Monkey Massage

So here we are at Railay Beach, with it's emerald water and white sand beaches. It's got a chilled out atmosphere despite being crowded and you can buy just about anything on the beach -- sarongs, cold beer, jewellery, or a massage.

After being upsold by Eak, a born entrepreneur, I opted for the foot scrub and massage which Eak promised to take "2 kilos of skin off my feet." It wasn't quite 2 kilos but his wife, the masseur, was very aggressive with the pumice stone and have my calves a darn good workout.

So here I am, laying on a sarong in Thailand, surrounded by waves and palm trees rustling in the breeze when I hear quiet a commotion around me. I open my eyes, look up, and am surrounded by tourists with cameras in their hand all pointing at the tree above my head. There was a swarm of monkeys running all amok while the tourists fed them bananas. I felt like shouting "I'm trying to have a relaxing massage here! Do you mind?" but it was quite entertaining except for the parts where they were dropping their banana peels and the occasional turd on me. At one point a big male came and sat right next to my head, and despite my most aggressive stare, wouldn't leave. I finally gave him a little shove and he moved on.

We have been totally lazy here, just baking ourselves on the beach, eating nice dinners, and drinking Singha beer. After suffering through two nights in our fan room with the very loud bullfrogs (and gnawing rat in the wall) we opted for an upgrade and moved into a nice air con bungalow. I'm much happier knowing I will sleep tonight, especially as tomorrow we're off for an early morning boat to Phi Phi Island where I've got two dives scheduled and Kim will snorkel. Life is hard.

Hope you're all enjoying the snow :-)

Tonya