Thanksgiving Day

Thursday 23Nov2006
I cannot sleep for some odd reason, tossing and turning, awwww, sooo sad =(.........the good news to this is that we are finally up in time to catch the sunrise......we have been setting the alarm clock with good intentions since we got on the island but could never get out of bed.......not this day...we get to see the sunrise!! It is magnificent!! I had no idea that the tide goes out in the morning as well....up until now I have only seen it go out in the afternoon! After sunrise we see all the Thai people starting their days...even the longtail boat guy who seemed to just sit under the tree saying 'boat, boat' to everyone who walked by....i though it was a slacker job but now i have a renewed opinion of him...he gets to the resort by 6 am and sweeps the sand and grass in the front and does some other maintenance things before he sits under the tree......he sees us on the beach soo early and recognizes us and promptly says to us "boat, boat...you go to long beach?" "Mai Ow Krup" (I don't want) promptly replies Shawn, and we all laugh!
We decide to go for a walk on the beach and see many people still partying at the beachfront bars--- they must have been drinking buckets!! They even still had beers in their hands and they were falling all over the place. And right after that we see this couple passed out on the beach...we feel for them as it is really gonna get hot in a little bit and they will literally get baked on the beach..hopefully that will wake them up!! Then we see another couple that was climbing all over the rocks and she would ask anyone and everyone for a cigarette...a bit later we see a pile of clothes on the beach and see them way out in the distance.......yup, they were drinking buckets too!!
What about these buckets you ask???? Well, they are literally sandpails filled with your alcohol. Thai whiskey, a can of coke. and M150--which is RedBUll concentrate-- illegal in the US---and about 100X's more potent than Red Bull!! They sell them like they are going out of style on the beach......some French boys in Chiang Mai had told us that they would drink just a sip each in the morning of the M150 stuff and that would be enough to get them going all day!! Getting back to the buckets....we have heard stories all over this country about the buckets.....even an alcoholic who said that they usually don't get wasted beacause they drink so much...he passed out.....dude that's some strong stuff!! Of course after Shawn's Chang experience and the lesson that we learned about Thai beer, we stayed far, far away.....now we know why there are sooo many people sleeping under the tree on the beach during the day!!!
Shawn gets all philosophical about Thanksgiving on me. 'Is it really Thanksgiving in a country where they do not celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it really Thanksgiving if it isn't the exact same time as it is in the US? Do we celebrate it on the 23rd here or when it is the 23rd in America?' I reply "Dude, it is wayyyyy tooooo early!!!' We have about an hour to go until they open for breakfast and I am fading fast, starving and tired, so we decide to nap for a few hours. We get up in time for 2 hours of tea time...after that I am still tired and take another nap ( yup 2 times before noon! and, without eating turkey! no L'triptophene effects!) Shawn of course is all hyped up on tea so he goes to the internet. Speaking of internet...it is 2 baht for 1 minute on Phi Phi island!! 40Baht for 1 hour in Bangkok, and 10Baht for 1 hour in Lampang!! (exchange rate 36 Baht=1 USD) Pang Mak!! Too Expensive!!!
They day is heating up, each day hotter than the last. So we go about our usual routine of swimming, this day only in the pool. It looks a bit cloud covered so we decided to hike up to the viewpoint to watch the sunset. The hike is quite nice, they actuially have stairs and a path, before it was just a trail. The sunset was beautiful, we stayed up there for quite a while. There was a memorial up there for some British Bloke who died on the island during the tsunami--- it was the first thing of this sort that we had seen. the viewpoint was about 1500 feet up the mountain, straight up. We could see the 60 kilometers to Phuket Island from there and there was a magnificent view of both bays as well!! I heard these ladys speaking Chinese so I chimed in asking them if they would like me to take their picture and such... it was good to pick up on it!! Shawn was absolutely amazed!!
We head back down the mountain for dinner. We decided to eat at this beach restaurant (even though we had been staying away from them, too expensive, not the best food, fish smell....ewwwwwww) but they had the closest thing to Turkey Dinner. BBQ Chicken, a half of a chicken, baked potatoe, what they think of as salad....all for 150baht. It was yummy!! We did see turkeys on the hike and got excited that they might have a turkey feast somewhere...but who are we kidding??? We are like the minority on this island.....we have been here for over a week and have only met 2 other Americans here.....so why would they try to cater to this celebration....right?? I actually goit eaten upo at dinner...more than Shawn which is a first.. I guess he is too sunburnt for even the bugs!!! Nobody likes overcooked meat!!
It was our first Thanksgiving together and it was a wonderful day!!!