A Happy Christmas N07 48 E098 21
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From Kuah we sailed for Thailand to meet Hattie and Ben who arrived 2 days before Christmas. It all started rather inauspiciously when we decided the easiest way to collect them was to hire a car and then use it the following day to visit some of the attractions on Phuket. Our big mistake was to assume that there would be petrol stations open at 8pm in the evening. The consequence was that we had to abandon the car in a supermarket (Tescos!) car park and take an expensive taxi to the airport …and then to use another taxi the following morning to retrieve the car. However, all was well and our 2 visitors were not too jet lagged or phased by the heat as they had already had a day in Kuala Lumpur before flying on to Thailand. We had an enjoyable land based day including a vist to the “Big Buddha”, an impressive white stone monument atop one of the highest hills on Phuket which was started 20 years ago and is still very much under construction. There is a lot of larger than life size gold statuary around the base which gives a clue as to how it might look in years ahead. A large temporary shrine and interesting exhibition area presents much information on Buddhism and the monument as well as interesting efforts to raise cash for the construction which is completely funded by donations. Your dollar bill or baht could become a leaf on the tree of thoughts for mothers or a piece of limestone could be inscribed with your name and message in permanent marker – a drop in the ocean of stone used to clad the Buddha.
There were quite interesting displays of how various parts of the Buddha are made including the big whorls of hair, each of which is very large and heavy, easy to remember when going inside the building and seeing the brick and stone columns that are holding the massive weight of this deity. It is anybody’s guess when the Big Buddha will be finished and we wondered whether the intention is to cover it in gold like much of the statuary. It is already quite a sight when floodlit at night and can be seen for miles. We also had an interesting Christmas eve meal at a restaurant close to the marina that included these delights:
Prawns and chicken with cashew nuts in a pineapple…. Fish and bell peppers….
Black pasta and seafood….. and something else seafoody on a blue plate.
We had decided to sail from Phuket to Langkawi so that Hattie and Ben could get a good flavour of this part southern Thailand and a taste of Malaysia. Our first stop was a “hong” (Thai for room) which we had visited last year but were unable to enter due to high tide. This is a sea cave that gives access through a tunnel to a chasm open to the sky above. The entrance seemed too small but we entered with Hattie and Ben by canoe (brought back from the UK as an early Chrstmas present to ourselves) and us rowing the dinghy, we needed torches at the ready as the entrance tunnel was pitch black with turns, hanging rocks and lots of bats. Hattie and Ben carefully manoeuvring their way through. This was at another hong further south with a larger area inside including a white sand beach with copse of trees and shrubs behind.
This hot climate calls for a different sort of Christmas fare and unfortunately it was even too hot to cook the Christmas pudding but we all enjoyed rambutan, mangoes, large doses of water melon and the very delicious tiny Thai bananas.
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