Phun Phactoids Phrom Phuket

So much to tell! But because we've got some serious leisuring to do here on our last day in Phuket, I'm just going to do a bullet point review of some of our adventures/observations:

1. "Boss! Madame!" That is how people try to get our attention when we walk down the streets any tourist-y place, be it Bangkok, the Floating Markets, or on Phuket's Bourbon Street. I've found I can dazzle them into silence by just rattling off a bunch of Italian, even if the English translation is something like, "I'm sorry. I love my cats! I'm hungry. Where is the Piazza Repubblica? Don't you know that a woman who doesn't have children doesn't have a house?" (That last line is one I had to memorize for a play I was in in Florence, "La Mandragola." It was just so ironic at the time, that I had to say this as I played the nagging mother-in-law, that I never forgot it. I will perform on request when I get back home.)

Jordo, however, has more problems blowing people off. He tried to say, "I'm sorry" in Italian but kept forgetting the words. Then he went Spanish with "Lo siento." Sadly, too many people recognized that and began speaking Spanish back to him. So he made up his own language. So far, it has one word and that's the word for "no": Palin. So when hawkers say, "Boss, boss. Good deal for you on shirts. Hand made," Jordo brushes them off with, "Palin, Palin" and keeps walking. Only I am amused.

2. Negotiating prices. We'd been told before we got here how people love the bartering and, let me tell you, I hate the bartering. It gets so dramatic! At the Floating Market, we'd automatically offer about half or a third less than the listed price, then it would take 20 minutes of heavy sighing and jumping up and down and arm grabbing (on the part of the sellers) to finally settle on a final price. Seriously, if they could just tell me, honestly, the lowest price they'd take, I would happily give them 100 bhat more (about $3) just to end this dance. Every transaction takes too long for my liking.

That said, we got some cool stuff at the Floating Market, including a spirit house. Spirit Houses are everywhere here, dwellings on the outside of homes to keep the good spirits close and the bad spirits out of the inside of the house. People give offerings to their spirit houses everyday, ranging from flowers to food to beer. We hope to get ours home safely.

Jordo also got some pants, and in the spirit of negotiating, he told me to act like I hated them when he put them on. So when he did, I started laughing. Then he got confused, not sure if this was a true mockery or savvy technique. I tried to indicate it was the latter, and when the girl handed me the calculator to ask how much I would let him pay for the pants, I put in all zeros. It worked OK, as we got them pretty cheaply.

3. Here at the beach and by the pool in Phuket, the Speedo craze is alive and well. One of our favorite gentlemen so nattily dressed has been nicknamed, "Admiral Partypants" as he wears his tiny black Speedo and a jaunty white captain's hat. He is about 65 or so with a belly to rival Santa's. That said, he still enjoys strutting up and down the length of the pool, letting all the sunbathers take a good look at him. Of course, J has dubbed him my boyfriend, and the various other older Speedo wearers --- including Mr. "I love my leopard print undies" -- are just shipmates on the Admiral's Cruise of Love. We have been here days and I have never seen the Admiral clothed in anything other than this outfit. (I'd also like to add I have never seen the Admiral clothed in anything less than this, just in case the rumors of my love for the Admiral go international.)

4. Yesterday, at the recommendation of friends, we went on a boat/cave junket. It was pretty awesome. It was an all day affair, starting before noon and getting us back by 9 pm. Loved it. Gorgeous scenary, like "Lost," with the jutting rocks and the beaches and trees. (We discussed how we'd do if we were stranded there like "Lost." Answer: Jordo would be well liked by the fellow islanders. I would be burned as a witch.) We got to canoe on our own, jump off the top of the two story boat and into the Andaman Sea, avoid jellyfish, see some caves where the tops were so narrow at times that we had to lie back in our canoe and visit others so cavernous that we could chat with bats squeaking from the ceiling. (No vampire bats, our guides assured us ahead of time, but like that would have been a problem.) As it got dark, we worked with our guide, Max, to make an offering to the water god, constructing it of banana leaf and tree, yellow carnations and purple orchids, three pieces of incense for Budda, his monks and his holy book, and candles. We let these offerings free after dark in an inlet, reachable by cave, that was surrounded by steep mountain walls. Our offerings, floating with all the others, was so beautiful. Very peaceful. On our way back through the cave, we splashed the water to see the plankton glow like fireflies. Jordo noted that because it was so cloudy we didn't have any stars in the sky. I said they were in the sea.

5. Throughout this trip, my traveling companion has taken to referring to himself as "J-Dog" and in the third person, as in "J-Dog doesn't roll that way" or "J-Dog can't help but be popular with the ladies" or, one of my favorites, "That's now how J-Dog does." (Wrong. On so many levels.) J-Dog started this campaign on the plane to Tokyo and had said it would stop when we landed. It has not. We leave for Hanoi tomorrow and I was reading in our guidebook about the "exotic" foods the Vietnamese eat, which includes dogs. Fair warning, J-Dog.

More later!