Theoretically the 29th

Technically, 1:28am in Singapore (and Taiwan), so 12:28am in Thailand, which is still not the 29th, but this is still pretty close to actually blogging all but one day of our stay in Thailand. Hooray!

So, we're currently in the Singapore airport, enduring a 6-hour overnight layover (cheap flights always have downsides...), and discovering that Singapore is the absolute best place ever to have a long layover. Their motto is "The feeling is first class," and it certainly does feel that way: wide open spaces, uber clean glass walls, smooth-running escalators, pristine stretches of (now-empty) carpet, free internet kiosks, an overnight cafe which smells scrumptious...and, as we just discovered, lounge chairs. Those will be our beds tonight.

In the meantime: today. It's been full. And a little crazy, for several reasons and on several occasions. Best of times, worst of times. A Dickensian day, if you will.

It started early, 7am, with a buffet breakfast and a rendezvous with our friend at the tour center, an older guy with so-so English who told us we could get a 2-hour snorkelling trip for two to Bamboo Island and Mosquito Island for 1,000 baht (~30USD). We said sign us up!

Snorkelling was glorious: after a 20 minute longtail boat journey, we started at Bamboo Island, where our driver parked on the beach near the coral; for me, a complete newbie at this whole being-in-the-ocean thing, it was perfect. I got to wade into it, literally, with the deepest spot I found about waist deep, and just float as I saw parrot fish, angelfish, leapord fish (campoflauged beautifully!), dozens of unidentified smaller fish, of course a fair amount of (unfortunately smallish) coral, sea cucumbers, some gorgeous peacock-blue floral-looking things, and, my favorite, a deflated puffer fish. Karina didn't snorkel much there, since she prefers deep water, but I loved it, my bi-minutely shark scans (I read too much for my own good) notwithstanding.

Then, after a brief verbal scuffle with someone trying to charge us to stay at the beach for an hour, we set out for Mosquito Island where, despite the name, I saw not a single mosquito.

What I did see, though, was fish. THOUSANDS of them, all swimming about and above a magnificent reef off the side of a limestone cliff. This one was deeper, and we didn't go to the shore, but just flopped out of the boat into what felt like an aquarium. Here were all the fish I saw before (except the puffer), plus some groupers, a Dory-like fish, some truly rainbow colored fish, and more varieties of others than I could possibly name. It was glorious.

All-in-all, a wonderful first snorkelling experience and, for that matter, first ocean-swimming experience. But I discovered that I love everything about swimming in salt water except the salt water. Despite my best efforts, it would NOT stay out of my mask and mouthpiece, leading to a few moments where I felt like I was drowning--many of which happened, not coincidentally, when I was in the deep water, barred from standing up and a long swim from my boat. Also, Karina delighted in throwing bread at me, upon which hundreds of thousands of fish would then converge--which is, by the way, TERRIFYING to experience inches from your face.

So snorkelling was great. When we got back, we checked out and I checked into the local massage place, where I treated myself to a lovely oil massage (at triple the prices of the mainland, unfortunately, though still four times cheaper than America) while Karina sunbathed. Then it was a rather rushed buffet lunch and just catching our 1pm ferry back to Phuket.

In Phuket, things got...interesting. For some unknown reason, not nearly enough taxis had shown up to service people coming off the ferry and, as all the minibuses were full, too, we decided to foot it to Phuket town (a 15 minute walk, we were told), eat dinner there and spend the rest of our Thai money (I REALLY wanted another hour or two of Thai experience), and then catch a minibus to the airport. A long walk past illegal taxi- and motorbike-hawkers later, we stopped in at a 7-11 and stepped out to find it was raining. And, of course, by then all taxis had disappeared.

At least this time my travel curse waited till we were off the beach.

About an hour, three stops for directions with some-English-speaking locals and several kilometers of walking and watching minibus after minibus speed by without stopping later, we found a wonderful Thai family who spoke decent English and called a taxi for us, which arrived just as it was starting to get dark for the last-minute save.

So we ate in the Phuket airport, bought a few postcards, rearranged our stuff, sat around, got frustrated with line-cutters at immigration, jostled for service with determined, yet non-English or Thai-speaking Chinese tourists with meal vouchers at Dairy Queen, and finally boarded our (delayed) flight for Singapore.

And now we're here, using our free Internet but more than ready to seek out the fabled "snooze chairs" the airport is advertising every time our 15 minute sessions run out. After all, the 29th has been a very long, though wonderful, day.