ONE-YEAR TSNUNAMI REMEMBRANCE

Today was a day of remembrance in Thailand, particularly in these southern provinces. Although I woke up fairly early, I remained in bed until almost noon watching the television coverage of the various memorials.

When I finally got up and walked over to the restaurant, Lek made me a great-tasting chicken sandwich. After lunch, her nephew took me into Patong on his motorbike. I spent much of the day walking the length of the beach taking more photos. I also spent some time wandering around the new memorial plaza, looking at the tsunami survivors' artwork; I even signed one of the remembrance books (filmed by a Japanese film crew because a Japanese pop star was behind me in line, accompanied by plenty of cute women asking for autographs).

In the early evening, I dropped off yet another full memory card to be burned to CD (I've found I like the Fuji photo shops better than the Kodak Express ones) and spent the time waiting in an Internet cafe. I was finally able to clear out my MSN inbox (although I can receive and send email on my Blackberry, they remain on the server until I delete them from my account) and also format my previously-made blog entries with the initial large capital letters and smaller font for the tags ("Sent by..."). I'll save the typos correction for another time. Lastly, I cut-and-pasted the last ten days worth of 'Burque Blog entries into my Travel Journal - the easiest way to cross-post.

When I returned to Fuji, my CD still wasn't ready so I decided to get something to eat. I'd had my eye on a place I'd found on the upper reaches of Bangla Road called The Pizza Company. It was enclosed (meaning air-conditioned) as opposed to the open-air places that constitute 90% or so of the eateries here. But it was too far to walk on my sore muscles and sunburned feet. I opted for a place called Mexico, thinking I'd order some enchiladas or tacos. However, they had soy sauce-marinated steak on the menu. Since this was my favorite growing up (and Mom always made it for my special birthday dinners), I just had to get this. It was a large t-bone served with french fries and a salad. I also had some sort of mango frozen smoothie. It was all delicious and came to 460 baht (approx. $11.10).

After dinner, I picked up my photo CD's and then stopped in at Baskin-Robbins for a double scoop of mangosteen sherbert for 79 baht (a little less than two dollars). I also tried to find a copy of the Bangkok Post as a commemorative of the tsunami but every place was already sold out. I finally found a copy of The Nation, Thailand's other English-language newspaper.

Strolling back to the beach, I discovered that a big concert was underway. I caught the last half-hour or so of it, enough to catch a very pretty Thai singer perform a couple of songs (including the Celine Dion song from 'Titanic', "My Heart Will Go On") plus a great drum corps. The finale was a mass singalong by all of the performers on a song in Thai, the only word of which I knew was "tsunami".

Once that was over, I decided to call the hotel to see if Lek's nephew would come and pick me up. It took me a while to figure out a payphone (first you have to change the language of the instructions from Thai to English and then you need to dial "0" before the number if it's a Thai local call). However, her nephew wasn't there and Lek couldn't understand exactly where in Patong I was). Nobody else was there so she recommended I just take a tuk-tuk.

Before I did, I walked along the row of night market food stalls lining the beach road, doing a bit of filming and then buying some pineapple from a vendor. Got back to L&S Kamala Bay Village a but before midnight, had a Pepsi in the restaurant while telling Silvio and Lek about my "adventures" today, and came up to my room to recharge various batteries in preparation for another full day tomorrow. We're leaving here at 7:30 in the morning and are renting a speedboat that will take us not only to Khoh Phi-Phi but also to some of me more remote (less crowded) islands in the Phuket Sea.

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