5) Last days.

On Thursday we found out that there would be no working on the island the following day. The organizations trying to rebuild there had decided to try and respect the Muslims on the island by not working during their holy day. So we decided to take Friday morning to rest before stopping by the nursery in Krabi and then heading back to Bangkok.

It was hard to say goodbye to our new friends at the Krabi Emerald Garden. I highly recommend this resort if you have some romantic occasion to celebrate, like let us say a fifteenth wedding anniversary (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). After saying goodbye to the hotel staff we set out for Krabi Town to meet up with La, the director of the Phi Phi refugee camp. On our arrival to the HI Phi Phi offices La spent some time with us telling his story of the tsunami and of the plight of those displaced off the island. He then took us to a day care type center where we were able to interact with some of the children who had lost parents and relatives on December 26th. We distributed many toys and stuffed animals to the kids. After the soccer balls, the second best received toy had to be the plastic snakes, as the Buddhist in Thailand hold snakes in high regards. It was fun seeing the kids light up for just a moment when receiving the gifts.

We made one more stop in Krabi town before heading to Surat Thani. Capital is a chain of music stores in Thailand and where Michael picked up the latest CD's by Silly Fools (the Thai equivalent of Incubus). So we jammed to Thai rock all the way to Surat Thani. After dropping off the rental car we took a taxi to the train station where we waited three hours for our train. There was a train that left earlier than ours but I figured better to hang out in Surat Thani with nothing to do for three hours then to hang out in Bangkok with nothing to do. Again the rhythm of the train put everyone straight to sleep.

The next day in Bangkok we spent several hours at the weekend market. This market sells about anything you would ever need in Bangkok. Over 200,000 people crowd the nearly 15,000 shops that are only open on the weekend. Later that night we took a two-hour boat ride on the Chao Phraya River. This ride included a traditional Thai meal; traditional Thai dancing and spectacular views of the Wat's all lit up at night. After the boat ride we ended our time in Thailand with a Tuk-tuk race.



These half-breed moped/rickshaw are crazy to look at, but not as crazy as the people that drive them. Watching the tuk-tuk drivers maneuver through traffic one might think they didn't know they had a back seat behind them with passengers in it. Unfortunately my attempt to bribe the other tuk-tuk driver failed due to translation problems and Neil, Jake and Joe won the race. We went to bed early so we could get to the airport early and start our journey home.

I wanted to thank everyone who supported our group with finances, prayers and encouragement. This trip would never had happened with out all of you. Please visit the web sites to the right of this page and continue to support the rebuilding of Phi Phi and Thailand!

Roger, out!