Honeymoon: Day 1-4

OMG. I just had the most amazing massage of my life. As I write this, I'm half groggy from the 3 1/2 hour Thai massage we had this afternoon. $120/pp got us each a 60 min Cocoa Bean Body Scrub, 30 min floral milk bath, 60 min aromatherapy Thai massage and a 30 foot massage. But, more about that later ... let me start from the beginning:

We arrived at our hotel in Phuket, Thailand after 33 hours of planes, trains and automobiles. Ok, no actual trains ... but you get the idea. Andi and I departed Sunday afternoon traveling from Minneapolis to Toyko to Bangkok and finally Phuket. The plane ride was rough ... but not as bad as I'd expected it to be. Luckily I slept for most of the way (I was exhausted from the wedding festivities). Andi, unfortunately, was not as lucky as he tossed and turned most of the way. We have never looked so run over as we did we did during that flight. The proof is in the pudding ...

We stopped over in Bangkok for 6 hours to take a shower and sleep a little bit, staying in a hotel near the airport. We ordered room service at 4am (French toast, pancakes, fresh fruit and juice) for $10. Total. This country is amazingly cheap!

This is Andi checking flights to Phuket before heading back to the airport. At 5am, we headed back to the Bangkok International Airport to catch a flight to Phuket. We didn't book a ticket so we'd have the flexibility to go & do what we wanted during this trip. At the airport, we purchased 2 tickets from Thai Airways. The business class tickets were only $50 more so we decided to go with those. Who knew business class was so freaking amazing here! We boarded the airplace first and were escorted to our seats (these huge circle chairs that vibrated, reclined to a bed and had foot rests! Once the flight began, the flight attendents quickly brought out our breakfast. Tuna fish sandwiches (with the crust cut off, chicken and fruit). I'm not sure if this is gourmet in Thailand or what, but we ate it anyway. By the way, this was Andi's 3rd breakfast of the day (he ate French Toast at 4am, a few mini sandwiches in the airline lounge and then this!)
Andi catching some zzz's on the flight to Phuket (check out the guy snoring next to him ... apparantely, he was pretty comfy too)

We're staying at Twin Palms Resort in Phuket. It's $150/night for our suite + breakfast (I'll get to that in a little bit). Our hotel is amazingly beautiful. Everyone is so friendly, speaks English and waits on us hand and foot. Andi can't get over how they know his name wherever he goes (yes, Mr. Dickson, right away). By the way, being on your honeymoon is the best. Upgraded wherever we go. Champagne on ice in our hotel room, flower petals in our tub. Pretty much awesome.

Here's a few snapshots of Twin Palms:
Front entranceOur suitePool areaTwin Palm's private beach area

Twin Palm's Calm Beach Club
We went here for a cocktail last night. It was SUPER windy so we only stayed for one. This is me sitting at the bar. Notice the stray dog chilling by my chair. I would have completely loved on him had he not looked like he'd been in a dog fight from hell.Twin Palms hosts a BBQ every Tuesday and Friday night. We didn't eat there last night, but they had this huge Red Snapper cooking over an open flame which looked pretty tasty.We were exhausted last night - the time change / lack of sleep was catching up to us. We headed to bed (without dinner) at about 8:30pm! So, when we woke up this AM we were starving. We went to the Oriental Spoon which is the restaurant in our hotel. It was the best buffet I'd ever seen. OMG. Made-to-order omelets, gourmet cheeses, cereals, nuts, fresh breads, smoothies, mimosas and coffee flown in directly from Vienna. Amazing. We ate ourselves silly.The People
Thai's are super friendly and helpful here. Almost everyone speaks Engligh. As bad as it sounds, Andi and I have had to break ourselves from speaking broken Spanish to everyone! Guess it's time we started traveling other places besides the Caribbean / Panama!

The Food
So far the food hasn't been crazy. We ate lunch at the hotel pool yesterday and there were both Thai and Western cuisine. I ordered the goat cheese panini w/ French Fries (sorry, I couldn't resist since I saw some kid eating them next to me) and Andi had the Pad Thai. Both were excellent. Tonight we're going to a Thai restauant so that should be more interesting.

Thai Massage
Yesterday when we arrived at the beach, we stopped at a roadside stand to get a Thai massage. That's all you read about when you research Thailand - $10 massages wherever you go. It was interesting, that's for sure. While the massage was good, it was hard to get over the sound of some of the ladies eating lunch next to you and other tourists walking next to your table.

Today's massage was freaking amazing, but a little strange too. When I checked into the locker room, an attendant greeted me, told me to take my clothes off and dressed me in a sarong. Then she pointed to the shower and said "5 minute," then pointed to the steam room and said "10 minute." Guess I had no choice! The massage was excellent (and more comforting because Andi was in the same room) but weird when she started rubbing my chest and started combing my hair at the end. It took all I had to stop myself from laughing out loud!

Tomorrow, we leave Phuket and are traveling to Kohsmaui for 3 days. Think we're going to head to Patong Beach tomorrow before heading to the airport. A hotel worker just told us there was a plane crash in Kohsmaui on Bangkok Airways today. The pilot died and 40 people were injured. That's the same airline we're taking so hopefully all goes well. Eek!

I'll try to write again once we arrive in Kohsmaui tomorrow night....