On Tuesday we grab a taxi after many negotiations with other taxi drivers in order to get to the hotel where we will spend our time in Phuket - the Phuket Bike Resort. It turns out the hotel is pretty new and the taxi driver has to stop and ask directions once and then drags me into a post office to finalize the location of the hotel. But we arrive safely after the adventure to a very nice two bedroom suite. After checking the place out Karl and I borrow bicycles from the hotel and ride down to have lunch and to rent real bicycles from a shop that we found on the Internet. The owner is a triathlete and has the Bangkok triathlon coming up next month. We select our bicycles and the owner agrees to deliver them to our hotel because he says, "When I first saw you riding that borrowed bicycle I thought it was your son's bicycle".
On Wednesday Karl and I start carrying our bicycles out of the hotel and there is a guy taking pictures of us. When we get them out the front door and are ready to roll off, he stops us and asks if he can take pictures of us standing next to our bicycles in front of the hotel. It turns out he is the architect/owner of the hotel. I don't know if he was queued in by the staff that two foreigners with bicycles were staying at his hotel or if it was a random visit, but he says he visits his facility twice a week. We tell him that we love the hotel (except for the taxi drivers not knowing where it is). Good luck to him on this and future endeavors.
On Wednesday night Karl and I walk to a restaurant about a mile from the hotel and have a nice Thai dinner. We get all that we want to eat the the bill comes in at $12 total for both of us. On the way home we stop at a convenience store and get ice cream bars that have been advertised a lot lately. They are really good!
After relaxing in the hotel and starting to watch the movie Argo, we get back on the bicycles and have a liesurely ride in the dark to a mall where there is a wide variety of food to select from (for dinner). We take our time with dinner and on the ride back home we stop in at a local market and walk through it and check out the live music being played. But we only stay for a few minutes before we get back on the bicycles and ride home among the crickets chirping, the frogs riveting, and other strange noises in the dark.
Saturday starts slowly also. I think that I am ready to go home and Karl is just waiting for his friend P to visit. After breakfast we go shopping for souvenirs and other small supplies, get in a workout at the hotel's spartan, but semi-usefull, fitness center, and then relax. P comes to visit and after a while the three of us go to a great Thai buffet. Afterwards Karl and P go to a show of Thai dancers while I walk back to the underground station and try to meet up with a friend from a few years ago.
Sunday is a slow day. Karl and P and I have breakfast and then we see P off to the skytrain for her trip back to her home. I buy some souvenirs and Karl and I sit and watch people and just talk about circumstances and our last day in Thailand for a while. Eventually we go back to the hotel and get our luggage and take the skytrain and city link train to the airport and a complimentary shuttle to a small, cheap hotel.
When I arrive at home I do some unpacking, do a quick pass through the accumulated mail, and then get out on the mountain bicycle to ride to the aquarium and back. It is a hot day but it feels great to be on my own bicycle again. I then edge and mow the front yard and take a shower to cool off. Later I walk to the grocery store for supplies for a couple of days and then relax with a recorded MotoGP race and sorting through the mail. I've been awake for 31 straight hours, crossed 14 time zones, crossed the international dateline, gone cycling, and mowed the lawn - I expect to sleep well tonight. But I don't. Sleep comes in sporadic spurts until the alarm goes off at 5:15 am to go to work.