Tropic thunder

Today is Leia's birthday! Happy birthday Leia!

So anyway, we got up today quite early- but late enough to miss the shuttle to the Nai Horn beach. We had breakfast in the hotel, which was ok. It features an a-la-carte menu and a buffet, both free. It was very hot today! We sweated from breakfast in the morning until after we returned from dinner in the evening, even (especially) when it was raining. Since we missed the free shuttle, we paid the hotel receptionist 100 baht to take us to the beach.

The beach was really nice. It has thin white sand and clear blue water with little fish swimming in it. On the beach there were a lot of Russian tourists of all ages. It was still ok and uncrowded. We rented a parasol and a mat for 100 bht. a day. We bathed, hula-hooped, drank coconut juice out of a fresh coconut and sunned ourselves. We then went to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant. We went in with our bathing suits but got dressed midway through.

When we went into a gift shop after lunch, on our way to catch the shuttle- we heard the Thai sales girls speaking Russian to some Russian dude who was looking to buy booze and incense. It was a short shuttle ride back to the hotel with another couple. We left our wet towels at the reception and went upstairs to wait for new towels so we could go to the pool.

Suddenly! A knock on the door! Are these our towels? Nope, but these were the hotel staff (some of it) with a beautifully carved fruit platter and a shawl as a gift :) How nice of them.

We went down to the pool with the fruit, picked up towels from the reception and went on to bathing. We had the pool practically all to ourselves.

While we were lounging- Juun, Mr. Lucky's sister the tour agent, arrived to show us island tours. We chose a day tour to Koh Phi-Phi including monkey bay. She gave us a substantial discount.

After she left, we took the shuttle to see the sunset at cape Prothep. We took it with 3 other couples, 2 of which were Canadian. The cape is not far from the hotel, but it seemed to be very popular, as there was heavy traffic on the way there.

At the viewing point there were lots of people. There was a buddha shrine with looots of elephant statues surrounding it, and also a stage remaining from the king's birthday celebration from two nights ago. The sun sets quickly over the ocean here, similar to the sunsets in Israel. After all- we are in a similar latitude.

On the shuttle back, we struck up a conversation with the Canadians and ended up going to dinner with them in the fish market area. The hotel shuttle took us there. We walked around until we found a suitable seafood place with enough people sitting inside and outside. It was called "Chokun Seafood" (choke on seafood?)

As soon as we sat outside it started pouring rain, so we went across the street to sit inside. These restaurants all have an outdoor seating area on the boardwalk across the street from the restaurants.

Turns out one of the couples spent a couple of days in Tokyo on the way here, and the other had come from Chiang Mai like we did. We chatted about travels and learned about Spy, a local wine cooler, and Tiger beer, the last Thai beer Guy hadn't tasted yet. Leia had prawns with her steamed white rice. The wait staff impressively managed to separate the bills correctly between the three couples.

We tried to call the hotel to take us back but the line was busy, and we elected to walk back. We arrived at the hotel when it started thundering and pouring rain more heavily again. We had to shower and dry our clothes, more from the sweat than the rain.

I'm happy with my birthday, and I love it! Thanks for all the well-wishes.