Another Day, Another Hotel Pool

Three for three. That’s our track record for sneaking into fancy hotel pools. Next time you’re on a business trip and staying at a posh hotel, keep an eye out for us…we just might be lounging on the chairs next to you at the pool.

There’s a nice hotel connected to the megamall we go to every day, so last night we decided to see if they had a rooftop pool. Indeed they did, but it was closed at night. Our plan to go back today was set.

We walked right in as if we were paying guests, booked it to the elevators, hit floor 4, and strutted to the pool. The guys working at the towel racks/bar gave us a smile but didn’t say anything as we set our stuff down on chairs. Mike confidently walked over to get a towel from them and “accidentally forgot” to sign the towel check-out book with our name and room number. Whoops.

While not as nice as the other two infinity pools we have seen, this one was still an awesome way to spend the day:

Mike Contemplating Life.

Hard Day's Work.

We spent a couple hours reading, swimming, and relaxing, and it was kinda nice not having to pay for beach chairs and dealing with sand everywhere.

The Days Feel the Same

Woke up at 11am.
Went to the rain-free beach for four hours.
Ate a late lunch from the grocery store.
Relaxed in the room for a bit.
Ate dinner.

Pictures:

Beautiful Blue Skies.

Parasailer and Umbrellas.

Today’s big milestone: Mike finished his first book (Dan Simmons’s The Terror which he bought for a quarter at a library book sale in Ohio) since leaving the States. Yes, his first book. Hanna has read SEVEN books, but he was always playing computer games whenever she was reading on trains or whatnot. He hopes to finish another book in the next three months.

Movie and Laundry Day

Our big outing on this cloudy day was going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows–Part One. It cost us $12 for two tickets and an extra-large salted popcorn. That was the only size they had. The snacks at the concession stand included shrimp-flavored popcorn, about two candy bars, and a plethora of chips. We stuck with the tried and true.

Quite a comforting feeling watching a familiar movie in a huge, uncrowded theater…and yes, today was opening day here too. The movie itself was great. Eerily quiet throughout, leaving you with a feeling of anxiety and foreboding. We don’t want to wait for the second part.

Because we saw the movie on opening day, they gave us a free mini-poster. We have totally made ourselves at home in our hotel and have decorated our wardrobe with said poster. The maid must think we are nuts.

Our post-movie dinner was at a Japanese restaurant that we had passed by a million times and always assumed was expensive. It wasn’t. While we were waiting to look at the posted menu, we made a dear friend. This old German woman was slowly flipping through each and every menu page…and was coughing on each and every menu page. Like hacking-and-might-die-any-second coughing. We caught her in the act:

We Love Now Having Tuberculosis.

We wandered back to our hotel in the rain and had a wild night of doing laundry in our jacuzzi:

Hanna Doin' a Woman's Work.

Hopefully we’ll have a non-rainy beach day tomorrow.

Rainy Beach and Quiz Night

Well, we made it out of our room by 1pm. That’s a feat.

The beach was our destination, and we headed to the same set of beach chairs as last time. The kooky old massage lady immediately remembered us and said to Mike, “Oh!!! You come back! You get massage this time!” She then rubbed Mike’s shoulders and exclaimed, “You get massage today!” Being an equal-opportunity groper, she then patted Hanna’s arm too. We politely refused, and she went along her way.

We enjoyed about an hour of beach time before the skies started looking like this:

Threatening.

We’ve never seen the beach empty so quickly. Seeking cover under the massage lady’s huge umbrella, we decided to wait it out:

Mist. All of These Chairs Were Full Minutes Ago.

The downpour stopped ten minutes later, so we returned to our chairs. We were too optimistic: it started raining again shortly thereafter. We called it a day, got some lunch, and headed back to our room to nap.

Our big night out was Quiz Night at an Irish pub. The host was the famous DJ Doris. We totally expected a haggard-looking, busted old woman, but it turned out to be a tall, skinny Scottish guy. There were five rounds of ten questions. We kicked ass on the movie theme song round, but we didn’t do so hot on the 2010 World Cup or Famous Battle rounds.

The bonus round question happened to be about Mike’s most recent employer. Don’t worry: we got it right immediately. (It was quite odd because Hanna had previously joked that it would be funny if there was a question about said workplace.)

No, we didn’t win, but we managed to eke out sixth place out of ten teams. Not too shabby considering we did horribly on two of the rounds.

Ninety Days

We’ve reached ninety days on the road. Like old people say, time sure does fly when you’re having fun. In honor of this huge milestone, here’s what we did today:

• Hanna ate a shitload of buttery dinner rolls from the grocery store. She claims that she could eat them all day, yet hours later she said she was “all rolled out.” We think she ate seven today.
• We awoke at 9am but didn’t leave the hotel room until 4pm. We were too busy playing computer games, taking naps, and watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Good thing Hanna had her rolls to keep her from going hungry. Mike subsisted on an iced coffee drink and a mini-donut…all the rolls were gone.
• About ten minutes after we left the hotel room, Hanna complained about how tired she was. Must be all the carbs.
• We looked at British and American magazines in a bookstore for about an hour. This simple task was quite enjoyable. We rationed our reading material so that we have stuff to read for our remaining time here.

That was pretty much our entire day. We don’t feel guilty about not doing much. Our good friend, The Rain, returned this morning and threatened to downpour all day, so no beach time today. Maybe tomorrow…if we’re not too busy napping.

Change of Plans

At the beginning of our trip, we knew that we had to be open and willing to change our plans whenever we felt like we needed to. That time has come.

Our original plan was to spend the next ten days in Koh Lanta and Krabi. From there we would take buses and trains down through Malaysia to ultimately get to Singapore. Though we had a nice day on our motorbike, we weren’t feeling Koh Lanta that much. Our accommodation was fine (outdoor bathroom and all), and the beaches were pretty…but we just found ourselves feeling a bit blah. We just couldn’t see ourselves spending an extended period of time on that island.

So where did we decide to go? Back to Phuket. We decided to go back for many reasons: we really liked our hotel and knew it had good TV and Internet in case it rained, we liked being close to a large grocery store where we could get affordable meals and snacks, and although it’s crowded with frat boys and lecherous old men, the beach IS beautiful. We never once thought that we would go back to Phuket (let alone for ten more days), but it feels like a familiar place where we can really unpack and just be for a period of time.

The rainy weather for the last few weeks on the islands has proved to be a bit of a damper, so we figured we should go somewhere where we could entertain ourselves if we couldn’t be on the beach. Koh Tao, Koh Samui, Koh Phi Phi, and Koh Lanta didn’t really seem to offer non-beach options, whereas Phuket did. (No, we aren’t writing this all out solely to justify our decision…)

We backtracked a bit to return to Phuket, but that’s okay because we have decided to fly to Singapore instead of overlanding it through Malaysia. (Don’t worry. We will see a bit of Malaysia later in the trip.) We’ve been a bit spoiled by the cheap Southeast Asia flights, and the thought of some long train and bus rides right now just doesn’t sound good. We are treating ourselves to a flight because we have been such astute budget travelers so far.

Once we got on the hour-long ferry from Koh Lanta to Koh Phi Phi, we knew we had made the right decision. It was sunny, the water was still, and our headphones were blasting cheesy pop. The second ferry from Koh Phi Phi to Phuket was equally as enjoyable.

So there you have it, folks. We came back to a place we never thought we would visit again any time soon. This time we don’t feel the need to explore ANY of the crap town. We’ll stay in our own little beach-and-hotel bubble…and will enjoy every minute of it. We’re not burned out by any means, but it feels nice to know that we aren’t traveling for a while.

An added bonus? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows–Part One comes out this week. Tickets are already purchased.

Hanna's Working on Her Shoe Tan Lines.

Boat Mike.

Ferry Easy Ferry

We thought we might miss our boat.

The ferry yesterday to Koh Phi Phi was leaving at 8:30am, and a minibus was scheduled to pick us up at our guesthouse between 7:00-7:15. We checked out and waited outside with other backpackers who were going to different destinations. Somehow they were all picked up, but by 7:35, our bus was not in sight. The woman at reception rushed out and informed us that the minibus forgot to stop to pick us up and was already too far away. Great. A cab was called and showed up five minutes later. We had no idea how long the ride to the pier would take, but we knew it wasn’t close. Every long stoplight and slow-moving coach caused our anxiety to heighten. Around 8:15 we finally saw signs for the pier and had a glimmer of hope that we might make it. Now we know what the contestants on The Amazing Race feel like when you need to be somewhere but have no idea how far away you are.

We pulled in the pier parking lot with about two minutes to spare, and we luckily didn’t have to pay for the cab since the ticket price already included transportation to the pier. We thanked our cab driver and joined the masses boarding the boat. We made it.

You may not believe this, but this ferry ride was easy. A piece of cake actually. The difference between the water on the east and west coast is totally night and day. We sat in deck chairs up top and didn’t even really feel the waves at all. All we felt was annoyance at the huge family sitting around us who kept getting up from their seats to buy every food item known to man. Hey, all that mattered was that we had a boat ride that was smooth and easy…and we got free coffee and the best jelly-filled cookies that Hanna has had in a while.

As we approached the island, sheer-face cliffs covered with greenery jutted out into the aquamarine water. From what we have seen, Koh Phi Phi totally deserves all the accolades it receives. It’s definitely been the most strikingly beautiful island we’ve been to so far:

Water Taxis.

Random Rock Formations Jut Out Everywhere.

(More pictures to come as we explore the island.)

It took a while to find a guesthouse because every room we viewed cost waaaaaaaay more than it should have. A lot of the guesthouses here are dumps but have high prices because of the beautiful scenery. We finally found a decently-priced room in good-enough condition that’s a hike up a big hill, and so we napped the day away because of our early wake-up call.

The town is super crowded with tons of backpackers, but there are many options for food. We had a cheap and delicious dinner of pizza and sweet ‘n’ sour pork and then wandered along the beach at nightfall. We had a bit of a rough night–we couldn’t get comfortable and were hot in our fan room. Despite being a long way away from the beachfront bars, we could faintly hear the pumping bass. Princess Mike needs quiet when he sleeps, but the sleeping pills he took finally kicked in hours later.

Hell Hath Frozen Over

We’ve read your comments. We’ve received your infinite number of emails. The hairy growth off Mike’s face is bothering a lot of you. Perhaps he just wants to be Amish. Perhaps its bushiness on his neck makes him laugh. Perhaps he likes receiving compliments from Thais (and the occasional backpacker) on the beard. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

He didn’t bring his electric razor on the trip because it’s just one more electronic to haul around. He didn’t bring a straight-edge razor either, though Hanna offered him hers. (He wouldn’t shave everything off anyways.) During the first few weeks of the trip, he used scissors to trim every now and again, but we got scissors taken away from us at the airport…twice. He just kept putting off the task of shaving.

He finally listened. We bought a new pair of cheap hairdressing scissors for $1.66, and he hacked away. Don’t worry–a bit is still there.

Before.

After.

Let us know what you think:

Mike: Our Marriage Was in Jeopardy for About 15 Minutes Today

I blame my wife.

We relaxed at the beach today and took turns swimming. It was my turn, so I took off my watch and wedding ring (not my real one…a ring that Hanna made for me in her junior year jewelry-making class) and placed them in an unbuttoned outside pocket of our messenger bag. Mistake.

After about five minutes in the water, I came back to find Hanna frantically searching around our lounge chairs. She nervously said, “I think I just lost your ring. I grabbed the bag to get the camera, and I saw something fly out. I realized your watch was there, but your ring is nowhere to be found. Don’t hate me.” Oh I do…I really hate her. Hate her forever.

We started searching up and down the beach in case it rolled to the water. No luck. The friendly German guy next to us got up and helped us look too. Still no luck. A chair attendant came over as well and helped with the search. I jokingly said to Hanna, “That’s it. The marriage is over.” The German guy looked at me with concern, and I laughed, explaining that it wasn’t my real wedding band. The look of panic escaped his face.

After about fifteen minutes of searching, we were gonna give up. We looked everywhere near us but decided to move the adjacent chair one more time. Upon moving it back, the silver ring that randomly turns my ring finger green magically appeared RIGHT next to my chair. It must have been stuck between the legs of the next-door chair, and moving it back caused it to fall out.

Hanna’s lucky this time, but the next time she loses my ring (obviously it was on purpose), the marriage is totally done.

Parasailing at Patong (Oh No We Didn’t)

We have rented beach lounge chairs for the past two days. They cost $3 per person and are totally worth it. The friendly chair attendants are ridiculously helpful because they adjust the umbrella according to the sun. When the rain came drizzling down, they even set up another umbrella to protect us. Thanks, guys.

Beach View for the Past Two Days.

Though the souvenir vendors are kinda annoying because they approach you every two seconds, we had to laugh at a massage lady today. A woman in her sixties approached us and asked if we wanted foot massages. We smiled and shook our heads. She then proceeded to rub Mike’s knee and calf and asked again in a flirtatious voice. We laughed and kindly refused again. While continuing to rub Mike’s knee, she then said, “Come on! I need money today!” Keep in mind that Mike’s legs are mildly sunburned too. The last thing he wanted was a massage.

We’ve enjoyed people-watching from our lounge chairs. Because Patong Beach is so touristy, the options for activities are endless: jet-skiing, parasailing, tubing, etc. We’ve been fascinated by the parasailing…not because we want to do it but because of how dangerous it seems.

It costs about $34 for a five-minute ride. Here’s what comes with that ridiculous price: a thin, fraying rope that connects the parasailer to the boat, a speedboat with a sputtering motor as it tries to gain momentum, and this guy:

Watch that again, but ignore the two guys who walk in front of the camera. We hate them. During takeoff one of the employees runs behind the parasailer and JUMPS into the cables to ride along. No, he is not harnessed and could fall at any moment. He’s only hanging on with his hands and feet. Nuts. He must be there to help direct the parasail, but if we were parasailing, it’d feel a bit weird to have some random guy hovering around you. We’ve even seen him wrap his legs around the parasailer for stability.

No, we did not parasail…

http://80liters.com/2010/11/09/repeat-of-yesterday/