honeymoon tales: the toast of hong kong

One Saturday night in Hong Kong, Jim and I visited Jumbo, the world's largest floating restaurant. It's so big, we went there twice. The restaurant is three stories tall and holds 2,600 diners comfortably.

The first time, Jim and I didn't actually go inside and it wasn't Saturday night. We were taking a daytime sampan ride in Aberdeen Harbour and the captain of our sampan, Thomas, wanted to stop for pictures.



After fifty HK dollars and much pleading, he was persuaded to step aside to take a picture of me and Jim.



Our second visit to Jumbo was on Saturday night, for a nine-course meal with our "Splendid Night of Delights" tour group. Earlier, we picked up part of our group at Queen's Pier, fresh from a booze cruise, and then proceeded to the Temple Street Night Market. After loading up on Hello Kitty items at 7-11 as well as from a street vendor, we returned to Jumbo.

We sat in the middle of this huge dining room, sharing a table with a British guy in HK on business, a Venezuelan textiles guy currently living in Austria also there on business, two older British women on holiday, and a couple and their teenage daughter from Australia. I was surprised to hear that the Brits at our table had never tried Chinese food before this trip, and, at a restaurant renowned for seafood, the teenage daughter was a strict vegetarian. Earlier the Venezuelan guy claimed to have eaten an eagle the night before. I told him that he probably ate chicken, but they told him it was an eagle. That got a big laugh.

As was my custom on this trip, I informed our tour guide and one of the British ladies sitting next to me (I think her name was Madge) that Jim and I were on our honeymoon. Soon there were toasts all around, people were buying us drinks from other tables, it was nuts! People from across the room were coming over, taking our picture, buying us more drinks, sending over special dishes to try, etc. It was getting embarrassing, but we didn't know how to make it stop.

As if that weren't enough, the management of the restaurant came over and asked us if we would grace them with a picture, taken at the massive throne situated at the end of the room. And would we please change into more formal attire, please?



So there we were, drunk and dressed up like Chinese royalty, the entire room toasting and clapping.

(Just kidding - we paid something like HK$150 for them to dress us up as the Emperor and Empress of China and take some Polaroids. The whole room turned around and laughed and cheered once they realized the new Emperor was a tall white guy from Minnesota.)

honeymoon tales: running aground

It was our last day at Ko Yao Noi and I fell on my ass trying to carry my pink suitcase out to the boat. Jim made fun of me because I liked to wave at all the passing boats. About 200 yards before hitting Bang Rong Pier, I waved to passing fishermen in a long-tail. One hundred yards from the pier, our ship ran aground. It was low tide. Our captain tried to loosen the ship, but nothing was happening.

It seemed like all was lost. We wouldn't make it to the pier and our driver would probably leave. We'd miss our flight to Hong Kong. Then the passing fishermen who I waved to earlier came floating up. Our captain exchanged a few words with them, then he was gesturing for us to get out of his boat, and onto their boat. Did I mention that their long-tail was still full of the morning's catch?

No matter, the pier was just in sight, only 100 yards away. Jim and I squatted on a board, inches above a pile of prawn and still-flopping fish. My Hello Kitty suitcase sat up front, a big pink beacon that yelled, "Silly tourist approaching!" Jim didn't seem to be enjoying the rescue, I didn't know until after our adventure that he was worried about me freaking out. Did I mention that I get creeped out by live fish?

Minutes later as we approached the pier, I heard the sound of a long-tail motor roaring to life. I turned to see the captain had managed to work his boat free. We waved goodbye as he headed back towards Ko Yao Noi. I turned to face the pier and my face connected with the bow of a docked long-tail boat. I tried to keep my balance, keep my footing on the bench I had been squatting on, but I fell back and avoided stepping on their catch by inches. I stood up, fighting through the dizzyness, eager to get off the boat.

Hands were offered and with my free hand, I grabbed on for dear life and hoisted myself off the boat. In front of me was a foot-wide expanse between the pier and whatever rickety wood thing I had been standing on. Holding on to my pink luggage, hoping to not lose a shoe, I closed my eyes and jumped. I made it to the other side, where a crowd of bored locals sat drinking and watching the two tourists who had to be fished out of their long-tail.

Within minutes, our driver arrived. "Have you been waiting long?"

"No, we just got here."

We sat in the back of the car, relieved to be underway, glad that we had a little adventure and not one that disrupted our itinerary. Then I saw it - a monkey, perched on a car parked at the entrance to the pier. No, two monkeys, wait, three. And they were posing, like the "see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil" monkeys. I can't wait to return to Thailand.

honeymoon tales: snakes, crabs and the lizard i didn't know about

I was in the bedroom, unpacking my Hello Kitty suitcase. Bathing suit on, I was ready to hit the water. If only I could find my beach cover-up.

"Are you afraid of snakes?" Jim yelled from our Thai sala-style living room next door.

I thought about that for a second, walked past the mosquito netting draped around the bed and to Jim, who stood with his back to me in the sala of our Thai-style beach villa.

"Yeah. Why do you ask?" I asked, eyes searching the thatched-roof ceiling, where Jim's eyes were trained.

On hearing my voice, and in much closer proximity than he probably anticipated, Jim turned quickly to face me. He shrugged with a forced casualness.

"No reason."

I stood there, trying to decipher the look on his face, the source of that unfamiliar look in his eye. Jim moved towards me and my eyes wandered up higher, above his head - where a green snake slithered along the bamboo framework of our Thai-style beach villa.


Photo courtesy of Jim

I suppressed a scream, badly. My body went into convulsions and I involuntarily jumped as I turned to run back into the relative safety of the bedroom. I was pretty sure I had peed myself a little bit, too. I found my cover-up and reached for my sunglasses.

"I'm going to the pool." I rinsed off in the outdoor shower, carefuly examining every tree branch on my way to the pool.

Ten minutes later, I was frolicking in the infinity pool. It was a warm, humid day and I leaned against the edge of the pool, sighing as I stared at the islands in the distance. Jim can't take as much sun, so he sat back in the shade at the corner of the pool.



"Are you afraid of crabs?"

"Yes, why?"

"There's one right by your foot, on the wall of the pool."


Photo courtesy of Jim

Without a word, I paddled to the far side of the pool. Jim didn't do anything about the crab. So I stayed at the far end until I was able to convince the two teenage Australian girls who were vacationing with their parents to fish the crab out of the pool using the Italian boy's red pail and return it to the beach.

I told Jim right before I started to hit the "publish" button on this blog post what I was blogging about.

He laughed and asked, "Did I ever tell you about the big lizard?"

I thought about that for a second. "Do you mean the lizard you pointed out to me on the wall of the villa? The one in the sala?"

He considered this and gestured, "The ones on the wall of our villa that were about this big?" indicating six inches with his forefingers.

"Yeah."

"No. I meant the one that I saw outside our villa, by the spa. That one was about the size of my forearm. I think it was a Komodo dragon."

"So whenever there was a lot of thrashing in the bushes outside our villa and you said it was probably a gardener working, you really meant it was a Komodo dragon?"

"Yeah."

"No, you didn't tell me about the big lizard."

honeymoon tales: ko yao noi

Jim and I flew into Phuket for the first half of our honeymoon. Our driver picked us up at the airport and drove us through the jungle and past rubber tree plantations. Within thirty minutes we were at Bang Rong Pier (picture below), boarding a long-tail boat for an hour ride to the resort.


Bang Rong Pier, photo courtesy of Jim

On our island resort of Ko Yao Noi, there wasn't much to do once the sun went down. And by that I mean nothing I want to blog about in any detail. Satellite television was available upon request, but I didn't realize that until I read the brochure when we returned home. I just thought there weren't any, by choice, in the 15 villas that comprised this resort. A choice I agreed with completely. There was a phone, but no directory and I assumed, nothing else on this island but another resort on the other side.

Every night, we'd watch the sun set over the limestone karsts just offshore. The lights from nearby Krabi (an hour away by boat) would twinkle in the distance and that's when we'd put down the books we were reading and head to the restaurant for dinner. Jim and I methodically went through the menu, having tried a good variety of dishes by the time we left. Desserts were wonderfully tropical items and my favorite was the bananas in coconut milk. Afterwards, we'd walk thirty feet back to our villa, a gazillion bright stars above, illuminating the way. We fell asleep every night listening to the sounds of frogs and the ocean at our doorstep.


Sunrise through the trees.

Just before sunrise, we'd hear the sounds of birds chirping and whistling and much to my surprise, we would wake up to watch the sunrise. The coconut palms scattered around the resort and at the edge of the grass helped to shade our villa from the brilliant morning light, filtering it, and framing our view of the limestone karsts in the water.


Low tide sunrise.

Other early risers would take the kayaks out for a early morning trek around our little, long island. Thanks to the karsts, the water is incredibly calm around our island and perfect for kayakers without experience or ability. I was almost tempted to try it, but decided to float in the pool instead. I repeated that choice about three times a day, almost every day. Not a bad start to a honeymoon.


Me, not kayaking. Photo courtesy of Jim