Somehow, the ocean is soothing and relaxing. My father’s sister, my auntie Elaine died this week and we were a bit tired of big cities, coming from the back woods of Minnesota, so, we needed a little healing and soothing for our tired big city blasted souls.
The taxi dropped us off next to a little shop on a busy beach street. He said the hotel was just around the corner. We dragged our suitcases over a construction site to check in. Our room was pretty nasty. It faced the street and was covered in pretty bad smelling carpet. I wasn’t sure we’d want to stay for long. After getting a bit upset with the ladies working at the front desk for not paying attention to our desire to move to an sea view room if we could stay longer, they found us a sea view room. I apologized later for my rude American behavior.
It was quite safe to walk across the street where we had some Pad Thai, Sprite, and Heineken. In the morning, we checked out of our disgusting room and moved to the seaview room. Check this out!
They had found us the best room in the entire hotel! I’m sure of it. Of course, I went to apologize from my rude behaviour and was forgiven.
For three days, we swam in the ocean and the pool. Worked on planning the next legs of our journey, made friends, walked the street, watched people, and ate yummy food.
I find it very soothing to cry in the ocean, and I did. I mourned for Auntie Elaine and missed my dad, mom, and sister at the funeral. Maritza and I had time to talk about expectations and our different needs. A Jellyfish stung my foot on the first day of swimming. The pain was pretty incredible, but we found ‘beach boy’ friends who cared for us. Even on the last day, they swam in the pool with Maritza and felt sad about her leaving.
She thoroughly enjoyed herself here. She swam for nearly three days straight.
I drowned the jellyfish sting pain in a huge latte at Starbucks. It worked.
We really slowed down, connected, and readjusted our expectations.
By the time we left for Bangkok, we felt refreshed and soothed.
A Duet In Discovery 