26 Jan
Exit from Paradise.
Today the ladies would be sleeping till late. My body clock always works where ever I am and even when I turn in late I wake up at 6:30. It was no exception. I had anticipated some muscle aches after long swimming hours after a gap of years but surprisingly there was none. With a cup of tea I went to the balcony hoping that lady would come again to pray at the small shrine. I didn’t find her, may be she had come earlier. I took a very leisurely bath and went down to breakfast. I have already written about the breakfast spread earlier. After breakfast I walked to the near empty beach through the lane lined with bars now desolate and dirty with tables littered with empty and half filled bottles and glasses and sat down on the sand. There were a couple of stray dogs combing the beach. A lone jet ski guy was making rounds spraying foam. Some how it looked pretty funny.
I was thinking how two days passed so fast, the panorama that we had beheld yesterday, the preparations I had done for months till we left home. The tide and ebb of the sea going on since creation, a flip flop of claiming and disbursing, gathering and losing, a restless process that defines time and its passage. The fat old Sun is now up. There would be a day when the fat old Sun in the sky will be falling with summer evenin' birds come calling, with children's laughter in my ears the last sunlight would disappear*. Right before me was the unbroken chain of sky and sea a sight so eternal and reassuringly comfortable. The eternity promising me that the sun will come up once again when I am one day older, a morning to wake up and also a dusk for the birds to return to their nests.
I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice my daughters who had come and sat just a little away from me. I looked at them and smiled and they smiled back. Thousand words were spoken and there was sunlight all around.
It was getting close to our departure time so we returned to the hotel. My wife insists on checking all the nooks and corners of the hotel room lest we leave behind some of our belongings. Having spent a considerable period of my adult life in hotel rooms and often getting confused at the time of asking for the key at the reception over the number of my room today, I keep my things only at a few designated places. So I don’t need to act like an income tax sleuth looking under the mattresses. We gathered our bags and went to the lobby. After completing check out formalities me and my daughters went out to take some photographs. The van arrived exactly on time and we drove off to Phuket airport.
The Phuket airport is a tidy neat & compact airport. Although it is an international airport it doesn’t have the maddening hustle & bustle. X-Raying of our baggage was done & HKT SECURITY CHECKED stickers were affixed. We had some time but decided to check in and free ourselves from the suitcases. Check in was quick & smooth, got two window side seats. The snacks served on our BKK-HKT flight were absolutely uneatable except the Thai sweet. So this time we decided to eat something more palatable before the flight. On the right hand side as you enter the terminal there are a couple of places selling western fast food mainly. We bought some burgers, sandwiches and as usual my wife propelled herself to a shop selling very yummy looking doughnuts and pastries. The doughnuts turned out very good. After this I went to the money changing kiosk. The exchange value was ok so I changed some US$. The smoking room at this airport is an annexe of a pub. Non customers coming in to smoke seems to ok with the pub management I guess.
The HKT-BKK flight was on time. This time it was a domestic flight and the equipment was an Airbus 320, the most common aircraft plying the domestic routes in India too. There were not many passengers. We were the only Indian people. My trained eyes found an empty middle row nearby. The plane took off smoothly and took us away from the paradise and the octopus’s gardens. After seat belt sign was switched off I moved to the empty row, pulled up the arm rests and fell asleep.
* courtesy PF.
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