A bit of sunshine

It is gray today.  Stark, dark, gloomy, dreary gray.  The type of gray that requires having lights on all day.  The type of gray that encourages curling up under a blanket letting the hours melt away in unproductiveness (which apparently is not a word; can someone please inform me why “productiveness” is a word, but unproductiveness is not?  I speak…and teach…the most ridiculous language…).  Anyways, the landscape outside my window today is the extreme opposite of the landscape I was enjoying just over a week ago.  After Laos, Lisa and I headed to two Thai islands, Samui and Phangan.  We spent most of our time on Phangan, where we were blessed to stay right on the beach.  I applied sun screen, read, swam, applied sun screen, read, swam, applied sun screen…I think you get the drift.  I finished four books, three of my choosing and one for a graduate class.

I also took pictures of Lisa.  I consider it one of my duties to capture the beauty of dear friends for boyfriends who are thousands of miles away.  It makes me popular among the menfolk.  That is, popular among the already-taken menfolk.

I also took pictures of sunsets. Many pictures of sunsets.  When the Father lays out such a magnificent array of color before you, you just can’t help but want to capture it.  The shot below is one of my favorites.  Beautiful sunset and siblings and water wings and holding hands.  You just can’t script that.

But one of my favorite parts of our beach time was our nightly dinners.  For all except one meal, Lisa and I kept returning to the same restaurant.  The food was terrific, and since we were the only customers every night, the service was also spectacular.  But more than that, we kept coming back because of the cook.

He was a friendly guy with quite the story to tell.  Each night after making our food, he would come out to chat with us and tell us about his life.  His life in Burma.  His time working as a medical assistant for the government.  About making the move to Thailand and leaving behind his wife and kids in Burma.  About the headaches of returning for his yearly visit.  About the fact that his wife’s nagging makes him ready to come back to Thailand by the end of that visit.  About his grandpa from China.  About learning how to cook Western food through experimentation.  We had a “make-up” birthday dinner at his restaurant.  As Lisa remarked, I never would have guessed I’d see the day when a Burmese guy sang Happy Birthday to me.

Oh, one other great thing about the beach?  The designs on the toast.  It’s the small things that bring joy to my days…

And that folks, is the end of the travel updates.  It is time to move back to “normal” life, which I must be honest, I’m thrilled about.  We just weren’t made to live our lives on vacation!