards the south of the island.

So far we have not done a whole lot – Mrs Columbus caught a bit of a fever the day we arrived and we have been trying to take it easy while she recovers, but she is not that great at being a sick person and keeps trying to get up and about. I suspect we will extend our stay here for a few extra days so we can get back ‘up to snuff’ and then do a little exploring, but such is the nature of traveling without a fixed agenda 🙂

Unfortunately our Internet connection here is a little spotty, so we may not be updating very often…..