Days 1-4: Zombies on a Slide

Here we sit in Second Cup Coffee Shop, having just accidentally ordered some mystery pastery. How does this happpen? Well an older woman sat up from her table and pointed at her partially eaten treat on a plate and asked if we wanted it. Lisa and I , always up for free food and sleep deprived and delerious enough to get excited at used food, smiled and said "YES!" I mean...Who does that? Then she carried it away and I believe we are being made something in the back. It looked like bread...and it won't be free.

After 6,000 hours of riding on planes, we arrived in Thailand to meet Caroline. Neither of us really were able to sleep ion our first 14 hour plane ride but it was ok because we had access to Delta on Demand, a feature neither of us had ever seen, but made being trapped on the plane a real treat. Hundreds of movies and tv shows at our disposal. AMAZING! We each independently watched 3 episodes of The Real L Word, and individually cried at several movies including 127 Hours and The Blind Side. The 7 hour ride from Tokyo to Bankok was nearly empty so we wasted no time in stretching ourselves out accross two rows of 4 empty seats and passed out immediately. This turned out to be quite fortunate, as we haven't had a full night's sleep since.

Upon arriving in Bangkok and meeting up with Caroline around midnight we realized that the hotel we had booked was actually 3 hours away by bus, and there were no buses at that time. We made quick tiome however and made it to a hostel...with free breakfast. We really do love free food. The next day we hopped ion the bus and made our way south to the Marriott to take advantage of the reservation that I was able to secure at a rediculously low friends and family rate offered by my Marriott-employed friend. Caroline decided to come with us, so it turned into a fun-times-riff-raff-in-a-fancy-hotel party. There was a waterslide! Really. There was. And do you know what we did? Went on it. Over and over. It was a great way to spend a day when we were probably to jetlagged to do anything real anyway. The amenities were abundant. We also conducted a taste test of the 3 cheapest lagers available at the 7-11. And I (Meta) re-discovered seaweed chips, my new favorite snack. Not only are they salty and delicious, the back of the bag features a cartoon fat lady holding potato chips and crying while two thin ladies eating seaweed chips stand to the side just smiling away. That really sealed the deal for me. Clever and healthy.

Other highlights of our brief stay in Cha Am include our first legit Thai meal (barring fried fish flavored snacks in plastic bags). We even ate the tiny and very spicy peppers they bring on the side to heat the meal. Cha Am is this tiny beach town mostly comprised of resorts, americanized thai restaurants, and more tailor shops per capita than you'd think could possibly stay in business.

After watching the sun rise, taking advantage of the hotel gym (elliptical machines and Thai music videos), and a few more trips down the water slide, we were pushed out of the nest this morning when we parted ways with Caroline. She, of course, has been doing the talking and guiding so far. She's heading back to Bangkok to meet some friends today and Meta and I are exploring South Thailand for the next week or so. Our independance has not gone entirely smoothly. Trying to buy a bus ticket was an utter debacle. We don't speak the language (although we're trying) and every interaction is comic gold, or a sideshow of idiocy. I have become relatively proficient in my one Thai phrase, "Thank You". Meta hasn't gotten the hang of "thank you" yet, so at the end of all conversations she prompts me "Lisa, say thank you!" Between this and our ever-improving "Hello" skills, we miracurously managed to purchase ourselves tickets to Phuket (hopefully to use as an immediate jumping off point for our intended destination of Kho Phi Phi). Our bus leaves at 10 tonight, so we've had some unexpected time to explore Hui Han, which is basically a long metropolis main road littered with expat bars, thai massage, and motobikes. This coffee shop is an oasis of air-con (as the locals refer to it) and caffeiene. We also visited our first Thai shopping mall, an instense immersion in stimuli. Meta communicated through drawing that she needed to buy a sewing kit which was pretty neat. (The sewing kit is for the huge hole Meta ripped in the crotch of her pants this morning.)

Now we have five more hours to kill in Hui Han. We're going to hang out at the beach for awhile and later check out the local night market for fresh seafood. Then on to Phuket.