Thailand!

Sawadee-krap!

Got up in the morning to get a cab to Singapore airport's budget terminal. Interestingly during checkin, my bag slipped away from the counter into that magical conveyor belt where checked in luggage goes earlier than the attendant expected. When she finished checking us in, she said "two bags?" when only Justin's was left, as mine had already been conveyed away. We assumed she had done it under her power, so we were a little surprised. She, too, seemed surprised, and then went off to walk down the conveyor belt to find it. It was already gone though, so they told me they'd take it to the gate for me to verify and tag.

After a quick meal of laksa (noodles), we boarded the plane (where we re-meet my bag), and off to Thailand.

Upon arrival (at 11:30), we were met by our hotel's shuttle driver, who took us on a 2 hour ride (including over two really short car ferries) to the hotel. We checked in, and then headed into "town" to look for food. I say "town" because it has about 4 places to eat, a 7-11, and maybe 3 other shops. We found a restaurant that had good, and mind-bogglingly cheap food. The pad thai, which was probably better than any other pad thai I've had was 60 THB, which is about $2. I also had a spicy papaya salad, which I don't love as much as everyone else does. After a quick stop at 7-11, and a few minutes in the room to cool down (boy was it hot), we got into the ocean, which is about 5 minutes away from our room door. The water was surprisingly warm, so we swam around for a bit, before swimming in the hotel pool to cool down.

Then, we decided to be adventurous... Lonely Planet speaks highly of a restaurant called "Beautiful Restaurant" (which I think is the English translation of its Thai name) in Old Town Lanta, on the other side of the island. The island sounded interesting to visit anyway, so we asked the hotel to send us there. They told us not to go over there (it was 8pm) if we were looking for shopping (presumably because it was all closed). For 600THB they sent us over in a car. We realized en route why it was so expensive -- it took about a half hour to get there. And then we got dropped off at what was probably a 3/4 mile stretch of shops and houses. We found the restaurant we were looking for on the far end. The tables are placed along multiple winding piers in the water. During the day, one would imagine the views of the ocean and distant islands are nice -- at night, it's just darkness with the occasional sounds of boats, fish, along with some distant lightning. 

The food was tasty - we had a steamed fish, along with some rice. Now the adventure -- despite the hotel telling us that we'd be able to find taxis back, there were no taxis to be had. When the restauranteur learned that we were planning on looking for a taxi, he knew there would be none, so offered to take us back for a fee. 500THB -- the payment for each ride for dinner way outstripped the price for dinner.

Adventure over, it was time for the end of the day.