We have recently just returned from a well over due vacation to Phuket. We had a nice time, the people were lovely, the weather balmy, but Phuket itself felt tired, exploited, somewhat dirty and over developed no thanks to the tourist hordes such as ourselves. My father in law had been 30 years ago and thought it was paradise.
There were elephants, monkeys, hair braiding, pools, book reading and lovely sunsets but I have to say the trip simply highlighted to me how incredibly lucky we are in Australia and how we should never complain and perhaps practice a little more gratitude.
A somewhat bizarre but brilliant highlight for me was early one morning in a moment of ‘I want to show you something’; I diverted my wife and daughters from our usual pilgrimage to breakfast to show them a monkey that I’d discovered the night before while photographing the sunset. The poor little bugger was tethered to a sought of jungle gym in front of a beach side restaurant.
As we walked through a gate and onto the beach there were two local men in sarongs raking the sand near the restaurant, from the corner of my eye, I saw one of them bend down and pick something up. I don’t know what made me do it but I went over to see what treasure they’d found in the sand. It was a credit card and what was more impressive was the credit card was mine!
It quickly dawned on me that the likelihood of me being at the spot at that very moment as these two men picked it up was probably a vague chance in a billion. I treasure those little unexplainable moments in life.
I’d had my credit card in my camera bag and it must have fallen out the night before. I gave them both what Baht I had on me and thanked them profusely. Ainsley my wife said ‘someone is looking out for you!’ and on that particular morning I think she was right.
