password] kudzuu1114
[position 07 12.955n 99 04.263e[weather] 5knts SE, slight seas, no clouds, 1022 baro
[status] Koh Lipe (I resist the temptation to add the word island, since Koh already says that) exceeded our hopes and there we remained for three nights, checking into the country at the beachfront Customs and Immigration office and finding beach landings with Doggie1 not too onerous if one plans for the tides and doesn’t end up with 400 lbs. of small boat and outboard motor high and dry a long haul from water’s edge.

Waiting till late afternoon diminished the heat of the sun, we went ashore yesterday, strolling down the ‘walking street,’ its blue and white painted pavement friendly to bare feet and scattered with powdery sand tracked up from the beach by the hundreds of visitors enjoying the island this week. Packed with shops, restaurants, bars, tourist information kiosks, money changers and travel agents, the walking street was an event unto itself, barely a mile long, but crowded with people from all over the world and filled with just about anything they might wish to eat, drink, smear on their sunburn or take home to family. Even with all this retail splendor, the businesses named above were all outshone in number and probably in sales as well, by the Thai Massage shops, each strategically located within 20 meters of the next, so that the call of a woman’s voice, often two or even three at once, hawking ”mah saaaahhj?” seemed to set the beat for the music of the island.

Robbie and I wandered up and down enjoying the people watching as much as the menus and colorful stores till we paused at a place where the call “massage?” was heard at the same time from both sides of the street and he said to me, “You should have a foot massage.”

What a great idea, I thought! “Where?” And he guided me to the shop on our right open to the street, decorated with a small garden, the relaxing sounds of water dribbling over stones and where two knock-off Eames lounge chairs with ottomans sat on a platform facing the street. One chair was occupied by a lady having a pedicure and, in my opinion, wasting her time on the Internet with her hand phone, and I was invited after washing the beach sand off my feet to take the other. I discovered happily that the chair reclined and as I pressed it back, the proprietor placed a sarong over me, covering me from neck to knee. To keep me warm, I wondered? Lord knows I didn’t need that. But I accepted the courtesy, figured there must be some reason for it, and just allowed things to go along as they may.

After only a few minutes massaging my right foot, the therapist, a tiny skinny brown woman with the strongest hands in the universe, moved to my left and I thought with some disappointment, ‘Gee, this isn’t going to last very long.’ Not so. She spent so much time on my left foot, stroking, kneading, pressing, squeezing and smoothing ounce after ounce of tea tree oil into the skin of that foot that I feared I would walk lopsided for the remained of my life. It seemed like an hour. Then she oiled and massaged my calf, and I began to wonder if this therapist knew that I was having only a foot massage because nowhere else have my feet gone all the way up to my hips. After giving my entire left leg a thorough going over, she moved back to the right, allayed my fears that it was going to be neglected, and gave another lengthy full leg massage, using the sarong to cover me and to protect my own skirt from her oils and creams. Oooh! It was wonderful and I stopped worrying whether she knew I had asked only for the foot massage, figuring I’d be delighted to pay whatever they asked at the end.

But that was not the end. It was at least another thirty minutes before she’d fully softened all the muscles in my hands, arms, shoulders, neck, upper back and my skull and toweled away some of the oils, leaving me slippery, wobbly and seriously relaxed. Was that a two hour foot massage that went all the way up to my skull? How soon can I go to this woman again? Or maybe I should try a different shop and see what they do there. Yes, I could begin to collect Thai massages, that’s it, having one every day while we’re in Thailand. It was heavenly.

Robbie stepped up to the little reception table, ready to fork over vast sums for the amazing service I’d received and was told the cost for the foot massage was THB300, exactly as originally promised on the signboard in front. We’re having difficulty getting our minds around the Thai baht, but we believe the charge was about ten dollars US. I am completely hooked. In other places we have visited I have searched devotedly for the perfect Negroni, or the perfect Margharita pizza, or the best goat curry. I shall make it my business in Thailand to sample the skills of every massage therapist I can find. Lucky me.

Dinner at the King Crab, our first restaurant meal in Thailand, was fantastic. My spicy green vegetable curry was one of the best I’ve ever tasted, and Robbie spoke lovingly of his spicy red curry pork. I was distracted throughout dinner by the fact that I couldn’t keep my legs comfortably crossed, one leg still saturated with creams and oils repeatedly slipping off the opposite knee. But I bore that hardship bravely and we had a marvelous evening, even getting Doggie back into the water and motoring away into the night without embarrassing incident.

Up early this morning in the still dark, we dropped the mooring at Koh Lipe and sailed 52nm to Koh Rok Nok, closing half the distance to Phuket where we expect to arrive tomorrow. It was a fantastic sail, easy and quiet with both sails up. The idea that sailing back to Penang late this month could be accomplished in a single two-day-two-night passage was banished by the presence of twenty-one, we counted, FADs or fish traps on our course between Koh Lipe and Rok Nok. We were already hoping to extend our stay in Thailand as long as possible while still making Penang in time for Chinese New Year.

Robbie and I are not inclined to love at first sight with the countries we visit and, as mentioned before, it’s beastly hot here, but the Thai people have a sweet and gentle vibration, their country is stunning, the food incredible, the massage out of this world, and he asked me in the cockpit this afternoon, ”Do you think we could live here?” I’d been resisting the temptation to say that very thing to him.

Have you seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Judy Dench and others? We watched and loved it a few nights ago.

I do not expect to learn to speak much Thai. I’ll try, but we learned today that tone in the Thai language is as important as pronunciation, each word being able to be spoken at a low, medium, high, ascending or descending tone – and meaning five completely different things depending upon the tone in which it is uttered. I’m not sure the tone thing is in my skill set. Maybe an app on my phone will help. I’ll need to find time for that, but definitely not while I’m having a massage. Bev
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