We wanted to surprise our kids and meet our grandson Henry, so this is a VERY late blog entry. This is from the last week spent on Phuket Island back in May. Enjoy, hopefully many more adventures to follow. During the last fun filled week on Phuket I was on one of my beach walks and thought I came across a joke left behind from the weekend paragliders or a photographer. It looked as though this dead fish lying on the sand had false teeth inserted in it`s mouth. I looked around thinking there was a hidden camera but as I got closer I realized it was for real. It was a coral eating puffer fish with these crazy looking teeth. Earlier in the day Steve and I also had our teeth cleaned, so this added to the humour, a fish with teeth like ours. Now back to the dental experience. Pretty much the same same but different. First the price, $25.00 each (gotta love it) with two assistants busily working on our cleaning. They have the same fancy hydraulic chairs, same spit sinks, but they have this apron that they put over your face with a hole cut out around the mouth area so the high pressure water sprayer doesn`t get your face wet. Clever idea. We finished the day with a brick oven wood fired pizza joined by our friend, Theo. Yum Yum. The following day we organized a trip to Coral Island with our English Muay Thai friend, Richard, his girlfriend/manager Emma, and Theo. This was our second trip here as we were drawn to the tranquility and great snorkeling. We journeyed on a long tail boat operated by a sea gypsy. These are men that literally live on the water and are in tune with the sea. They headed to higher ground before the 2004 tsunami hit Thailand. The beach had soft white sand that felt like baby powder on your feet. While snorkeling we swam with plenty of beautiful fish and some very large coral gardens. On the beach we observed these large beautiful yellow double billed birds eating seeds from a tree and posing for photos. Theo has lived in Thailand for over a dozen years and never witnessed any birds like these strange feathered friends. Finished with a fun night out at Mediterranos, joined by our local friends. We exchanged lots of stories with plenty of laughter, then later checked out an East Indian bar/restaurant back in our neighborhood. There we smoked some apple and liquorice sheesha while catching up on local gossip . Good times! Said it before and will say it again, we are so lucky...... lucky, lucky, lucky!
