You Shake It Hard Enough, You Lose Your Tailfeathers

Here we are, 3 weeks into our trip in Thailand, and have realized a number of things. First of all, don't expect anything to go as you would plan, it may be better, it may be worse, but always entertaining. Second, days turn into memories way more quickly then we'd like. Third, if you shake it hard enough, you just might loose your tailfeathers.

Expectations. When we traveled from Khao Lak to the Ton Sai Beach (right next to Hat Rei Lei), we paid a modest price, went from bus to bus to taxi to longtail boat seemlessly and effortlessly, found a place to stay, and were celebrating with dinner and beers before we knew it. We fully expected delays, difficulties, or whatever else might come our way. Today, on our trip from Ton Sai to Phuket, we expected the same, and drew a wild card...a 20 year old public bus driver who was literally racing his buddy in another public bus. Neither one of us remembers being so scared. He dodged and weaved "his" greyhound sized bus through traffic, into oncoming traffic lanes, basically touching the bumper of the other bus going highway speeds, and weaved across lanes of traffic to block the other bus from passing us, accelerating around the bends. I'm not sure words can qualify our feelings toward this kid. Having already paid the full fare to get to Phuket, we abandoned the bus at the first opportunity, and were taken in by a truly Thai community for an hour while we waited for the next bus to come. The wait was great, filled with laughs, smiles and charades. Completely unexpected. And terrifying. Don't worry, the next bus was just fine. We were happy to pay the full fare once again. Next leg, we're flying.

As for time passing by, we had an amazing time diving in the Similans, it feels like you can see forever. We camped next to the beach; it really felt like we were diving and lounging in a post card. So good that we hardly took any pictures (we're kicking ourselves now). We spent the past few days in a climber's paradise (Rei Lei beach area), where the cliffs literally fall into the sea. It was quite nice being in an area where we didn't participate in the main activity (for the first time, we were able to stick to our true budget). Instead, we hiked around, swam, climbed up to an amazing lookout point, kayaked and ate amazing food from longtail boat stands. And now we are staring down our last week in Thailand, just like that. We've done a ton of stuff, seen even more and realize that the end of April will be here before we know. Until then, we'll be drinking it in.....

As for losing your tailfeathers...that's what happens when you're a manly looking transvestite using a peacock ensemble to accentuate your hip shaking dance to "I Will Survive". You just need to shake it hard enough. That brings it all back to today: we may have lost a few tailfeathers along the way, but we survived. And we are very happy about that.

Here are some new photos.