Real Big Fish

I have been offline for two days and a Supreme dies? Wow, and a quarter of a million are homeless in New Orleans. What a time to be away. I'm on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, quite literally. Mark and I arrived in Ko Tao island this morning, already we are checked into our beachside bungalo and Mark is having a swim with a Brit and another (rare) American. Mark and I are going to get scuba certified, this takes 4 days and we begin today so I'll be here at least through Thursday. Ko Tao is on the Gulf of Thailand, so its the east side of the country. The west is where the tsunami hit, these beaches were completely unaffected. We are at the Big Fish resort, funny because "resort" is usually a spread-many buildings, grassy areas and swimming pools. This resort is a cluster of bungalos and a main office, then an eating area right off the beach. Its absolutely perfect and every angle is a postcard worthy photo. Unbelievable.
Yesterday, Mark arrived in Bangkok and I saw him for the first time in over a year. First thing, we booked our trip to Ko Tao on a bus then a catamaran ferry. We then headed north to a town outside of Bangkok where we went to the Ancient City and a Crocodile Farm. The croc farm was probably unnecessary, but still funny. The crocs seemed to be well cared for which is always my concern, there are just rivers and rivers of them that you walk over on platforms. Some of them are supposed to be breeding lakes, some are meant for tourists to throw food, but all of them looked pretty lazy and half dead to me. I guess that's par for crocodiles, but what do I know? There was crocodile "wrestling" in a pit, which amounted to two young Thai guys takingturns putting their heads and arms into crocodiles' mouths and then picking them up for photo ops. All the while, the crowd was throwing money into the pit for the guys, which seemed dangerous. There are these potentially dangerous animals with their mouths surrounding a man's arm and coins are raining down, hitting man and beast! It was a crowd pleaser, no doubt, but pretty strange.
Ancient city is a really great concept- a huge park that is a scale replica of the country of Thailand. It gave Mark and I the idea to start one of these in the US. We would just need 10 or so square miles, and we could constuct a mini Mississippi River down the center, have some small mountain ranges out west and in the south, build a replica statue of liberty in the northeast, consctruct a scale pond that would be the Gulf of Mexico, etc. This "city" has roads that run all the way through it, so you can rent a bicycle, walk (which could take days), hire a small train, or drive through in your car. Each site had a description, some sick Engrish but not bad for the most part. It was kind of like Lady of the Snows only in the daylight- and featuring Buddhist sites, not Catholic ones. It's a novel idea.
We hitched a minibus back to teh city, gathered up our things and ate our last Bangkok pad thai meal on Khou San Road. The bus to the ferry was a double decker sleeper bus. Mark and I had an exit row with excellent leg room and then the entire row behind us was empty so I laid across all the seats, being the large ugly American and slept all the way. The boat was 7 hours away, then 2 hours on the rocking, swaying catamaran to our island. I'm still sick, I realized I'd never been on a boat in the ocean before today outside of the ferries to staten Island and Alcatraz, and ugh. I did not hold up well. We're here now, though and very happy to begin the next adventure. I'm glad to be separated from the angst at home for SURE. I think Bush might get to appoint even more judges than our worst nightmares could have prepared us for. Oh, Ruth, hold ON! Please.