SE Asia

We arrived in Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand, yesterday. Took nearly 2 hours in immigration and was a painfully slow line with a guesstimate of 80% of people in line being Russians from a big Aeroflot flight that landed the same time we did. In the short time we have been here, it is obvious that Russians are an important part of this regions economy. Most signs are written in Thai and Russian, with English in third place. It was about an hour ride with our Grab car, Chris made the comment on how similar the area looks to Costa Rica on the drive. When we arrived at our Airbnb condo at around 4 p.m., the housekeeper was still cleaning from the previous renters, and the language barrier was special, lol. We ran into her later after we had supper on the road out of the condo, and she was saying something about shoes, we tried to understand her but finally nodded and moved along. This morning, it took me over a half hour to find my sandles, lol. It is interesting that there is a big sign in our lobby saying that short-term rentals are against the law - hmmmm. We walked for about a half hour to a grocery store this morning to stock up on some breakfast and snack stuff for the week. Last night, we picked up some wine, beer, and water for the condo. The cleaning lady said the tap water wasn't drinkable, at least that is what we think she said. Prices around are very reasonable compared to Singapore and KL. Every meal so far has been terrific. We walked the beach this afternoon and was amazed how many people (Russians) there were. The water is very warm, and the sand is great to walk on. This week will be an R&R week.Les mer