And finally .. Thailand!

We arrived in Shanghai for our connecting flight to Phuket. At some point we had lost our itinerary, which isn't a big deal in most cases because the airlines have us on their lists and we can just show our passports. But Shanghai was different. We had to collect our bag in Shanghai, pass through immigrations, walk to the other terminal, check in for our flight to Phuket, check our bag, and then pass though immigration leaving the country. The lack of an itinerary made things worse because we couldn't prove to immigrations that we weren't going to stay in China. Yeah ... as if China was a country people tried really hard to get into. Fortunately I had my phone and my calendar had our Phuket flights ... but not our full names, so we could only show them our first names, and they grudgingly accepted that. An hour later, we had to clear immigrations leaving China ... in which we went through the same rigamaroll. But we made it to our gate (with 30 minutes to spare). We met Paul and Cresta at our gate and settled in for our four hour flight to Phuket.

Dontcha know .. they allow smoking on Shanghai Air. I didn't believe it at first, but there were several instances someone on the plane was smoking. We we were deplaning I asked the stewardess if smoking is allowed on all Shanghai air flights (as I wasn't going to complain if they allowed it) and she actually said YES! However .. after I turned and left, Jennifer (who was behind me) noticed the attendant's "yes" with a smile turned to a look of surprise or horrifcation (is that a word?) ... so I dunno, I guess she may not have realized what I was asking, and just said "yes" and then it sunk in that someone on the flight was smoking? Or perhaps .. that her ignorance of the situation demonstrated her lack of control of the cabin? 

Anyway .. we arrived in Phuket safely despite the potential for cigarette smoking covering up other burning materials in the cabin. A cab took us to the Marriot resort. It was raining (as it is the rainy season). They had made an elephant out of towels, and we settled in for the night.

Can't forget about the gecko's .. they were all over the walls outside our room.

The next morning was nice! We enjoyed the clear weather and explored the resort. Like the dreadlock trees.

Jenn found this hammock.

So did Paul and Cresta. I merely found the shutter button.

Te resort itself was impressive - they even had collonaded walkways like that.

Once we got to the beach (which the resort is right on) the clouds started to roll in. This is looking south.

And north.

And Jennifer with the lifeguard. The red flag indicates that it is too dangerous to swim. It was up all week.

Paul made a new friend .. Dumbo. He likes bananas.

Here's another shot of the resort. There were several pools throughout.

It didn't take us long to find a bar ..

When it started to rain, we found another bar. And I don't really remember what we did after that. I think we found a grocery store, where we got some wine and beer and cereal, then we found another bar.