Sawadee

Well, this is it, folks. The very last post of my trip in Thailand. Even though I’ll be here another 8 days still, there is a tsunami warning and they’ve shut down the internet.

Heh, just kidding. About the tsunami.

I mostly just wanted to share the race with you, because it was the highlight of the trip. Alas, blogging is no longer a priority. The next week will be spent lying on the beach in beautiful, secluded Railay Bay, with a couple side trips for rock climbing, cave spelunking, and scuba diving. These activities, along with cigarettes and martinis, are of course high on Jessa’s list of “pregnancy must-haves” and as all my personal training clients and athletes know, an integral part of my daily health routine. ;)



So the triathlon post-race awards ceremony and party (Jessa and I pictured above on our way over), and the “VIP post-party party” were just OK. We were both really tired, and by the time the second party rolled around, we were exhausted. They throw a really great celebration out on the beach with a huge Thai food and dessert buffet, free drinks, DJ and dancing, but we had to be rolling out of bed at 6am to catch a cruiser to the Phi Phi islands, so I took Jessa home drunk in a wheelbarrow by 4am. No actually, I didn’t really drink, and actually felt like I was the only sober person there by the time about 11pm rolled around, so decided I should either call it a night or really join the party. I called it a night.

The trip to Railay Bay this morning involved lounging on the sun deck of a cruiser, lounging on the hot beach during a 3 hour stop in the Phi Phi islands, lounging in another sunny cruiser to Railay bay, and then finally donating $10 to our favorite skin cancer charity. We also snorkeled. Here are some pics we snapped during the trip.

My comfy first class seat on the cruise.



Pregnant women are secluded to the railing because the stomach takes up too much space.



A few shots from the cruiser trip.











We finally arrived in Railay Bay and I remembered immediately that this secluded jungle beachfront is my favorite place in the world! No noisy cars, no obnoxious tourists, and dozens of secluded places to climb, hike, swim, and explore. There are tons of hippies here. I think I commented last time that you could pretty much empty the island by throwing a “free weed” sign 500 meters off the beach.

Here’s a shot of our cute little jungle bungalow in Railay. We live right in between a Thai guerilla army base camp and a pot-smoking rock climbing school. Oh yeah, the other thing I like about Railay Bay – it’s C-H-E-A-P!



And, of course, our first night we had to have the signature meal on the island – barbecued…whatever you want! Prawns, stone crab, red snapper, shark, sea bass, swordfish - always served fresh with corn on the cob and a baked potato. Here’s some shots of us enjoying dinner after a long day of boat travel:





On December 11, we will arrive back in Spokane, provided we survive the last 2 days of our trip, which involve a mad Christmas gift shopping spree in bustling Bangkok. Not my favorite city in the world, but there are some really fantastic markets, and we’re staying in a hotel directly in China town, which should be a unique cultural experience. Plus, by then we should be really waxing nostalgic about Christmas and the fact that there is no frozen roads or mass holiday commercialization here. so we'll really be anxious to get back to the states so we can experience that.

Anyhow, thanks for reading the past few days, thanks for the awesome comments, and as they say in Thailand, “Sawadee!”. That means, "Screw you, I'm outta here."