To: Family and Friends

18 April, 2005

Check in from Phuket

When last I e-mailed I was in Cambodia enjoying the first day away from the temples of ancient Angkor.

Today I'm e-mailing from Phuket, Thailand.

Five days ago Kelley and I said our good-byes to Chi our driver in Cambodia. From the airport in Siem Reap we flew to Bangkok on a clear afternoon. We then hopped another plane to Phuket where we decided, instead of a yoga retreat, we'd indulge ourselves in a bit of pampering. Cambodia was a wonderful adventure, but left something of a raw edge we were ready to clean up.

We checked into the J. W. Marriott Beach Resort where we've enjoyed all of the amenities one might expect in a five-star resort in paradise. We've taken a Thai language class, traditional Thai dancing class, two cooking classes (one where we were cooking with the head chef for the hotel and the other where we took a trip into town and shopped at the open air market for the ingredients we used to make Pad Thai for lunch), meals that were perfect from the first cup of tea to the final morsel of tropical dessert, a room with a view of the courtyard garden in the forefront and the Andaman Sea in the background, a bike ride around the lake, a sunset bike tour that passed through rubber tree plantations, celebration for Songkoran (Thai Lunar New Year on our first evening here), chilled out whether poolside or in the series of pools and fountains and countless hidden places in the gardens to sit and read or take in the beauty of paradise.

Tomorrow, I head to Khao Lak which is north of Phuket Island. There I'll be volunteering for a couple of weeks. Kelley has been having some problems with her back so she's heading south to a yoga wellness center. She and I will meet up with one another after the first of May and then figure out how to spend the remainder of time we have here in Thailand. Perhaps a trip to one of the islands off the coast with the towering limestone rock formations and sea caves through which we could kayak, or perhaps farther north to Chaing Mai for a trek through the jungles and possibly an elephant ride or perhaps something that we are not yet aware of...two weeks for us to chat with locals and those who've experienced Thailand might give us insight that we did not find in the travel books or on the internet.

Hopefully this message finds all of you in good health.

namaste,
jace